How To Play Golf In North Korea

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How To Play Golf In North Korea

How To Play Golf In North Korea, really? This is a story that not many people would believe. In a culture that abhorred any form of perceived western or capitalist pastime, especially one that is seen as relatively exclusive, how was this possible? Well, the short answer was that even in North Korea it was … Read more

Albania My First Posting A Bloodstained Surprise

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Welcome to Albania

Albania My First Posting A Bloodstained Surprise. How did this come about? So it was on a cold and windy January morning in 1998 that I arrived at Heathrow airport to catch my early morning flight to Vienna en-route to my final destination Tirana the capital city of Albania. With all the background briefs on … Read more

Lifestyle From RAF Russian Linguist To British Diplomat

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My Diplomatic Life -North Korea

Lifestyle From RAF Russian Linguist To British Diplomat. How An RAF Russian Linguist Became A Diplomat. What was the journey from the RAF to the Diplomatic Service? Did my military service and qualifications help with the process? All reasonable questions, so here is a brief description of the journey.

The Diplomatic Service was in effect my second career. Prior to joining, my first was serving as a Russian/German dual linguist with the Royal Air Force (RAF).

On joining the RAF, I took the language aptitude exam and was fortunate enough to pass and be offered the opportunity to become a linguist. So, after intensive Russian language training at the RAF School of Languages at RAF North Luffenham near Stamford, I was posted to West Berlin . Although based/housed at RAF Gatow on the far western fringes of the city, my place of work was Teufelsberg, which was a joint US/UK facility. It dominated the Berlin skyline, being built on top of a man-made mountain (from WW2 rubble). To say the work there was interesting would be an understatement!

Some years later, I returned to the RAF School of Language Training in the UK to qualify as a dual linguist, my second language being German. On completion of the course, I returned back to Berlin and back to Teufelsberg.

The bulk of my RAF career was spent in West Berlin but I also had postings in the UK, to GCHQ in Cheltenham, RAF Digby and RAF Wyton.

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Albania British Diplomats Shot Conclusion

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Albania - British Diplomats Shot Conclusion

Albania British Diplomats Shot Conclusion, details the aftermath of the incident where myself and two colleagues from the British Embassy were ambushed on Dajte mountain on the outskirts of Tirana in Albania in 1998 and my two colleagues shot.

Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot

The story continues:

So we set off. There was a small convoy of police cars plus our vehicle that slowly snaked back up the mountain. Finally we reached the spot. It was not hard to identify as there was broken glass on the road as well as the long tyre marks we had left behind as we burned rubber taking off making our escape.

Albania British Diplomats Shot Conclusion
Police convoy enroute to ambush spot

The convoy stopped and the police got out of their vehicles and I joined them. Some started to cordon off the road while a number with automatic weapons spread out around the scene in some sort of haphazard search pattern looking for clues or traces of the culprits. After about half an hour just standing around, I asked my Embassy driver, Benny to ask the police if I could leave for the hospital to visit my colleagues. The senior policeman on the scene agreed but said he wanted me to visit police HQ later that day to make an initial statement.

After agreeing to do so and telling them that until further notice Benny would be my official interpreter for the time being, both he and I jumped in our vehicle and headed for the hospital in Tirana. I could see that Benny was nervous. Dealing with all of this was definitely not part of his job description. He was doing a great job not only as a driver putting himself in what might have been a potentially dangerous situation but also with helping out with the police.

About an hour later, after an uneventful trip, we arrived at the main hospital in Tirana. Benny and I went in and were taken to where the Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) and the Management Officer (MO) were being patched up. The doctor explained (via Benny) that the DHM was lucky, the bullet had gone through the fleshy part of her arm without breaking any bones or damaging any nerves. The doctor wanted to keep her in, but she was insistent of going home once the treatment was completed.

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Iran Royal Navy Hostages What Really Happened In 2007

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Iran Royal Navy Hostages What Really Happened in 2007

Iran Royal Navy Hostages What Really Happened in 2007 is an event that at the time was global news. From my perspective as Her Majesty’s Consul to Iran at the time, it was a hopelessly frustrating and humiliating experience. As a proud maritime nation, it was also not exactly one of our finest moments.

Now I had a saying at the time that whenever the Iranians got twitchy or felt threatened, they would take hostages. They had form for this and in this case they didn’t let me down.

In fact this 2007 incident was not the first time they had detained British military personnel.

In June 2004, three small vessels and eight Royal Navy personnel were detained by Iranian forces after they allegedly entered Iranian waters on the Shatt al-Arab river without permission. At the time, the story was broken when the capture was announced on state-run Iranian television. British officials only stated that they had “lost contact” with the boats, before confirming their detention.

On that occasion the men were later released unharmed, but only after being paraded blindfolded on Iranian TV and made to apologise for their role in the incident. The equipment was not returned.

So now fast forward to Friday March 23rd 2007:

Fifteen British Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel were captured by Iranian authorities, more specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at gunpoint in the Persian Gulf just off the Iraqi coast that morning.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Wikipedia

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, founded after the Iranian Revolution on 22 April 1979 by order of Ayatollah …
The Royal Navy insisted that they were operating legitimately in Iraqi waters the Iranians said they were in fact in Iranian waters. This inside/outside argument went on for the duration and long after the crisis with both sides providing information showing they were in the right.

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North Korea Military Plan Cruel Deception

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How To Survive 3 Years In North Korea As A Foreigner

North Korea Military Plan Cruel Deception is a story that once I had the full details of the aftermath several years later, quite frankly left me speechless and angry.

How To Survive 3 Years In North Korea As A Foreigner

In early 2004, I was contacted at the embassy in Pyongyang by David Hinton, the brother of an RAF pilot who had been shot down in 1952 over North Korea during the Korean war. He said he had been working for several years trying to garner as much information from a variety of primary sources as to the fate of his brother.

This information he now had in his possession. Most of the details of the shoot down were supplied by eyewitness United States Air Force (USAF) pilots including map coordinates of the site of the crash (which he later sent to me).

He then expressed a wish to be able to visit North Korea and hopefully, finally discover the fate of his brother. Could we help?

The background was that the pilot, Flt Lt Desmond Hinton, who received the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II for shooting down two Japanese fighters had bailed out of his burning F84e Thunderjet whilst carrying out a strafing mission north east of Pyongyang on 2 January 1952. At this time during the Korean war, Flt Lt Hinton was one of a number of RAF pilots who were attached to and flying with the USAF. Despite enquiries after the war and with no further information as to his fate forthcoming, Flt Lt Hinton was subsequently officially listed as missing in action.

I knew that this was going to be a tall order to try and carry out. The Korean War itself was and still is a huge propaganda tool for the Kim dynasty. So requesting assistance in finding a hated enemy, albeit a fallen one, was perhaps a request too far.

But surprisingly, no.

Permission was granted for me to meet with the North Korean military and at the initial meeting, I provided them with all the research material sent to me by David Hinton and they said they would investigate.

The process of making this project happen, working with the North Korean military, I have covered in a previous post

North Korean Military Works With British Diplomat

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North Korea Military Work With British Diplomat

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British Diplomat Works With North Korean Military

North Korea Military Work With British Diplomat relates to a unique situation where a British diplomat had a close working relationship with the North Korean mlitary for a 6 month period would in itself raise more than a few eyebrows. Working for 3 years in North Korea was on the one hand a time of frustration and on the other a time of discovery in this fascinating yet enigmatic country.

Life In North Korea As A Foreigner Surviving 3 Years

Butting heads on a daily basis with the stifling North Korean bureaucracy was always a battle, but occasionally there was a glimmer of achievement and sometimes from the most unlikeliest of sources.

In early 2004, I was contacted at the embassy in Pyongyang by the brother of an RAF pilot who had been shot down in 1952 over North Korea during the Korean war. He said he had full details of the shoot down supplied by eyewitness United States Air Force (USAF) pilots and map coordinates of the site of the crash (which he sent to me) and wished to visit the area to discover the fate of his brother.

British Diplomat Works With North Korean Military
Pyongyang – British Embassy (shared with the Germans and Swedes)

The background was that the pilot, Flt Lt Desmond Hinton, who received the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II for shooting down two Japanese fighters had bailed out of his burning F84e Thunderjet whilst carrying out a strafing mission north east of Pyongyang on 2 January 1952. At the time, Flt Lt Hinton was one of a number of RAF pilots who were attached to and flying with the USAF. Despite enquiries after the war and with no further information as to his fate forthcoming, Flt Lt Hinton was subsequently officially listed as missing in action.

This seemed a daunting request, but nevertheless I submitted it to the North Koreans and having gone through the usual long and tortuous channels I was surprised to receive an invitation to a meeting with senior North Korean military officers to discuss the request. Soon after therefore, it was with some degree of trepidation that I and my interpreter set off to meet these senior officers at a large military base on the outskirts of Pyongyang.

Driving into the base, we stopped at the entrance guard house and I was told to leave my diplomatic vehicle parked there. Then my interpreter and I climbed into a small military vehicle with an officer who my interpreter told me would be our liaison officer for the visit.

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Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot

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Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot

Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot is Part 1 of a story that occurred in 1998. It was a volatile year in Albania’s recent history. At this time, British diplomats who were posted to a volatile or conflict region received virtually no Hostile Environment Training (HET). It was usually the case you popped into King Charles Street for a quick chat with the relevant desk officer. You would get a quick country brief, then it was off to Heathrow.

There was still no HET in place before my next posting to Kosovo after an eventful year in Tirana Albania. However, thankfully the FCO had got it’s act together by 2005. Then, just prior to my posting to Iraq, I received a one week HET training course. This was carried out by a private contract firm just outside Hereford.

It was comprehensive and tailored to the area where I would be serving. Perhaps, if we had had this training in 1998 the event that took place below may have turned out differently. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

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Albania WW2 RAF Pilots Secret Grave Found

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Albania WW2 RAF Pilots Secret Grave Found

Albania WW2 RAF Pilots Secret Grave Found is a story about a small. isolated Albanian village which kept a deadly secret for almost 50 years during the oppressive, communist regime of Enver Hoxha. The secret they kept lay unmarked and untended in the local village graveyard. So, what was this secret that if it had leaked out could have had potentially deadly consequences for the village?

The story developed thus:

During the long and hot Albanian summer of 1998, the embassy was contacted by the Mayor of Saranda.

Saranda was a medium-sized coastal town and popular holiday resort in the south of the country located near the Greek border and lying directly opposite the island of Corfu. The Mayor said that he had been contacted by a resident of the village of Drovian which was located in the mountains just above Saranda.

Apparently, this villager, his family and the whole village had been living with a secret for decades.

It transpired that during the second World War when the Italians invaded Albania, an RAF fighter plane, during the course of a dogfight, had collided with an Italian machine and the badly burned British RAF pilot had baled out.

He landed just outside the village and despite the tender ministrations of the villagers, had tragically died from his wounds. The villagers then buried him in an unmarked grave in the church grounds as they did not want the Italians to find him.

After the war, with the advent of the brutal and repressive Hoxha communist regime and his denial of the extensive British military aid given to him in terms not only of material but also of British lives in defeating his axis occupiers and liberating his country, the villagers did not dare inform anyone outside the village about the hidden British grave in case they would be taken for collaborators.

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Albania Bloodshed Avoided At Queens Party

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Albania Bloodshed Avoided At Queens Party i

Albania Bloodshed Avoided At Queens Party is a story from Tirana, Albania that came about thus. Sitting out and enduring the lockdown , I spent a lot of time trawling through YouTube videos especially trooping the colour and the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. I love our history and traditions and make no apologies for saying so.

Therefore, every year, on the occasion of the Queen’s official birthday, all British embassies and Posts throughout the world organise their own Queen’s birthday celebration.

So, this took me back to a time and place when the apparently straightforward task of arranging an event of this magnitude can often be fraught with uncertainty and a whiff of danger, especially abroad.

It was the first week in June 1998 in Tirana, where the focus then was on the upcoming Queens Birthday Party, (QBP) which I had been told I was to organise.

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Exclusive: How SAS Rescued Trapped British Diplomats in Albania

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Exclusive: How SAS Rescued Trapped British Diplomats in Albania
Albania SAS Rescue Trapped British Diplomats Exclusive: How SAS Rescued Trapped British Diplomats in Albania is a story of how the Special Air Service (SAS Motto “Who Dares Wins”) rescued myself and two colleagues who were trapped in the British embassy in Tirana having been evacuated into the embassy on 12th September 12th 1998 as the country erupted into civil unrest and lawlessness. The boys from Hereford did good!

This was my first diplomatic posting and during the course of my career I took part in the evacuation of British nationals (and others) in a number of locations but on this occasion, I was the one being evacuated albeit from my residence to the embassy as a place of safety.

Scene Setter

This was a day I was not going to forget in a hurry. I had just under four months left before my tour ended and I had spent the previous day at work trawling through future job opportunities. The Ambassador was again out of the country and the Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) was once more in charge. I should have known from previous experience and recent incidents that trouble always seemed to flare up when Ambassadors are away from post.

On this day, I awoke very early to the sounds of large explosions and the rattle of gunfire that seemed to be going off in all directions. What was going on? There had been no forewarning of trouble and things had been relatively quiet and stable in the city over the preceding weeks.

I tried to get hold of the DHM on my mobile phone but the network was down, always a bad sign. I immediately got on the embassy radio net and contacted her. She said that she had just heard from the German Embassy that a local high profile opposition politician, Azem Hajdari, had been assassinated outside the Parliament building and his Democratic Party (DP) supporters were on the warpath blaming the Socialist government party for the murder.

Azem Hajdari – Wikipedia

Azem Shpend Hajdari was the leader of the student movement in 1990–1991 that led to the fall of communism in Albania. He then became a politician of the Democratic Party of Albania (DP). … He was assassinated in Tirana on September 12, 1998. On October 2, 1998, Hajdari was posthumously awarded Honorary …
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Tanks, automatic weapons and armoured personnel carriers had been seized by DP members and the government were now calling this an attempted coup d’etat and responding with armed force of its own.

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Libya Arab Spring Rescuing Oil Workers

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Libya arab spring rescuing oil workers
Libya arab spring rescuing oil workers
Route marker in the Sahara

Background

Libya Arab Spring Rescuing Oil Workers was our given objective of evacuating British and EU oil workers who were in Libya and desperately heading for the Algerian border when timing was critical.  Gaddafi loyalists were in hot pursuit of them, either to kill them or more probably take them as hostages.

Plan In Motion

Back in Algiers we were closely monitoring the situation that was developing in Libya. On 27 February, the UK mounted a military mission involving Royal Air Force (RAF) Hercules and Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers that flew into the Libyan desert and managed to evacuate 150 oil workers.

However, it was well known that a large number of foreign oil workers were still stranded in the south and west of the country.

The Ambassador immediately contacted London who agreed that we should try to mount an evacuation operation. This one would be a consular led mission as opposed to a military one and we had to move fast.

The latest intelligence we had on the oil workers was that they were heading for the Libyan town of Ghadames which lies on the Libyan/Algerian border.

It was decided that I would lead the mission and would be accompanied by Mustapha, one of our Embassy drivers who would act as interpreter, the British Defence Attache (a Colonel) and an armed Royal Military Policeman (RMP), one of the Ambassador’s close protection team.

The reason for the military presence would be their ability, using their special communications equipment, to liaise with UK military back in London for intelligence updates. I then visited the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get their approval for the trip and to ask for accompanying security en-route.

For this mission, we had decided to drive.

Start Of Mission:

It was a considerable distance, some 1300 Kms from Algiers to our proposed base of operations in the town of In-Amenas through the Atlas mountains and snaking through the northern Sahara desert. In addition, some of the provinces we would traverse were known to have active AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Maghreb) cells.

The Algerians agreed to provide security escorts for the whole of our trip and they did a wonderful job of looking after us the whole time.

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