Aden Emergency

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Aden Emergency
Part of the Cold War
The location of the Aden Protectorate
Date 10 December 1963 – 30 November 1967
(3 years, 11 months, 2 weeks and 6 days)
Location Western and Eastern Protectorates, Aden Protectorate, Middle East
Result British withdrawal
Creation of the People's Republic of South Yemen
 United Kingdom

Supported by
Egypt Egypt
Yemen Yemen Arab Republic

Commanders and leaders
United Kingdom Harold Wilson
United Kingdom Admiral Sir Michael Le Fanu
United Kingdom Gp Capt Michael Beetham
United Kingdom Lt-Col Colin Campbell Mitchell
Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi
Abdullah al Asnag
30,000 British personnel at peak[1] (3,500 in November 1967)[2]
15,000 South Arabian Army troops[3]
Casualties and losses
57–68 killed
651 wounded
South Arabian Army:
17 killed,
58 wounded
Total: 2,096 killed[4]

The Aden Emergency was an insurgency against the British Crown forces in the British controlled territories of South Arabia which now form part of the Yemen. Partly inspired by Nasser's pan Arab nationalism, it began on 10 December 1963 with the throwing of a grenade at a gathering of British officials at Aden Airport. A state of emergency was then declared in the British Crown colony of Aden and its hinterland, the Aden Protectorate. The emergency escalated in 1967 and hastened the end of British rule in the territory which had begun in 1839. On 30 November 1967, British forces withdrew and the independent People's Republic of South Yemen was proclaimed.


Aden was originally of interest to Britain as an anti-piracy station to protect shipping on the routes to British India. With the advent of the Suez Canal in 1869, it further served as a coaling station. Following the independence of India in 1947, Aden became less important to the United Kingdom.

The Emergency was precipitated in large part by a wave of Arab nationalism spreading to the Arabian Peninsula and stemming largely from the socialist and pan-Arabist doctrines of Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser. The British, French and Israeli forces that had invaded Egypt following Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 had been forced to withdraw following intervention from both the United States and the Soviet Union.

Nasser enjoyed only limited success in spreading his pan-Arabist doctrines through the Arab world, with his 1958 attempt to unify Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic collapsing in failure three years later. A perceived anti-colonial uprising in Aden in 1963 provided another potential opportunity for his doctrines, though it is not clear to what extent Nasser directly incited the revolt in Aden, as opposed to the Yemeni guerrilla groups drawing inspiration from Nasser's pan-Arabist ideas but acting independently themselves.[citation needed]


By 1963 and in the ensuing years, anti-British guerrilla groups with varying political objectives began to coalesce into two larger, rival organisations: first the Egyptian-supported National Liberation Front (NLF) and then the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY), who attacked each other as well as the British.

Hostilities started on 10 December 1963, with an NLF grenade attack against British High Commissioner of Aden Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, which took place as he arrived at Khormaksar Airport to catch a London-bound flight. The grenade killed a woman and injured fifty other people. On that day, a state of emergency was declared in Aden.

The NLF and FLOSY began a campaign against British forces in Aden, relying largely on grenade attacks. One such attack was carried out against RAF Khormaksar during a children's party, killing a girl and wounding four children. The guerrilla attacks largely focused on killing off-duty British officers and policemen. Much of the violence was carried out in the Crater, the old Arab quarter of Aden. British forces attempted to intercept weapons being smuggled into the Crater by the NLF and FLOSY on the Dhala road, but their efforts met with little success. Despite taking a toll on British forces, the death toll among rebels was far higher, largely to inter-factional fighting among different rebel groups.

In 1964 24th Infantry Brigade arrived to conduct land operations. It remained in Aden and the Aden Protectorate until November 1967.

By 1965, the RAF station RAF Khormaksar was operating nine squadrons. These included transport units with helicopters and a number of Hawker Hunter fighter bomber aircraft. These were called in by the army for strikes against rebel positions in which they would use 60-pounder high explosive rockets and their 30 mm Aden cannon.

On 19–20 January 1967, the NLF provoked street riots in Aden. After the Aden police lost control, British High Commissioner Sir Richard Turnbull deployed British troops to crush the riots. As soon as the NLF riots were crushed, pro-FLOSY rioters took to the streets. Fighting between British forces and pro-guerrilla rioters lasted into February. British forces had opened fire 40 times, and during that period there were 60 grenade and shooting attacks against British forces, including the bombing of an Aden Airways Douglas DC-3, which was bombed in mid-air, killing all people on board.

The emergency was further exacerbated by the Six-Day War in June 1967. Nasser claimed that the British had helped Israel in the war, and this led to a mutiny by hundreds of soldiers in the South Arabian Federation Army on 20 June, which also spread to the police. The mutineers killed 22 British soldiers and shot down a helicopter, and as a result, the Crater was occupied by rebel forces.

Following the mutiny, all British forces were withdrawn from the Crater, while Royal Marines of 45 Commando took up sniping positions on the high ground and killed 10 armed Arab fighters. However, the Crater remained occupied by an estimated 400 Arab fighters. NLF and FLOSY fighters then took to the streets and engaged in gun battles, while arson, looting, and murder was also common. British forces blocked off the two main entrances to the Crater. They came under sniper fire from an Ottoman fort on Sira island, but the snipers were silenced by a shell from an armoured car. Order was restored in July 1967, when the 1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders entered Crater under the command of Lt Col Colin Mitchell and managed to occupy the entire district overnight with no casualties.

Nevertheless, deadly guerrilla attacks by the NLF soon resumed against British forces, with the British leaving Aden by the end of November 1967, earlier than had been planned by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and without an agreement on the succeeding governance. Following the British departure, the NLF managed to seize power, and established the People's Republic of South Yemen.


Irrespective of the fact that the Suez Canal was shut by Nasser on the eve of the Six Day War,[citation needed] it was to be closed anyhow in the wake of that war because it served as the demarcation line between the Egyptians and the Israeli occupied Sinai desert. And irrespective of the closure of the Suez Canal, the British naval base at Aden also closed in 1967. These factors would deprive the new oil-poor South Yemeni nation of valuable business and revenue, and precipitate severely disruptive economic circumstances for years afterward.[citation needed] British casualties included 57 killed and 651 wounded, while local government forces lost 17 killed and 58 wounded. Casualties among the NLF and FLOSY are unknown.[5] Another source lists British casualties of 68 killed.[6]

Units Serving in Aden 1964–67[edit]

Armoured cars of the Queens Dragoon Guards in Aden 1967

See also[edit]



  • Laffin, John (1986). Brassey's Battles: 3,500 Years of Conflict, Campaigns and Wars from A-Z. London: Brassey's Defence Publishers. ISBN 0080311857. 
  • Naumkin, Vitaly, Red Wolves of Yemen: The Struggle for Independence, 2004. Oleander Press. ISBN 0-906672-70-8
  • Walker, Jonathan, Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in South Arabia 1962–67 (Hardcover) Spellmount Staplehurst ISBN 1-86227-225-5

External links[edit]