Previous Lot Next Lot

Auction: 26001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 234

'Crater was run on Argyll Law and that is perfectly sensible because there wasn't any other law.'

Major Howman on his time with 'Mad Mitch' and the famous Battle of Crater, 3 July 1967

The M.B.E. group of three awarded to Major A. C. R. Howman, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's), who served in no less than four campaigns and was present for the famous Battle of Crater in July 1967

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Military Division, Member's (M.B.E.) breast Badge; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Cyprus (Capt. A. C. R. Howman. A. & S.H.), minor official correction to rank; General Service 1962-2007, 3 clasps, Borneo, Malay Peninsula, South Arabia (Major A. C. R. Howman. A. & S.H.), mounted court-style as worn, very fine (3)

M.B.E. London Gazette 10 June 1967. An award for the period March 1965-February 1967 and rewarding his work as GSO II, Directorate of Army Training.

Alastair Clive Ross Howman - or 'Dinky' to his friends and comrades - was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's) in March 1952 and advanced Lieutenant in February 1954 and Captain in February 1958. Holding positions as Platoon and eventually Company Commander, Howman was noted as in Command of HQ Company and was one of the supervisors for the funeral of the three Argylls murdered in Crater town.

As a result, on 29 July 1967 the Falkirk Herald reported: ‘Then at last light on 3rd July the code-word ‘Stirling Castle’ - home of the Regiment - was flashed. The Jocks’ blood was up for they had lost three men in the ambush. Led by their CO, Colonel Colin Mitchell, and pipers, they stormed down into Crater. Machine guns from the area of the Sultan’s Palace opened up and ... after a ten minute machine gun battle the terrorists were silenced. Within the hour the main assault reached its objective, the British-owned Chartered Bank in the centre of the city.’

The next part of the operation was to take over the Treasury building which contained the whole reserve currency for South Arabia and which was occupied by the Armed Police. Mitchell recalled in his controversial memoirs: ‘There was no way of knowing how they would react to our apperance so I decided to send Nigel Crowe with the assault platoon to see if he could charm them into submission. It was a dramatic performance ... Nigel, with his usual courage, stood out in the open street and negotiated in Arabic, pointing out that we were not going to kill them but intended to occupy the building. It was a tense moment but he gradually won their confidence, they opened the steel doors of the treasury and, although showing signs of extreme nervousness, accepted our occupation of the building.’ The British media reaction to the Argylls’ dramatic re-entry into Crater, to which it had been predicted that ‘British troops may never return’, was immediate and intense, the general view being that Mitchell’s positive action had brought to an end ‘a dangerous and humiliating state of drift, which the British Government permitted to continue for a fortnight ... The longer this lasted, the more credible did the terrorist boast become that Britain would likewise be driven out of the rest of Aden long before independence ...’

Howman became Second-in-Command and was President of the Regimental Band. He played a leading role in the BBC production Mad Mitch's Tribal Law in Aden. He retired in April 1969 and died in January 2020; sold together with bestowal document for the M.B.E. and its forwarding letters, besides copied research.

Subject to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium. For more information please view Terms and Conditions for Buyers.

Estimate
£1,600 to £2,000

Starting price
£1400