Yes that was me, can’t say I remember your name, but when I had the bike accident I was living off base. Wasn’t west country definatly southener, John Blower I remember well and a few others, don’t remember Terry English, but quite a few of us had bikes. Good times in a changing Saudi. I SHALL get some names together out of the brain cells you may remember some of them.
Martin.

Never heard that one, but not surprised.

This is my account of Thursday 1st June 1978

We would have left work after 3pm although I can’t remember our exact working hours. It was over an hour to Salalah by bus and we arrived at Tarqa in daylight and had everything set up, 2 of the guys had rods and were fishing in daylight. The sun would have been setting about 7pm and it would have been dark 40 minutes or so after sunset.
We were talking and preparing food etc and getting settled in to a long evening, I remember we called the guys up from the beach for the BBQ. To my knowledge nobody heard anything strange but of course they already could have been in the vicinity. We would have heard a vehicle approaching as nobody else was around.
Firstly the location of the attack was on a flat rock plateau, as I face the sea the bus was behind me, to my right was the access road and to my left the sand bar and a lagoon behind the bar. The sea was about 30 to 50yds in front of me, to my right further away was a headland jutting into the sea. From that headland there was beach going as far as could see to the left and forming the sand bar. We were about 30yds from the access road and to my left about 30yds was the end of the plateau which was about 10ft above the lagoon behind the sand bar.
I was facing the sand bar with access road behind me and the BBQ in front and to the right was the sea, there was somebody to my right and left all facing away from the road. The bus was lit up giving us some light but otherwise it was dark.
When the firing started it was from behind us and tracer could be seen going over our heads, I immediately hit the ground and crawled to the bus, Terry was stood up in the bus in the front I crawled into the bus then could see bullets coming through the seats and decided it was not a good idea slipped out of the bus and underneath, I could see the bullets hitting the axle and shrapnel flying everywhere, I crawled towards the lagoon passing Alan who was on the ground, I said come on but never saw him again. I dropped into the lagoon off the plateau followed by a very heavy Chris who landed on top of me, he then left me and continued around the inland water to the left. I stayed put, completely immersed in about a meter of water with rocks either side a convenient place as my head was above water but I could easily slide down beneath the water for more cover if needed.
I had a pair of swimming trunks on which were now ripped to shreds as I landed on a rock and gashed my bottom, not helped by the weight of Chris landing on top of me! I then could hear a lot firing and watched the tracer pass overhead. After awhile I could hear them packing up, the attack would have been between 10 and 11 pm. Eventually I saw vehicle lights across the lagoon taking a road up a hill, a long way away. I felt safer but had no idea what the situation was above me so I stayed put. All night I was being nibbled by the minnows which was annoying but I was alive.
Around 7 am I heard jets and felt great, 2 Jaguars did a high pass followed by some lower ones than a 205 came over very high and eventually came down I was waving and they saw me, a crew member came over and took me straight to the Helicopter, the scene was obviously not good and I think they kept me from seeing most of it. I certainly cannot remember any detail other than being given a towel as I was virtually naked. I was taken to Salalah base hospital and my wound was dressed given something to wear and interviewed.
In the interview I was informed that there were 3 positions set up and over 200 rounds were fired.
There has been comments from some based in Salalah that we should not have been there and it was forbidden at that time, as far as any of us was aware we were only doing what many had done before and I believe the anniversary of the ending of hostilities was the following week. Also we were in an air force bus booked out with permission from the powers that be and no mention of any risk was given to us. I am also sure that if a risk was felt to be present then we would have been prevented from travelling or been made aware of it.
The bus I believe was a Nissan 20 something seater very light weight and airy.