Parabellum thanks, didn't know about the Saladin. Agree we pulled out of Aden but was it only a part of the East of Suez bit of simply it became an unsustainable drain?
We deployed through Aden out bound and 3 months later, when we were recalled by Wilson, now Prime Minister, we planned to return that way too.
Scant hours before we departed Malaysia we were ordered to route Bahrain, Akrotiri routing via Iran and Turkey.
I later saw papers urging Wilson to stay east of Suez as we could do things in the region that the US could not. We had been recalled as we were weakening our contribution to NATO.
Wilson really wanted to retain the Singapore base and as you will recall it we didn't really leave east of Suez until 1974.