Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry M.M. London Gazette 9 April 1974.
The original recommendation was submitted by Lt Col Peter de la Billiere and is additionally endorsed by Brigadier Semple with the following notation: ‘Sgt Bennett showed a great coolness in the face of the enemy and his conduct must have been largely responsible for saving Mirbat’
The recommendation states:
‘Mirbat is a medium sized and important fishing town lying some 25 miles East of Salalah. It is wired in and has a small military garrison of local gendarmerie and Askars, the latter being equivalent to home guard. There was an SAS contingent in the town.
There has been no major attack on the town or Mirbat since operations commenced in Dhofar some two years ago until the night of the 19th July. On this night the communist insurgents decided to mount, against Mirbat, the largest most determined and best planned attack that they have launched in the whole campaign. From captured enemy personnel it has since become clear that they were confident of their success and that had they captured the town they intended to occupy it permanently and establish a seat of communist government in Dhofar. The political implications of such a dramatic turn of events need no further expansion.
At 0530 hours on the morning of the 19th July mortars started to rain in on the Mirbat Garrison. The Garrison was stood to and under Captain Kealy's direction commenced the battle for the town. For over 4 hours the communists pressed home their attack; they infiltrated the town; they destroyed the stone defences with Rocket Launcher and Mortar fire; they concentrated a major effort against the SAS personnel in the town; they closed to grenade range and fought with a ferocity, tenacity and blind dedication that is the mark of all Communist shock troops. They launched this attack with an estimated 250 men against a small garrison town whose defence was designed to repel attacks from no more than a dozen men acting without determination. It was only after 4 hours of continual and ferocious fighting that they finally admitted defeat and withdrew leaving behind some 40 wounded and killed. A subsequent radio intercept indicates that they suffered at least 86 casualties and subsequent reports indicate that this figure may be as high as 100 or more.
As stand-to positions were occupied Cpl Bennett immediately directed a counter-bombardment with the one 80 mm mortar available to the SAS. Despite the intensity of the fire Bennett climbed on to an exposed position on the roof of the SAS house so that he might better direct the mortar and ascertain the movements of the enemy. At an early stage Captain Kealy left the position for the Dhofar Gendarmerie Fort leaving Cpl Bennett in charge of the remaining 4 SAS soldiers; the mortar and the vital radio communications with Salalah. For the next 4 hours Bennett acted as Commander of the mortar detachment and as senior liaison officer with Salalah and the supporting SOAF strike forces. Although he had communications with Captain Kealy these were spasmodic due to the intensity of the fighting in Captain Kealy’s position: of necessity much responsibility fell on Bennett's shoulders.
During the initial and intense stages of the battle Bennett continued to direct the mortar with precision and determination. This included close support to the 25 pounder bunker. At one stage he was directing the mortar to within a few yards of his own troops well knowing the dangers if a bomb were to fall short.
In addition to this he summoned air support from Salalah and requested reinforcements which duly arrived. He personally directed the reinforcements to a safe area where they could deplane out of view of aimed fire. At the same time he directed the two Strikemaster jets with great effect, so much so that the pressure of the attack was greatly relieved by their activities. After the targets in the immediate surrounds of the town had been engaged as closely as possible Bennett then directed one aircraft onto the enemy occupying an overlooking Jebel some thousand metres away to the north. Again his calmness and his sure and confident appraisal of the tactical situation resulted in the most effective use of the limited aircraft available.
There can be no doubt that Bennett's disregard for his personal safety in order to ensure the maximum effect of the supporting arms contributed greatly to his accurate assessment of the situation and the effective employment of these arms. Bennett’s cool, decisiveness as a leader and his control of supporting fire and aircraft undoubtedly contributed, in no mean fashion, to the defeat of the enemy and to many of the casualties incurred during their withdrawal.’
The Battle of Mirbat, 19 July 1972
Few, if any, S.A.S. actions better portray the professionalism of the Regiment and the devastating damage just a handful of its men can inflict upon far superior enemy forces: surrounded by some 250 determined warriors of the Dhofar Liberation Front, the whole equipped with grenades and AK-47s (in addition to mortars, anti-tank rifles and rocket-launchers), this resilient nine-strong S.A.S. team, commanded by 23 year old Captain M. J. A. Kealy, in company with one Omani artilleryman, 30 odd Askaris from northern Oman (equipped with .303-inch rifles), and 25 men of the Dhofar Gendarmerie, managed to repulse a series of ferocious assaults over a period of two or three hours - by the time rescue arrived in the form of another S.A.S. Squadron, the rebels had left behind 30 dead and 10 wounded, versus allied losses of four dead and three seriously wounded (many other terrorist casualties were carried off the battlefield by their retreating comrades).
Kealy received an immediate D.S.O., while his men added a D.C.M. (Takavesi), an M.M. (Bennett) and a ‘mention’ to the Regiment’s hard-won tally of Honours and Awards. The ‘mention’ was a posthumous award to Sergeant Talaiyasi Labalaba, S.A.S., a Fijian, who, with the exception of just one mortar, manned the only artillery piece in their armoury, a Second World War-vintage 25-pounder, under a hail of fire until shot dead - the gun shield was found riddled with bullet holes, while the barrel was depressed through 45 degrees, Labalaba having engaged the opposition over open sights (his last message over the radio said “Enemy now very close. I’ve been chinned but I’m alright”): the campaign to have his ‘mention’ changed to a posthumous V.C. continues. A large bronze statue of Labalaba takes pride of place at the S.A.S. Headquarters to this day and as recently as 24 October 2018 the Duke and Duchess of Sussex unveiled a similar statue of ‘the forgotten hero’ in his native Fiji.
At the time of the enemy attack on 19 July 1972, the coastal village of Mirbat was a ‘desolate barbed-wire enclave ... a huddle of flat- topped houses and a couple of ancient, mud-walled forts flanked on two sides by sea, forty miles from the provincial capital, Salalah. Children and insects were numerous, but not much else’, excepting, of course, as Tony Geraghty describes in Who Dares Wins, the occasional terrorist mortar bomb that came sailing over the perimeter fence. The resident S.A.S. men, who were due to be airlifted out the following day, after three months of training work with local forces were possibly a little more relaxed than usual. Indeed as the enemy’s attack commenced in the early morning hours, Captain Kealy hastily donned a pair of flip-flops before ascending to the roof of “BATT” house to see what an earth was happening. It was, as Tony Geragthy so rightly observes, ‘the start of a battle as remarkable as that fought at Rorke’s Drift during the Zulu War.’
Many thousands of words have been written about the Battle of Mirbat in numerous publications and more recently two entire books on the action have been published, SAS Operation Storm, Nine Men Against Four Hundred In Britain’s Secret War, by Roger Cole (one of those present at Mirbat) and Richard Belfield, and Storm Front: The Extraordinary Story of a Secret War, The SAS’s Greatest Battle, and The British Pilots Who Saved Them, by Rowland White, from which the following extracts relating to Sergeant Bennett and his part in the action are taken:
‘At the opening of the action Bennett took his position at the top of the BATT house, an exposed position from where he could best survey the action as it unfolded. He was the eyes and ears for Fuzz, Tak and Tommy Tobin, all three down in the mortar pit, about ten yards away from the house. Laba was already cutting his way at speed through the mist to get to the 25-pounder gun…
From the roof Bob Bennett fired his British made SLR and in between called out the positions to the mortar pit. The SAS had one functioning mortar. The opposition had at least half a dozen.’
From his position in the forward hangar on the roof, Bob Bennett could make out the shape of a figure, nearly 800 yards away, holding down the barbed wire of the perimeter fence, his AK47 raised high, urging the men forward. Standing tall in a peaked cap and belts of ammunition criss-crossing his chest, inspiring and driving his troops on, he reminded Bennett of some kind of an image from a Communist propaganda poster. A hero of the revolution! Even Bennett had to admit it was a stirring sight. A brave man, he thought, but
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