Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The impressive ‘22 SAS four clasp GSM’ pair awarded to Warrant Officer Class II A. J. Dicker, Royal Hampshire Regiment and ‘D’ Squadron 22 Special Air Service, who was Mentioned in Despatches for ‘courage, cunning and a high degree of professionalism’ while commanding a rifle platoon on the Northern Ireland Border, as he leveraged the experience he had gained over nearly ten years of high intensity active service in the SAS

General Service 1962-2007, 4 clasps, Borneo, South Arabia, Dhofar, Northern Ireland, with M.I.D. oak leaf (23515756 Tpr. A. J. Dicker, SAS); Army L.S. & G.C., E.II.R., 2nd issue, Regular Army (23515756 S. Sgt. A. J. Dicker R. Hamps.) minor edge bruising and contact wear, generally very fine and better (2) £5,000-£6,000

M.I.D. London Gazette 18 June 1974

The original recommendation states: ‘In the past thirteen months Staff Sergeant Dicker has commanded a rifle platoon throughout two emergency tours in Northern Ireland. During the first tour his platoon was involved in a series of contacts in the immediate Border area with a particularly ruthless group of terrorists; during the second, the threat was centred more on the insidious claymore/culvert bomb attack.
Throughout he has displayed courage, cunning and a high degree of professionalism, remaining notably cool and incisive on the several occasions he and his platoon came under attack. He has shown himself to be a thoroughly competent platoon commander who inspires confidence in those above and below him, but the exceptional feature of his performance has been the infinite enthusiasm of his approach. Motivated by a single-minded determination to close with the terrorist, he has been tireless, mentally and physically, not only in carrying out his operational tasks, but also in putting forward new ideas, adapting fresh tactics and in his eagerness to undertake the difficult assignment. His resourcefulness, his drive and his total commitment to the task in hand, set a fine example which was evident not only in the performance of his own platoon but throughout the remainder of his company.
Staff Sergeant Dicker is an outstanding infantry soldier who has maintained his Platoon at an excellent standard of operational efficiency. He deserves the highest praise for his professionalism and his example.’

Antony (Tony) John Dicker was born on 5 February 1942 on the Isle of Wight. When he left school, he enlisted at Portsmouth into the Royal Hampshire Regiment on 27 May 1957. He served for three years in the UK before going out to join the 1st Battalion Royal Hampshires, who were undertaking a 30-month residential garrison duty in Jamaica. The Hampshires had been bought fully up to their established strength of over 1,000, as they were to be the last British battalion based in Jamaica and were also responsible for Company outstations in the Bahamas, British Guiana and British Honduras. Jamaica, which had been continuously garrisoned since 1655, had a long history of stupefying military bureaucracy and out-dated administration. On any given day, the Duty Company had to provide 85 men for various guards and fatigue parties intended to “keep up appearances.” Dicker’s tour ended in June 1962, shortly before Jamaica became independent.

The Borneo Campaign - ‘One of the most efficient uses of military force in the history of the world’
Some months after his return from the Caribbean, Dicker began the rigorous process of SAS selection, including three months spent in the jungles of Malaysia, before being badged to 22 SAS and joining ‘D’ Squadron (in 1963 the Regiment had only two Squadrons, ‘A’ and ‘D’, while ‘B’, which had been disbanded, was re-raised and trained up from January to October 1964). Dicker was deployed to Borneo on active service for the first six months of 1964, earning the GSM with clasp Borneo. In 1963, after seizing the western half of New Guinea, the president of Indonesia had begun an aggressive policy aimed at extending Indonesian territory across the whole of the partitioned island of Borneo, and if possible conquering peninsula Malaysia and Singapore. This began with cross-border raids by supposed ‘freedom fighters’ who were in fact members of the Indonesian special forces. The Fourth and Fifth Divisions of Sarawak and the Interior Residency of Sabah seemed particularly vulnerable to Indonesian incursions, and so the SAS were concentrated in those areas. With more regular infantry units available in theatre than was the case earlier in the campaign, in 1964 ‘D’ Squadron was able to operate in three or four-man patrols in the deep jungle. Tasks included the reporting of enemy infiltration; the harassing of Indonesian raiders as they withdrew towards the border; winning 'hearts and minds' to enable the collection of intelligence from the border tribes; the construction of helicopter landing zones near border crossing points to facilitate the swift deployment of infantry; and the collection of topographical information (TNA, DEFE 5/156, 'Security Operations in the Borneo States, 1 Oct 63 - 31 Mar 64', Part 1 to CINCFE 117/64, 7 January 1965 refers.)

Dicker’s next deployment was to the British Protectorate of South Arabia for just over a month (7 November – 10 December 1964) before ‘D’ Squadron was sent back to Borneo for another six-month tour on 28 January 1965. As the records note: 'Because of an urgent requirement for a sophisticated reconnaissance and special offensive force, the Squadron of 22 SAS was redeployed in the First Division of Sarawak' (TNA, DEFE 5/172, CINCFE 9/67, 'The Joint Report on the Borneo Campaign', 27 January 1967, Chapter 11). These reconnaissance and 'special offensive' activities were part of the Top Secret Operation Claret, which was designed to wrest the strategic initiative from the Indonesians by making covert SAS attacks deep inside enemy territory, with strict instructions that no SAS soldier could be captured alive. Dicker was a member of the first patrol to undertake a ‘special offensive activity’, which in this case was an ambush of the small craft that supplied an Indonesian base camp on the River Koemba. “On the morning of the sixth day of noting every detail, the patrol commander, Corporal Carter, selected a boat being paddled downstream from Siding by three soldiers in uniform, their weapons readily to hand. At a comfortable range Carter shot the centre man, who slumped dead in the boat. The other two were flung overboard by the immense thrust of SLR bullets from the rest of the patrol (Dicker, Ayres and Tapstaff); one never resurfaced, but the third man swam a few strokes before being killed by grenades thrown into the water beside him. The boat drifted languidly with the current, turning slowly in an expanding pool of pink water.” (SAS: The Secret War in South-East Asia, P. Dickens pp 157-8 refers.)

Dicker was deployed again to South Arabia for two months in January and February 1966 for up-country overt reconnaissance and interdiction tasks before returning to Borneo with ‘D’ Squadron for the final phase of that campaign in July 1966. He was engaged mainly in training with the occasional internal security operation, as the war had largely been won. Peter de la Billiere, who commanded the SAS on the ground in Borneo, wrote in the regimental magazine Mars and Minerva that it was “one of the most efficient uses of military force in the history of the world”, which may have been subtle criticism of the way in which the Vietnam War was being fought. Dicker returned to Aden for a final round of ‘Keenie-Meenie operations’ (working undercover in civilian clothes to identify and eliminate urban terrorists). He returned from Aden on 9 June 1967, a few months before the final British withdrawal.

A deployment to newly independent Guyana from November 1967 - January 1968 was an occasion for Dicker to undertake jungle training in a different environment, but it was also a message of strong support for the government, which the C.I.A. and M.I.6 believed was in danger of being overthrown by a notorious local communist politician. During 1968-69, under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel John Slim (son of Field Marshal Sir William Slim), 22 SAS set out to adapt, extend, improve and leverage the regiment’s skills, especially those which would be most useful to ‘British interests overseas’ during the next ten years. This effort culminated in a deployment on the northern border of peninsula Malaysia, in Dicker’s case from 23 March - 8 May 1970. It was intended to discourage Chin Peng and his remnant Communist Terrorists from continuing their second attempt to take over Malaya. During this Second Malayan Emergency, the insurgents made sporadic incursions from ‘safe-haven’ bases that they had established across the international border in the ethnic Malay areas of the far south of Thailand.

Dhofar – Operation Storm
In April 1969 Dicker was part of a small SAS team sent to the headquarters of the Trucial Oman Scouts in what is now the United Arab Emirates to train a 30-strong cadre of local non-commissioned officers. One of his colleagues wrote “We ran a very intense, high-information training programme on the capabilities and uses of modern heavy weapons – mortars, artillery and machine-guns – in war situations, and how to direct and control them by radio. The entire cadre were jebalis – troops drawn from the southern Omani province of Dhofar. They were some of the best and most attentive students we had trained. Whenever we called a halt because we were tired, they just wanted to carry on. The one officer on the course was fluent in English. The course ran for six weeks and we were pleased and impressed with the results they achieved. The final test was a huge live-firing exercise using all the weapons we had been training with. The jebali officer controlled the fire that the senior and junior NCOs were putting down. We returned to the UK delighted with the results of our work. Two years later those same men were using their knowledge to attack ‘D’ Squadron in Dhofar at the start of Operation Storm. I crouched in my sangar as the first incomers started to explode around us, thinking ‘The man controlling that is well trained.’’ (Ken Connor, The Secret History of the SAS p 228-9 refers)

An SAS team arrived in Oman to protect the newly installed Sultan Qaboos in the wake of the British-sponsored coup on 23 July 1970 that deposed his father. They were closely followed by the fifteen men of Dicker’s Troop from ‘D’ Squadron, together with the Squadron O.C., Major Tony Jeapes. Their task was to initiate Operation Storm, the codename for a campaign to end foreign-sponsored communist insurgency in Oman. Like every other SAS deployment to Oman throughout the six years of Operation Storm, Dicker’s mission was classified Top Secret, and he set off under a cover story that he would be spending time transiting through the British air base at the tiny emirate of Sharjah. Dicker stepped off the RAF plane in Sharjah on 21 September 1970 and no onward flight ever materialised. He arrived by road in Oman as a member of the British Army Training Team (BATT). All foreign journalists were denied visas to enter Oman; anyway, Whitehall assumed that they would be totally uninterested in anything labelled ‘training’. Serious SAS battle casualties were sent to a military hospital in the Cyprus Sovereign Base Area and admitted as ‘road accident victims’. One of the doctors remarked “Sharjah must have the worst drivers in the world!”

Just as in Aden, when the SAS arrived in Oman the war was already a long way towards being lost. The Marxist rebels controlled virtually the whole of Dhofar apart from the capital, Salalah and a short strip of coastal plain, but, unlike Aden, there was no publicly announced decision made by politicians that Britain would withdraw and abandon the region to its fate. The first SAS Troop in Dhofar, which was based at Mirbat and Taqa from October 1970, had to ensure the security of the coastal strip. Dicker took part in aggressive patrols, helped set up the first medical clinics that the locals had ever seen and carried out projects to improve water supplies and repair irrigation channels destroyed by order of the old Sultan. The arrival of the whole of ‘D’ Squadron in February 1971 signalled the start of operations on the 3,000-foot-high escarpment leading up to the mountainous interior plateau, the jebel, which was cut by scores of deep ravines. The 2,000 rebels were so well-equipped and heavily armed that they were easily capable of firing several hundred rounds from mortars and artillery each day. To even out the odds, the SAS recruited and trained fundamentalist jebalis who had become disenchanted with the Marxist ideology and methods of the rebel leaders and formed them into combat groups known as Firqats.

After extensive reconnaissance patrols had discovered the best routes up the escarpment and probed the rebel defences, two SAS Troops and sixty men of the first Firqat ascended to the plateau on 13 March 1971. They stayed there for twelve days, killing nine rebels and capturing several more without sustaining any casualties. Emboldened by this success, Major Jeapes planned a more ambitious operation, involving the Firqat, the whole of ‘D’ Squadron and half of ‘B’ Squadron, who were arriving to relieve ‘D’. At the end of his briefing, the unpopular Jeapes told the SAS that they were “going up Jebel Aram to teach the enemy a lesson”. For three days, they tried and failed to make headway against the men that they had trained as Trucial Oman Scouts back in 1969. Ken Connor commented that if anyone was teaching people a lesson, it was the rebels: “they gave us a pounding… we made a hasty and undignified retreat. As we reached the foot of the jebel and began to cross the arid plain towards Taqa, plumes of dust rising from our boots at each step, a dour Scots sergeant turned round and shook his fist towards Jebel Aram, shouting ‘And let that be a lesson to you!’ ”

Dicker returned to Oman for his third and final deployment during the Dhofar war on 13 September, to participate in Operation Jaguar, which was launched on 2 October 1971 by two full SAS Squadrons and all available Firqats. This was a much more successful strike, which broke rebel resistance across the eastern jebel after a series of fierce contacts in which a SAS sergeant was mortally wounded and two other men suffered severe wounds/’road accidents’. Jaguar was the defining operation of the overall Storm conflict and by the end of the year, when Dicker returned to the UK with his Squadron, half of the rebel territory was back under Omani government control, with pacification and civilian aid programs well under way.

Platoon Commander in Ulster – “I know that you have displayed great leadership and personal courage”
Dicker’s initial service with 22 SAS ended in 1972 and he returned to 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment as a Staff Sergeant, which was probably a significant promotion and pay rise from his SAS rank (a Staff Sergeant is often called Colour Sergeant in line infantry battalions, due to their senior sergeants’ traditional role in protecting the Colours during battle). Dicker commanded a rifle platoon in the field during two Emergency tours on the Northern Ireland border, November 1972 - December 1974, for which he was awarded a particularly well-deserved Mention in Despatches. Dicker took the initiative in training his platoon in many SAS patrol, reconnaissance and attack techniques, which paid off handsomely during various contacts with the IRA. His military skills, drive, willingness to take risks and overwhelmingly positive attitude clearly made a deep impression on those in command of the Hampshires.

Dicker’s return to 1st Battalion Hampshires did not last more than three years. It was followed by his next two-year ‘away’ posting, to Hong Kong garrison (March 1974 – January 1976). Dicker was accompanied by his wife and three daughters (who must have found Hong Kong quite a contrast to Freshwater, Isle of Wight). He received his LSGC during this tour. Britain had maintained a strong military presence in Hong Kong since the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, during which Red Guards had staged various incidents on the border and sponsored an attempt to ‘liberate’ the colony. Special Forces were not deployed in Hong Kong except on training exercises, but a small cell at the Garrison H.Q. worked with M.I.5 and the highly efficient Hong Kong Special Branch (who jointly led the counter-subversion effort against China, Russia and other communist regimes in south-east Asia), as well as preparing the ground for SAS units to arrive as part of the Hong Kong reinforcement plan should relations with China worsen.

Dicker was posted to the Jungle Warfare School in Brunei from November 1979 - December 1981, probably as an instructor, given its status as the most demanding and professional of all the British training schools at that time. It accepted trainees sent by both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth governments. His swansong was a prestigious five-year loan service posting to NATO in West Germany, from May 1982 to September 1987, probably as an instructor at the International Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol School (ILRRPS), based at Weingarten in southern Germany. Primarily run by Belgium, Germany, Greece, Norway, the United States and the United Kingdom, ILRRPS (since renamed as the International Special Training Center) provided specialist training to allow soldiers to operate effectively during target acquisition and intelligence gathering missions far behind Soviet lines. His photographs show that Dicker was officially badged as a SAS Warrant Officer, which doubtless boosted his influence with allied military personnel.

Tony Dicker left the army on 27 November 1987, shortly before his 45th birthday. His Military Conduct was rated Exemplary. “WOII Dicker is mentally alert and intelligent, he is physically very fit and has a strong, straight-forward personality. He is a man of integrity and has recently held a job for 5 years which has required a high level of tact and individual responsibility and which he has carried out thoroughly well.”

Sold with original Mention in Despatches Certificate; three original letters of congratulation; copied Certificate of Service and Mention in Despatches citation; three original photographs depicting the recipient; and a newspaper cutting.