Lt-Col Ian Crooke, SAS officer who rescued hostages in Gambia and served in the Falklands war – obituary

Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Crooke, who has died aged 80, led a secret SAS mission to rescue hostages held by rebel forces in 1981 in Gambia.

In July 1981, the president of the former British colony, Sir Dawda Jawara, was in England for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral. While he was away, a Marxist coup d’état took place.

Economic hardship, together with several years of poor harvests, had prepared the ground for a rebellion. There was resentment, too, that commerce in the country was dominated by foreigners at the expense of local businessmen.

Troops from neighbouring Senegal had been sent to fight the rebels who had seized Lady Chilel Jawara, one of the president’s two wives, her children and other hostages. The insurgents also controlled the country’s armoury, airport, and a radio station in the capital, Banjul.

Banks and shops were broken into and safe deposit boxes rifled. Liquor stores were looted and many of the gunmen were youths who had never handled weapons before and were drunk.

The intervention of Senegalese forces led to an escalation of violence on the part of the rebels, and the president, a long-time ally of Britain, asked Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, for assistance. Advised to move cautiously, she agreed to send a small reconnaissance team to liaise with Senegalese troops, report on the situation as it developed and await further instructions.

Lieutenant-Colonel (now General Sir) Michael Rose, the CO of 22 SAS, decided to send Crooke. He told him to choose the men to accompany him and take whatever arms and equipment he needed. Crooke and two sergeants passed through the special forces security system at Heathrow airport and boarded a flight to Dakar in Senegal.

There, they met a team from Delta Force. The elite special forces unit from the American army was commanded by Major “Bucky” Burruss but had no clearance from Washington to go into Gambia. Burruss and Crooke, however, had built up a close rapport, having taken part in joint training exercises.

Rose, in Hereford, was using a Delta force satellite radio to keep anxious officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office informed of developments. The FCO had strong reservations about intervening in the rapidly deteriorating situation.

A French-trained Senegalese unit had recaptured the airport at Banjul, and Crooke and his small team, still in civilian clothes, flew there. A recce on foot confirmed their assessment that the rebels would not put up an effective resistance against a show of strength by trained troops and Crooke encouraged the Senegalese to employ a more forceful strategy.

One of his sergeants stayed with the Senegalese force co-ordinating an attack. Crooke persuaded a taxi driver to take him and the other sergeant through the rebel lines to the British High Commission. There they learned that the rebels were holding Lady Jawara and her children at a British clinic nearby. Crooke said that he intended to rescue them, and when the High Commissioner demurred he insisted that he telephone the doctor at the clinic and say that SAS men were on their way there.

Crooke and his sergeant disarmed the guards on the door of the clinic before slipping inside the building. The rebels were taken by surprise, and in a matter of minutes the hostages were freed and safe in the High Commission.

Reinforcements enabled the Senegalese forces to establish control of most of Banjul. President Jawara flew in from Dakar and broadcast to the Gambian people from the Senegalese High Commission in an attempt to restore order. Within a week the coup, which had cost almost 1,000 lives, was over and Sir Dawda Jawara’s government reinstated.

But the FCO was upset by Crooke’s high-handed treatment of the High Commissioner and there was talk of him facing a court-martial for exceeding his authority. On his return to London, however, he was taken to 10 Downing Street to brief the PM. She took a different view from her officials. He received a DSO and the sergeants DCMs. The award ceremony was conducted in private.

Ian Warren Thomson Crooke was born on March 12 1942 in Darjeeling, India. He spent much of his childhood in Rhodesia before returning to England to attend preparatory school and then Wellington College.

In August 1962, he was commissioned into the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and served with the 1st Battalion in Aden and then in Borneo during the Confrontation with Indonesia. After a posting to Osnabrück, West Germany, in 1977 he transferred to 22 SAS Regiment. Always known as “Crookie”, he served in Northern Ireland on two emergency tours in command of a troop and then a squadron. He was twice Mentioned in Despatches.

In 1980, during the Iranian Embassy siege, Rose commanded 22 SAS in the operation to rescue hostages taken by heavily armed terrorists. Crooke was one of the two officers tasked with co-ordinating the military operation with the Metropolitan Police and the security services.

After the Gambia mission, in 1982, at the outset of the Falklands Islands conflict Crooke, the SAS Operations Officer, played an important part in arranging an early deployment of D and G squadrons. He subsequently commanded B squadron in an operation which had to be aborted when the Argentinians surrendered.

After commanding 23 SAS, Crooke retired from the Army in 1986. He became managing director of KAS International, a security company set up by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir David Stirling, the founder of the SAS. The original policy to gather intelligence evolved into a more ambitious plan to employ former SAS men for anti-poaching operations in southern Africa. After it became involved in commercial espionage in England, it was wound up.

Crooke settled in South Africa. In 1993 he took part in a free-fall parachuting display for charity but he suffered a stroke and was seriously injured on landing. With characteristic courage and determination, he learnt to walk, talk and write all over again.

Ian Crooke married first (dissolved), in 1972, Susan Godby. In 1990 he married Lesley Lock, who survives him with a son and two daughters of his first marriage and two stepsons of his second.

Ian Crooke, born March 12 1942, died May 17 2022