The colour blue.

[den]

It turns out that Iranian forces made an earlier concerted attempt to seize a boarding party from the Royal Australian Navy. The Australians, though, to quote one military source, "were having none of it". The BBC has been told the Australians re-boarded the vessel they had just searched, aimed their machine guns at the approaching Iranians and warned them to back off, using what was said to be "highly colourful language".

This is why the Aussie armed forces aren't used on peace keeping missions. They shoot back. And use colourful language.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the British could have used some of the old Aussie spirit, then.

The argument was made that if the British had resisted, they would have been killed by an overpowering Iranian force.

First of all, this is far from obvious: we don't know what orders the Iranians had, or the state of the Iranian morale. It is quite possible that, if they had resisted, the Iranians would have backed down on standing orders to do so if resistance was encountered, or that their morale simply would have broken.

Secondly, if the British had resisted and been killed, at least they would have saved their Service's honor -- instead of being used for the enemy's purposes. There was a time when officers and men of the Royal Navy understood that.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

The Royal Marines were caught in the open in their little boats, but the Aussies went back to the ship and were picked up by helicopter. I'm sure they'd have been picked up if they were in the little boats, too. It wouldn't stop the colourful language, though.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The Royal Marines were caught in the open in their little boats, but the Aussies went back to the ship and were picked up by helicopter. I'm sure they'd have been picked up if they were in the little boats, too. It wouldn't stop the colourful language, though.

Two points:

1) The Royal Marines were armed. They could have resisted.

2) When the Royal Marines were captured, the Royal Navy commander on the spot could have treated this as Iran launching a war against Britain, and begun offensive operations against Iranian forces. No such operations were launched. Not even a limited one against the specific forces that had attacked the Royal Marines.

3) The situation in "2" is almost certainly the fault of the Rules of Engagement insisted upon by the British Government. Heck, the Royal Naval commander involved, an Admiral, actually boasted that he was trying to "prevent a war." The fool didn't even grasp that in doing so, he'd merely lost a small one!