John Graham (Major General)

John David Carew Graham CB CBE (born January 18, 1923 in Chatham , Kent , † December 14, 2012 in Barbados ) was a British major general in the British Army who planned and oversaw the 1970 coup leading to the abdication of Sultan Said ibn Taimur of Oman led.

Life

Military training and World War II

Graham completed his schooling at Cheltenham College and entered the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders , the 5th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland (Scots) , during World War II in 1941 as a private . After completing his basic training, he became a lieutenant in 1942 and took part with the 2nd Scots Battalion, The Royal Highland Fusiliers , in Operation Overlord , the landing of Allied troops in Normandy on June 6, 1944. At the end of June 1944, he experienced his Baptism of fire with the start of Operation Epsom , during which the battalion captured two intact bridges over the Odon southwest of Caen , which were necessary for the transport of Allied troops.

Immediately afterwards he was appointed adjutant to the battalion commander, but was wounded in March 1945 while crossing the Rhine (Operation Plunder) . After medical treatment, he returned to the battalion in July 1945 and was employed as an officer in the British zone of occupation . For his military service he was mentioned in the war report ( Mentioned in Despatches ) .

post war period

After joining the regular army, Graham was transferred to Palestine with the 1st Scots Battalion, The Royal Scots Borderers , as part of the 6th Airborne Division . A subsequent assignment to the 5th Scottish Battalion of the Parachute Regiment with the British Rhine Army (BAOR) was interrupted by the Berlin blockade by the Soviet Union between June 1948 and May 1949.

He then learned the Czech language and advanced training as an interpreter at the UCL School of Slavonic Studies at University College London and then worked for a year at the embassy in Czechoslovakia before being transferred to the headquarters of the British armed forces in London. In late 1952 he returned to the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders , but did not take part in the Korean War with them.

After further assignments in British Guiana , at the headquarters of the Scottish Command, in Cyprus and again with the Rhine Army, he worked as a military assistant to General Jean Albert Emile Crépin , the commander in chief of the Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT). He was then between 1964 and 1966 Commander of the 1st Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment and, after working as an instructor at Staff College Camberley, finally Colonel and Commander of the British Parachute Regiment.

Supreme Commander in Oman and coup in 1970

In 1970 Graham was posted as brigadier general to become commander in chief of the armed forces of Oman, which consisted of 4,000 men. The indomitable personality and repressive politics of Sultan Said ibn Taimur had made it possible that large parts of the affluent southern governorate (Manatiq) Dhofar fell under the control of a strongly armed and highly motivated communist rebel army .

Qabus ibn Said , the Sultan's trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , was under house arrest when he personally appealed to Graham to play a leading role in the sultan's deposition on July 23, 1970 and his exile in Great Britain took over. Qaboos then succeeded his father and during the following years the northern governorates were liberated from Marxist gangs and disarmed. A series of military operations took place in the governorate in collaboration with the British armed forces , which ultimately led to the restoration of the sultan's rule over much of the governorate.

When Graham left Oman in 1972, he handed over an 11,000-strong army , an air force with 49 planes and a growing navy with modern warships. This ensured the security of the country and a necessary modernization followed.

Supreme Commander in Wales and Manager of Chevening House

After his return from Oman, Graham worked at the National Defense College of India in New Delhi and then again on the staff of the NATO headquarters of the Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT) before becoming major general and general officer commanding of the British in 1976 Armed Forces in Wales . For his military service he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1973.

In 1978 he retired from active military service and was manager of Chevening House , the official residence of the British Foreign Secretary in the county of Kent . In 1978 he also became Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB). In 1991 he settled in Barbados after buying a house .

Publications

• Ponder Anew: Reflections on the Twentieth Century , 1999
• Caribbean Wars Untold: A Salute to the British West Indies , co-author Humphrey Metzgen, 2007

Web links

• Major-General John Graham, who has died aged 89, planned and supervised a palace coup d'état in 1970 which forced the abdication of the Sultan of Oman . In: The Daily Telegraph, January 9, 2013