Perim Island

The Army on Perim in WW1

 

At the beginning of August 1914 the strength of the military detachment guarding Perim was only one Indian officer and 25 men. On 5 August an advance party of two men from the Royal Irish Fusiliers arrived on the island. A further 123 All Ranks arrived on 18 August, together with 10 men from 70th Company Royal Garrison Artillery under the command of a ‘specially selected sergeant’. The latter were to prepare gun positions for two 15-pounder guns which were landed on 25 August from HMS Black Prince, together with 250 rounds of ammunition per gun and a further eight men from the Indian Coast Artillery. Measures were taken to try to conceal this deployment from the Turks.

 

On the arrival of the company of Royal Irish Fusiliers the existing small garrison of the 108th Infantry remained on Perim in the small barracks in the fort. The Fusiliers put up a tented camp on Company Side (‘Old Camp’). In due course a new hutted camp would be built about 1,000 yards West of the Residency (‘New Camp’). On 29 September the troop transport Dilwara called at Perim to disembark a 91-man company of Lancashire Fusiliers under the command of Lieutenant Cuncliff and to embark the company of Royal Irish Rifles. The remainder of the Lancashire Fusiliers were at Aden. Throughout these first few months of the war Captain Bannatyne of the 108th Infantry retained the appointment of Assistant Resident Perim, he being senior to the company commanders of the British sub-units who were there with him. On 12 October Major Bradshaw, GSO Aden Brigade, visited Perim, The Political Resident and GOC, Major General Shaw, who had arrived in Aden at the end of November, visited Perim on 14 December and again on 21 May the following year.

 

When the operation against Fort Turba was completed on 11 November the 1/23rd Sikh Pioneers went to reinforce the Aden garrison. On 29 November No.2 Company, under the command of Major Ottley, was sent to Perim to take over the defence of the island from the company of Lancashire Fusiliers, which left Perim on 9 December together with the detachment of the 108th Infantry. On the departure of Captain Bannatyne on 16 December Major Ottley, as the senior military officer on the island, was appointed Assistant Resident, as were his many successors during the war. 

 

From their arrival in November the Pioneers were kept very busy improving the defences and the road network as well as infantry training. In December some were put on an artillery gun-numbers cadre, due to a shortage of artillery personnel. This they continued to 10 February 1915, a few days after the artillery detachment was brought up to strength. On 9 February there was a night firing exercise, including the firing of star shell, something that none of the artillery personnel had ever seen or used. Improvement of sangars and trenches and the preparation of alternative defensive positions were to continue well into 1916.

 

In the middle of March 1915 No.1 Company, commanded by Captain Hutchinson, had relieved No.2 Company at Perim. Captain Hutchinson brought his family with him (wife, nurse and child). On 21 March some three inches of rain fell, the first proper rain for two years. On 29 May there was a very unfortunate and serious incident when the subadar major and a subadar, the two most senior Indian officers in the Company, were shot and killed in their beds by a sepoy, Sapper Basakha Singh. An Indian NCO managed to disarm him and he was taken under escort to Aden on 30 May. He was tried by Special General Court Martial at Aden on 2 June, found guilty and was hanged at Aden Special Prison on the 7th. 

 

Captain Hutchinson had a number of spies operating on the mainland and these reported that the Turks were assembling a force at Sheikh Syed with a view to first bombarding and then attacking Perim. This information was accurate as on 13 June the Turks opened fire with a mixed assortment of guns, estimated at the time to be one 4.7 or 4.1 inch naval gun with a range of 10,000 yards, one 12-pounder with a range of 7,000 yards and one 3.5 inch howitzer. These soon found the range and a good many direct hits were made on the lighthouse and barracks. A total of 211 shells were fired but damage was slight, although the lighthouse was put out of action for one night. A direct hit had broken 10 of the lantern’s glasses, cracked one of the full diamond glasses and had twisted the rib frame.

 

After temporary repairs by the Perim Coal Company the lighthouse was back in working order for the night of the 14/15 June. During that night a Turkish force in dhows attempted to land and some troops actually got ashore despite being fired on by a piquet. One of the increased alert measures had been to move one of the two 15-pounders to its position on Gun Hill and it was able to react quickly on the alarm being raised. A star shell was fired and, seeing that all hope of surprise was lost, those ashore re-embarked and the whole force withdrew. It was estimated that 12 dhows were involved, each capable of carrying 20 men. The Empress of Japan, the Perim guardship, sailed round from the harbour and set off in pursuit of the dhows but failed to catch them. She had, however, some success the day after the bombardment of the lighthouse when she sank two dhows at Khor Gorrera. 

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As a result of this Turkish activity on 27 June the Perim garrison was reinforced by the 3rd Double Company of Sikh Pioneers and as Captain Nicholas, the company commander, was senior to Captain Hutchinson he took over as Assistant Resident. This extra company was sent on the understanding that it could be recalled to Aden at short notice in the event that Aden itself was threatened.

 

Subsequent to the fiasco of the Aden Moveable Column which resulted in the Turks advancing to just North of Khormaksar, there was an urgent requirement for the Pioneers to return to Aden in their primary role as light engineers. Therefore on 27 July the two companies of the 1/23rd, in all some 202 men, were recalled to Aden and immediately deployed with the remainder of the battalion on field defence works. The Pioneers were relieved by the wing (half battalion) of the 108th Infantry which had been sent from India as an urgent reinforcement to the Aden garrison. In August the infantry strength was eight British officers, including a surgeon, six Indian officers and 333 Indian other ranks. This was the maximum military strength ever to be stationed on Perim during the period of British occupation. Wing Headquarters and a machine gun section of two Maxims were at the Residency; one Indian officer and 50 men were at the fort, occupying the accommodation built for that number over 50 years previously; the balance of that company was in hutted accommodation in ‘New Camp’, about 1,000 yards West of the Residency, together with the balance of the other company for whom there was insufficient accommodation in the tented ‘Old Camp’, situated near the Lloyds signal station.

 

When not deployed to ‘Gun Hill’ the artillery section was also billeted in Old Camp. On 7 September exactly half the infantry were transferred to Kamaran. Lieutenant Colonel Baldock, the CO of the 108th, was one of those who moved to Kamaran, where he died of dysentery less than six weeks later. His name is one of those recorded on Maala Memorial no.2. Lieutenant Colonel Elderton commanded those remaining on Perim; soon after he took over he organised a field firing exercise for the Maxim section, with targets at 600, 800 and 1,200 yards. A month after Baldock’s death Elderton was sent to Kamaran to assume command of the garrison there, swapping places with Captain Miller who then became OC Perim. During the ten days between Elderton leaving and Captain Miller’s arrival the Perim garrison was commanded by 2nd Lieutenant Elphick, by far the most junior officer to have been Assistant Resident. 

 

The infantry strength there remained at about 200 all ranks until 1919. As had been the practice during the previous century the infantry element of the garrison was changed over every 2-3 months; the personnel of the two small artillery detachments being changed at the same time. Infantry battalions of the Indian Army providing the garrison on Perim after the 108th (who left Perim towards the end of January 1916) were:

 

    •    75th Carnatic Inf

    •    69th Punjabis

    •    129th Duke of Connaught’s Own

    •    33rd Punjabis

    •    109th Inf

    •    Malay States Guides

    •    1/7th Duke of Connaught’s Own Rajputs

    •    1/1st Brahmans

 

Following the Turkish attempt to make a landing on Perim in June 1915 it was decided to send another small but more powerful artillery detachment to the island. On 1 July two 5-inch breech-loading guns were loaded onto the SS Malda at Bombay, together with 200 rounds of lyddite and 100 rounds of shrapnel. Personnel consisted of 2nd Lieutenant Steirn and 25 other Ranks. By the time the Malda arrived in Aden waters the Turks had advanced towards Aden so the detachment was landed there in case it was needed for the defence of Aden itself. It was not until 9 December the same year that Steirn with 12 of his troop and one of the two guns were landed at Perim. The ship arrived after dark so that the gun could be unloaded under cover of darkness and concealed in a previously prepared gun position before first light. Steirn also took over command of the small 15-pdr detachment that had arrived the previous year and the unit was henceforth referred to as the “5-in and 15-pdr detachment, Royal Garrison Artillery.” At about this time the defences were strengthened by the laying of a number of barbed wire entanglements.

 

On 13 March 1916 very heavy rains caused the accommodation huts to be temporarily vacated; there were more heavy rains two days later, with over 18 inches of water in the lines. Most of the road network was washed away. From the rainfall statistics gathered over the period of about 20 years when there was a rain gauge on Perim, March was the month with the highest probability of rainfall. But rainfall as heavy as that that had fallen in mid-March in both 1915 and 1916 was anything but an annual occurrence.

 

On 1 May 1916 the detachment started building a new emplacement for the 5-in gun close to and to the North of the fort. At that time Steirn was alternating with his troop sergeant in command at Perim, with the latter spending rather more time in Aden with the remainder of the troop. In February 1919 one officer and 25 men from the Royal Garrison Artillery are recorded as having left the island, together with nine men from the Indian Coast Artillery.