When former Royal Marine officer Captain Stephen Weall looks back on patrolling the Radfan mountains and witnessing the hurried British withdrawal from Aden, he thinks of “needless sacrifices” in a conflict that many people have barely heard of.
Now 82, his story will sit at the heart of a new national project led by Legasee Educational Trust, to preserve first-hand testimonies from the Aden Emergency before they are lost forever.
Stephen Weall, 82, who called Stroud home for nearly four decades, is the son of a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm engineer. His father’s career included working within the Admiralty, something Stephen now sees as giving him an early, if indirect, insight into service life. What seemed to him at the time like a typical childhood now feels, in retrospect, rather unusual.
“To me, it was a normal childhood, but looking back, it was probably a bit exceptional. My father was a regular naval officer, often abroad, while we stayed at home. I went through grammar school, not really knowing what I wanted to do.”
A successful night exercise with the school Combined Cadet Force, and a quiet suggestion from his mother that he might enjoy service life, nudged him towards the armed forces. After passing the demanding Civil Service Commissioners exam at his first attempt, he listed the Army and Royal Marines as his preferred options, joining the Royal Marines as a probationary second lieutenant in 1962.
Training at the Infantry Training Centre at Lympstone was, he says, both demanding and formative.
“It was arduous but fair. You worked hard, but you knew the principles were applied properly. It gave me a focus in life and some rules to guide me. Commandos weren’t supermen, they were people who were determined to do things, who stayed focussed on their aim.”
His first operational deployments took him straight into the shifting geopolitics of the 1960s. His unit, 45 Commando, was already in Aden, and on joining it Stephen was sent immediately to East Africa, where the unit took part in a helicopter-borne assault to end a mutiny in Dar es Salaam. From there, the unit was deployed to Aden, then a key Royal Marine unit in the region.
At first, the British-ruled territory at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula felt tense but relatively quiet to a young officer on his first ever overseas posting. That impression quickly faded as the Aden Emergency intensified.
Posted up-country to Dhala in the Radfan mountains, Stephen found himself in a harsh landscape that reminded him of the sacrifices of earlier frontier campaigns he knew of from history.
“It was a valley surrounded by high mountains, a bit like something out of Beau Geste. We lived under canvas, with sandbag positions all around. We patrolled constantly, watching the border with Yemen and trying to stop weapons being brought in. It felt like the same sort of soldiering our Victorian predecessors did, hardy tribesmen, ancient rifles, and us lightly equipped, with radios that barely worked.”
Daily life for his troop revolved around long patrols, maintaining defensive positions, and constant exposure to the elements.
As the Aden Emergency escalated following high-profile attacks, British forces launched major operations into the Radfan. Stephen’s troop was involved in night approaches and steep climbs onto dominating features such as ‘Cap Badge’ to support other units caught in exposed wadi bottoms.
“We were up on the hills day and night, occupying positions and building sangers for protection. We had machine-gun sections covering the ground where other units had been hit. Life was stripped back to the essentials, and the climate and terrain never gave you a break.
You were down to three basic concerns. Have I got water? Have I got ammunition? How am I going to shelter from the sun? Contact with dissidents might come once or twice a week. We lived on 24-hour ration packs, totally dependent on helicopters for water and supplies, and you simply adapted to that because it was what you were trained to do.”
Stephen’s memories of Aden extend beyond tactics and terrain. He is candid about the moral complexity of Britain’s final years there, particularly when he returned in 1967 as Motor Transport Officer to help manage the British withdrawal. The departure, he says, felt less like a neat end to a mission and more like a scramble.
“One of the hardest tasks was administering the official cash payments to long-serving local and Sudanese employees as part of the withdrawal plan. The policy required wages to be issued in cash, and in the chaos of the final days many workers were robbed as soon as they stepped outside. In hindsight, it should and could have been handled differently. It was a shameful episode.”
He believes the Aden Emergency has faded from public memory partly because it sits uneasily with national pride and did little to change the course of world events.
“It wasn’t one of our proud moments like the Falklands. People did their jobs, they cared for each other and looked after each other in really unpleasant conditions. But in terms of history, their losses had no real influence on what happened later. They were needless sacrifices, and I think government memory prefers to play that down.”
Stephen went on to serve in Northern Ireland and in a range of Royal Marine roles, including logistics and motor transport, before leaving the Corps in 1974. He now sees that time as crucial in shaping the rest of his life.
“It was brilliant, I loved it. There were ups and downs, but it gave me time to work out what I could do, what my strengths and weaknesses were. God bless the Marines.”
After leaving the Royal Marines, Stephen went on to build his civilian life in Gloucestershire, living in Stroud for 36 years. He relocated to Cornwall in 2018 but retains strong ties to the county.
Stephen’s filmed interview will now appear as part of a major new project from Legasee Educational Trust, the UK charity dedicated to capturing and preserving the life stories of British veterans on film. With support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Legasee is launching a two-year national initiative focussed on the Aden Emergency, often described as one of Britain’s “forgotten wars”.
The project will record 30–40 new filmed interviews with Aden veterans from all branches of the services, produce a dedicated podcast series, digitise decades of fragile photographs, newsletters and memorabilia held by the Aden Veterans Association, and work with schools and community groups to explore why this conflict still matters today.
Stephen’s testimony, from frontier-style soldiering in the Radfan to the human realities of withdrawal, will sit alongside these new stories, helping future generations understand the experiences of those who served in a conflict that rarely appears in history books.
Martin Bisiker, Founder of Legasee Educational Trust, said, “Stephen’s story shows exactly why this project is so important.
“His memories of Aden are vivid, honest and sometimes uncomfortable, but they reflect the reality faced by thousands of men and women who served there.
“Thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund, we can finally record these stories properly and make sure they’re not lost. If you served in Aden, or your family did, we want to hear from you. And if you’d like to volunteer, there’s a place for you in this project too, whether that’s helping with filming days, digitising material or supporting community events.”
To register as a veteran or family member, take part as a school or community group, or volunteer with the project, please visit www.Legasee.org.uk or email info@legasee.org.uk
