On 10th January 2024, I gave my talk “Getting my Knees Brown” to the Crowborough Probus Club. This talk is about my time in Aden (now part of Yemen) as a 21 year old 2nd Lieutenant in 1964/65. It was very topical, since it was the day after the Houthi rebels in Yemen had launched multiple missiles at HMS Diamond and US Warships in the Red Sea, all of which were shot down, and the day before the US and UK struck back against the Houthi rebel bases.
I have been on HMS Diamond when I went to Malta in September 2017 for the unveiling of a plaque by their Prime Minister to commemorate the Royal Engineer Bomb Disposal teams serving in Malta during World War II. The evening after the unveiling we had a cocktail party on HMS Diamond, a Type 45 Destroyer, which visited Malta especially for the occasion.
Just before I left Aden in 1965, I also had a trip on a Destroyer, HMS Cambrian, in order to take part in a reconnaissance of Abd al Kuri island in the Indian Ocean, to see if it was suitable to build an airfield, I cover this interesting visit in my talk.
Rod's Military History Talks 