Who IS Nick Downie? More to the point WHERE is Nick Downie? I never thought I would make a very good private dectetive. When we have to find someone we never normally have to look beyond the hozizon of Facebook or Twitter.
Nick Downie, former SAS trooper turned war cameraman. Some of the nastiest fighting was documented by this chap throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's. His training allowed him to get closer than most would dare.
During the Dhofar War there were only two ways into the country. Both were tightly controlled.
If a journalist got off a plane they were simply put back on and sent home. Therefore, pictures and footage are prised! For the whole conflict (approx 1964-76) there is only 1 news article, to my knowledge in existence. A Sunday supplement in the Telegraph.
Now if anyone reading this knows any better - then please point me in the right direction.
Mr Downie, supposedly smuggled an 8mm camera into the country with him. There is other 8mm footage from the Oman conflict, but very little of it is frontline stuff, and that's what I'm hoping for. Nick has made a few documentaries on the conflict in Rhodesia, the northern part of later became Zambia, where I lived in for several years as a boy. There are many accounts of him over the web but, for now, his whereabouts remain a mystery.
With the help of Twitter a chap by the name of Nick Long, a Producer at Turtle Canyon Media has joined in the search, and I'd like to thank him publicly for all his help so far.
Nick Downie, former SAS trooper turned war cameraman. Some of the nastiest fighting was documented by this chap throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's. His training allowed him to get closer than most would dare.
During the Dhofar War there were only two ways into the country. Both were tightly controlled.
If a journalist got off a plane they were simply put back on and sent home. Therefore, pictures and footage are prised! For the whole conflict (approx 1964-76) there is only 1 news article, to my knowledge in existence. A Sunday supplement in the Telegraph.
Now if anyone reading this knows any better - then please point me in the right direction.
Mr Downie, supposedly smuggled an 8mm camera into the country with him. There is other 8mm footage from the Oman conflict, but very little of it is frontline stuff, and that's what I'm hoping for. Nick has made a few documentaries on the conflict in Rhodesia, the northern part of later became Zambia, where I lived in for several years as a boy. There are many accounts of him over the web but, for now, his whereabouts remain a mystery.
With the help of Twitter a chap by the name of Nick Long, a Producer at Turtle Canyon Media has joined in the search, and I'd like to thank him publicly for all his help so far.
Um ... I came across this post by chance while looking for something else. I am Nick Downie.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t ‘smuggle’ my camera into Oman (it was a 16mm clockwork Pathé, not 8mm, by the way) I took it in openly. I got about 40 mins of footage of the SAS in Oman (film was expensive to buy and process, particularly on SAS trooper’s wages which were not good in those days) and I still have it, somewhere - in London I think.
I’m afraid I didn’t get any frontline footage, apart from a bit of 81mm mortar firing. The one time I took the camera on an op, I was also the signaller (carrying a heavy A41 radio) and the medic, with a medic bag. All that, plus my ammo and water, food, etc, plus a 250-round belt of GPMG ammo, meant I was carrying 80-90 lb. This nearly got me killed in the opening seconds of the first ‘contact’ when I was caught on a forward slope by a machine gun. I hit the deck hard and then found, with all this weight on my back, that I couldn’t get up, with bullets lashing into the ground all round me. Finally, naked terror forced me to my feet and I joined my mates behind a happily impervious rock on the ridge-line.
Having recovered my composure, I got out the camera. As I was doing this, we were joined by a GPMG crew which started firing in the general direction of the enemy, and I focused the camera on them, BUT, just as I was about to press the start button, one of the crew rolled away from the gun, clearly having been hit. I paused, to find everyone looking at me - I was the medic, you see. What was worse was that the GPMG crew was 20 yards away, in the open, and the intervening space was being swept by the same machine-gun that had nearly done for me a few minutes earlier.
You get medals for rescuing wounded comrades under fire. Much more importantly, you often get killed or wounded yourself in the process. As I’ve never been allthat keen to win a medal, I was none too pleased by this turn of events but as I said, everyone was looking at me. So, muttering something very rude under my breath, I grabbed my medic pack, scrambled to my feet, sprinted through a veritable hail of fire, and flung myself down next to the wounded man.
“Are you okay?” I gasped.
“Hello Nick,” he said. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s only me finger.” He held up a bloody digit for my inspection.
I gave him a dirty look, and then ran the gauntlet of fire once more. After that, I was engaged, as the signaller, in bringing down mortar fire, then artillery, then air strikes, in an attempt to silence the enemy weapon, which opened up every time one of us twitched a muscle. I started totting up the cost of what we dropped on this very determined fellow, and I decided it would have been far more sensible to have waved a flag of truce, written out a very large cheque, walked across no-man’s land, and given it to him, on the condition that he sod off and never bother us again.
In the end, we sent for a Jebali, gave him binos and asked him to find the bugger. It took him ten minutes to pinpoint his position, and a long burst from our GPMG settled the matter, which I was sad about because he was a very, very brave man.
I made one other attempt to film action, not in Oman but in South Yemen. By that time I was a contract officer in SAF, charged with fomenting insurrection among the tribes of S Yemen. I commanded a unit of Yemeni exiles (bedouin) and we lived on the edge of the Empty Quarter. On one raid, we captured a substantial fort, 80 miles across the border. After the garrison surrendered, I filmed a bit of the action, before blowing it up with 1,100 lb of gelignite. This was three times more than was necessary. The fort literally vanished.
Sadly, I sent the roll of film to a lab in London. It got lost, never to be seen again.
Anyway, if I can be of help, let me know. As to my whereabouts, until recently I lived for three years in a tent, with my mules, on a mountainside in Andalucia (I was broke - couldn’t afford a solid roof), but for now I’m in South Africa, looking after my extremely stroppy 99-year-old mother.
Nick.
P.S: Having sent my first comment, I read the rest of your blog. Very interesting. One small point. Major Paul (Tiger) Wright was killed south of a base called Manston. I knew him well - we were on the same SAS selection course together, which is where he got the name Tiger (we were taking the piss). I was overhead in a chopper at the time, looking for the mortar that was firing on Tiger’s company. He was in Muscat Regiment. Manston was my rear base. I had given up raiding into South Yemen (got the sack - sort of - for leading my chaps across the border personally when I had explicit written instructions not to do so. Long story) and was then operating along the border between Simba and Habarut with a firqa composed of Mahra bedouin, plus camels. We used to go on patrol for four or five weeks at a time - did that for 20 months. Then resigned and went off to fight with the Kurdish Peshmerga guerrillas against a nasty piece of work by the name of Saddam Hussein. (We were betrayed by Kissinger - 50,000 men were blackmailed into surrender - and I was so disgusted that I gave up soldiering and tramped off to another seven wars with a camera.)
ReplyDeleteYour dad’s name is very familiar. There was an officer in MR also called Nick. We had the same birthday - 27 May 1946. Richard John, MR 2i/c, was also 27 May, but different year. The odds against three out of about nine officers all having the same birthday, with two having the same first name, must be enormous. Anyway, good luck with the project.
All the best, Nick.
Apologies. I’m getting senile. It was Jebel Regiment (or JR), not Muscat Regiment, operating out of Manston. And Tiger got the Omani equivalent of the VC.
DeleteNick.
Hi Nick,
DeleteI think it's funny that you found me in the end. It's been tough trying to track you down through the web! A couple of times I came close but to no avail. In the end I thought if I put up a flag you might find it.
A chap mentioned you at a SAF dinner earlier in the year. To begin with I was looking for you to ask if you still had the footage you shot in Oman. But as I found out more, I became interested in your story. Haven't been able to find your doc on Rhodesia anywhere on the web. I think the BFI has a copy somewhere.
If you are ever in the UK I would very much like to interview you for my doc - find out what you were doing as part of the BATT and how the SAS fitted into what was going on in Oman.
Yes Major Paul Wright was leading 1 Company JR on an operation called Dragon when he was killed by a mortar round. They were intending to take a large arms store at the Sherrishitty caves. I've interviewed Mike Austin who was 2ic 1Coy JR that day and was on the ground when Paul was killed. I've also interviewed my old boy who was in command of 2 Coy (while Mike Ball was on leave) who came in to help them make a tactical withdraw. There is a lot of time in my doc allocated to Op Dragon.
Where we're you travelling to when you heard Paul had been killed?
Hi Tristan,
ReplyDeleteGlad I’ve ended your search (it was odd seeing myself referred to like that, but you’re not the first). Not quite sure when next I’ll be in London - maybe June, maybe not - but if and when, I’ll be happy to be interviewed (bearing in mind that I was a very, very small cog in the SAS operation and am therefore not in a position to give you an overview). Also, you are welcome to use my footage of the SAS - its only virtue is that it’s unique - which has been transferred from 16mm on to Beta, which makes life a bit easier.
So, that out of the way, I am fascinated by your account of ‘OP Dragon’, if only because it demonstrates how old men’s memories can be defective. This is my recollection of it; see how it compares with what you know.
It took place in February 1973, a day or so’s march south of Manston, into an area known as Janook. As far as I’m aware, this was nowhere near Sherishitti and its caves. (They became the object of a series of battles much later on, the final one ending the war - I think. I’d left Oman by that time.) However, I was only loosely attached to JR, my TAOR being to the west, an area the size of Nottinghamshire which I was supposed to sort out with a force - then - of just 12 bedouin! (We succeeded eventually but that’s another story.) So, I knew nothing of JR’s plans until after Tiger’s company had come under bombardment, during which I happened to wander into the ops tent at Manston. I was then asked to go up in a chopper to find the position of the enemy mortar which was causing the trouble. I didn’t find it, and when I landed I was told that Tiger had been killed. I then suggested that maybe Mike Austin would like a fellow Brit to come and give him a hand - the only way in was by chopper, and the LZ was under fire. The ops officer, Simon, got on the radio, and asked Mike if he’d like ‘Sunray Nomads’ - my call-sign - to join him. Mike, in the understandable heat of the moment, thought Simon was referring to my Bedouin 2i/c, and said no. My only other contribution was when, after dark, it was decided to extract the entire company by chopper, leaving behind a large pile of 81mm mortar bombs, which they wanted to blow up. As no one in JR knew anything about explosives, I was given the job of assembling the kit that Mike needed. To this day (although I was subsequently involved in many, much worse battles in other wars) I regret not insisting that I be allowed to go help Mike, who was a very good friend in deep trouble. (Oddly enough, as old men do, I still think about it, often.)
What I do not remember is 2 Coy coming into this, but you may well be right. Also, the other Nick I remember in JR - the one with the same birthday as me - was a company 2i/c, so was this your dad?? There definitely weren’t three Nicks in Manston. (The Nick I knew used to wear a German WW2 helmet into combat, which the rest of us regarded as mildly eccentric. Ring any bells?)
Anyway, if you’re in contact with Mike Austin, do pleeease give him my regards. He was a damn good bloke and a bloody fine soldier.
Yours aye,
Nick.
Ha yep that's my old man and he still has the German shell helmet! He also recounts trying to light the fuse of those explosives with a cigarette while the chopper hovered a few feet off the deck. Nick this is all great stuff. I would love to interview you if / when you're back in the UK please contact me via the blog so we can arrange something.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes
Tristan
I really would appreciate some more information about Paul Wright (from SASMule or Tristan - or anyone else). My wife is Paul's cousin and we have conflicting accounts of where he is buried - in Cheshire or in Oman - and of the date of his death - 6 or 7 February 1973. Any information would be most welcome.
ReplyDeleteThanks in advance.
Gerald Grainge
(GeraldGrainge@gmail.com)
I know of one or two of these old boys, some of whom stayed on to work in ORD.
ReplyDeletePlease feel free to get back to me. Henry
Hello Tristan,
ReplyDeleteActually, Luxemburgish (video-)journalist Gordian Troeller and his french colleague Claude Deffarge reported in the late 1960ies from the conflict zone in the Dhofari region. However, they entered from South Yemen with the Adoo, as they have been reporting about the Yemen for many years. According to his autobiography [1], the Sultan's forces tried hard to kill them so to prevent news reports getting out.
However, the German news magazine Stern published their report in 1969 [2]. And also in 1969, the German TV station NDR had broadcast their film "The Revolt of the Slaves (Oman-Dhofar)" [3, 4]. Apparently, the BBC had purchased a copy of that film, but was neither published, nor returned from "analysis".
I was fortunate to live and work for two years in Oman recently. Only after stumbling across the small graveyard at the PDO compound in Muscat, and later speaking to a farmer who fought in a Firqat unit while camping in the Dhofari mountains, I started to research about the recent history in Arabia Felix from where the Omani Renaissance has started off. Yesterday, I discovered your blog.
Regards from Switzerland,
Rolf Sommerhalder
[1] http://www.gordian-troeller.de/index.php?qid=76
[2] http://www.gordian-troeller.de/index.php?qid=5&&reportagenid=11
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeju3E8BJr8
[4] http://www.gordian-troeller.de/index.php?filmid=89