Cameronians

Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman

Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman

The Sultan in the 1st Battalion 1962/1963

When still a young man and straight out of Sandhurst, the future sultan, then known as Mr bin Said, served in the 1st Battalion the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). He joined the battalion in Minden in September 1962 and served with it for about nine months. The battalion’s role was as motorised infantry in 11 Infantry Brigade, mounted in basic armoured personnel carriers. One of the first deployments during his time was on Exercise Autumn Double which was a corps exercise, 1st Division against 2nd Division, the latter fighting a retreat across the various river lines of the north German plain. It was only one year since the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis was in full swing. This was the cold war at its coldest.

The weather that winter was brutal too. Each company was sent for two weeks on Exercise Snow Queen which was based in Bavaria. Temperatures were regularly below -20C and the future Sultan was no athlete. Standing on his skis on a snow field under leaden skies he just looked thoroughly miserable. Winter sports were not for him; indeed, no sports really suited him at all. But there was one happy outcome: in the afternoons we were free to take advantage of the ski slopes in some of the nearby towns including Mittenwald and Oberammergau. The largest of these is Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which nestles at the foot of Germany’s highest Alp, and it was here that he later bought a house.

But why the Cameronians? One simple answer is that it had to be an army unit as Oman at that time had no navy and no air force. The full answer is that the 1st Battalion the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) had greatly impressed the then Sultan, Qaboos’s father, when they, together with local units came to his rescue in an operation on Jebel Akhdar in 1957. Sultan Said bin Taimur’s personal letter to the Commanding Officer says it all[i]. The three regiments of the Omani army soon wore different coloured headdress based on the Balmoral bonnets worn by Cameronian officers. This regiment would be the Sultan’s choice for his son.

His two years at the Royal Military Academy had been a rough introduction to what most of us thought perfectly normal: lots of PT, plenty of team sports, cross-country runs. All were alien to Qaboos who had never been to school and whose physique was totally unsuited to the rough and tumble and physical demands of the basic training in our first term.

A significant amount of time (especially in that first term) was spent on the drill square which was overseen by the redoubtable Academy Sergeant Major John Lord, ex-Grenadier Guards. All of the company sergeant majors were warrant officers from the Brigade of Guards too. Needless to say, we spent a huge amount of time – and every evening and waking hour during the first term – polishing, shining, blanco-ing and pressing an array of uniforms and boots. It was challenging even for those of us who had spent years in our respective school Combined Cadet Force units.

His two years at Sandhurst (from September 1960) were spent in Marne Company in New College (as were those of the writer). There were three colleges (Old, New and Victory) and each college comprised four companies and each of these had four platoons, one for each of the intakes. It was said that Old College produced gentlemen, Victory College produced soldiers but that New College – new, that is, after the 1st World War – produced officers.

Eventually it was our turn to ‘pass out’. We were immensely proud that the Queen was represented at the Sovereign’s Parade by non-other than Field Marshal the Viscount Slim. At the end we duly slow-marched up the steps of Old College followed, as is the tradition, by the Adjutant on his white charger. After lunch we dispersed to the four corners for a month’s leave. At midnight we were all commissioned into our various regiments or national armies.

Qaboos joined Michael Sixsmith and me in the 1st Battalion in Minden in mid-September. (Michael and I had been briefly to the depot at Lanark where we joined John Baynes who commanded, Alan Campbell who was training the 6th/7th Battalion, George Stephen who was ADC to Maj Gen John Frost – who commanded the Lowland Division – and David Christie and Peter Gordon Smith who were training subalterns). In the 1st Battalion, amongst many other things, he learned about mess life and many of the traditions of which the Cameronians were not short. He joined in everything else that new subalterns have to do and learn: it was all strange to all of us. Having left the battalion Qaboos then spent about a year on a world tour before, on his return to Oman, he was placed in internal exile in the south of the country where he remained until the coup which saw him replace his father in 1970.

In March 1982 the Sultan, HM Qaboos bin Said al Said, was invited on a State Visit by HM the Queen. On the first evening, at the State Banquet in his honour at Buckingham Palace, one of the other guests (with his wife) was Colonel Reggie Kettles OBE MC[ii] who had been our commanding officer nearly twenty years earlier in Minden. I was fortunate to be amongst the guests (with my wife) at the State Banquet given the following evening by the City of London in Guildhall.

Sultan Qaboos was generous to his old regiment. When in the 1970’s it was necessary to buy a new building for the Regimental Museum at Hamilton in Lanarkshire he gave a six-figure sum to help to secure the Old Riding school of the long-since demolished Hamilton Palace, seat of the Dukes of Hamilton. This building now forms the centre of the Low Parks Museum where the regimental collection is still housed. More recently he responded to an appeal for funds to restore the last colours of the 90th, the Perthshire Light Infantry, which were laid-up in St Mary’s church in Hamilton when Thomas Graham’s old regiment was amalgamated with the Cameronians, the old 26th, to form the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles).

Sultan Qaboos died on 11 January 2020, aged 79.

Philip R Grant, Major (retired)

1st Battalion the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) 1962-1968


[i] History of The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) Volume 4, John Baynes, Cassell & Co, page 117.

[ii] Major Kettles MBE MC (as he then was) commanded the Support Company (machine guns and mortars) during the Jebel Akhdar campaign in 1957.

Comments: 1

Posted: 19/02/2020 by PhilipGrant in News in General


One response to “Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman”

  1. Barrie Duncan says:

    An excellent debut post, Philip, thank you for sharing it with us. For those who may not have yet seen it, Philip Grant is the author of an excellent new biography of Thomas Graham, Lord Lynedoch, titled ‘A Peer Among Princes’. Take a look at our previous post which discusses the book in more detail and showcases some early artefacts relating to the 90th Perthshire Volunteers – http://cameronians.apps-1and1.net/general-thomas-graham-the-lord-lynedoch/. Copies of the book are available from Low Parks Museum, Hamilton.

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