Perim (), also called Mayyun () in Arabic, is a Yemeni volcanic island in the Strait of Mandeb at the south entrance into the Red Sea, off the south-west coast of Yemen. It administratively belongs to Dhubab District or Bab al-Mandab District, Taiz Governorate. The island of Perim divides the strait of Mandeb into two channels.
The island, as a dependency of Aden Colony, was a part of the British Empire between 1857 and 1967.
Etymology In ancient times it was called "the island of Diodorus" (, ).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) - Diodori insula It is mentioned by Pliny the Elder, by the author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and in Ptolemy's Geography.Claudius Ptolemy, Geography Perim possibly derives from the Arab general term Barim (chain) associated with the history of the Straits and one of its Arab names, the other Arab name being Mayyun.
The Portuguese called it Majun or Meho (derived from Mayun). In 1513, Albuquerque solemnly named the island Vera Cruz. On many British and French maps of the 17th and 18th century the island is called Babelmandel, as the Straits were. Some early 19th century navigation guides still call it the island of Bab-el-Mandeb, although they may mention that it is also called Perim.India Directory, or Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies,[...], London 1836. By the time the British occupied the island in 1857, the name Perim had come into general usage.
Geology
Perim island is an eroded fragment of the southwest flank of a late Miocene volcano, whose center was on the southwesternmost tip of Arabia. The volcano is the westernmost of the east–west line of six central vent volcanoes (the Aden line) that extends 200 km (125 mi) along the coast of Arabia from Perim to Aden. It is believed that the volcanism is related to an eastward-propagating rift produced before the most recent stage of sea-floor spreading in the Gulf of Aden.
Geography
Perim has been described as crab-shaped. The island is long and wide. It has a surface area of and rises to an altitude of . Perim encloses a deep and comparatively large natural harbour on the southwestern coast. The fishing village of Mayyun is located at the bottom of the bay.
The island divides the wide Bab-el-Mandeb into two: the Large Strait, with an average width of , and the Small Strait, varying from in width. The Large Strait is generally deep water varying from about or more in the middle channel to about close to the coastal reefs. The depth of the Small Strait varies from and is free from navigational changes in the fairway, but strong and irregular tidal streams make navigation hazardous. There have been frequent shipwrecks in the vicinity of Perim, particularly in the Small Strait.
The absence of fresh water on the island has always been one of the major difficulties impeding permanent settlement. Although there are occasional heavy rains, there may be stretches of eight months or more without rain. The long-term average rainfall (in 1821–1912) was about per year. Vegetation is very scarce.
History
The straits of Bab-el-Mandeb were probably witness to the earliest migrations of modern humans out of Africa roughly 60,000 years ago. At this time the oceans were much lower because so much water was frozen in Ice Age glaciers and the straits were much shallower or dry.
Despite its sheltered natural harbour and strategic location at the entrance of the Red Sea, Perim was largely bypassed by written history until the middle of the 19th century, in good part because the bare, waterless island could not easily sustain life. As a result, only fishermen and pearl divers lived there seasonally, building reed huts with material brought from elsewhere.
In 1513, Afonso de Albuquerque, as part of the Portuguese bid to seize control of the trade routes to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, attacked Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea but failed to capture the fortified city. Having failed in his main objective, he nonetheless sailed for the Red Sea. The Red Sea pilots of those days lived on an island close to Perim and one was secured by sending forward as a decoy an Indian-built ship. The passage of the first Portuguese ship through the Bab-el-Mandeb was the occasion for much ceremony. After having spent some time at the island of Kamaran in preparation for an attack on Jeddah that could not be carried out due to contrary winds, the fleet left Kamaran on its return journey. Perim, which Albuquerque named Vera Cruz, was inspected and pronounced unfit for a fortress due to lack of water.
During the following years, the Portuguese tried several more times to conquer Aden and gain the mastery of the Red Sea, harassing shipping and battling the Egyptian Mamluk, then Ottoman navies, which gradually gained the upper hand. These actions as well as the sending of an annual fleet to blockade the Bab-el-Mandeb and prevent Indian merchant ships from entering the Red Sea most likely involved frequent use of Perim's natural harbour. By the time the Ottomans captured Aden from its local ruler in 1538, the Ottoman fleet was taking control of the Red Sea, maintaining firm control of the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb and Aden until the 1630s when the Turks were expelled from Yemen and the south half of the Red Sea.
A French naval squadron might have used Perim's natural harbour in the course of a punitive expedition against nearby Mocha in 1737.Some British historians reported that the French occupied and even annexed the island in 1737 but a French naval historian found no records for an occupation in the logbook of the expedition. In 1799, the island was briefly occupied by the British East India Company in preparation for the invasion of Egypt.
Perim under British rule
In 1856, seeing the French-sponsored Suez Canal project as a method to promote French power at Britain's expense, Prime Minister Palmerston agreed to the occupation of Perim as one of many options to counter assumed French political and military ambitions in Egypt and the Red Sea. In December 1856, Lord Elphinstone, the governor of Bombay, wrote to the Resident of Aden that "on the subject of Perim, [..] we have been directed to occupy the island, and that it is the intention of Her Majesty's government that a lighthouse should be built there." He added that since the island had already been taken possession of in the name of the East India Company in 1799, it was considered as a part of the dependencies of India, and therefore no formalities of any kind was necessary. The Resident immediately proceeded to organize a small landing party for the peaceful occupation of the uninhabited island.
The actual decision to occupy might have been precipitated by an unfounded report that the French, who were said to have been surveying the area for some time, had dispatched a frigate from Réunion to annex the island..Contemporary French archives indicate that neither the French government nor the French navy showed interest in Perim. Nevertheless, the episode gave birth to a Royal Navy urban legend according to which during the frigate's stopover in Aden, the French captain and officials were wined and dined until they were too intoxicated to set sail, giving time to the British to quickly dispatch a vessel to Perim to hoist the British flag. Charles Rathbone Low, History of the Indian Navy (1613-1863), Volume 2, p. 385-386. The declared reason for the occupation, however, was the urgent need to erect a lighthouse at the entrance of the notoriously dangerous Bab el Mandeb and indeed, after much bickering about the location and other factors, an 11-meter high lighthouse was finally built and inaugurated on 1 April 1861. Despite the lighthouse's operation, the treacherous waters around Perim continued to claim many vessels..Peter Pickering & Ingleby Jefferson (2012), Perim Lighthouse, section of Perim Island - The Last Colonial Outpost.
Perim was attached to Aden, itself a dependency of the Bombay Presidency, British India. For the next two decades, the only sign of British occupation was the lighthouse and a small detachment from the Aden garrison. Otherwise, the barren waterless island was left to the few fishermen and Somali herders who went there.. Occasional proposals by an Aden coaling company to open a branch on the island did not materialize.
While Aden had a fine natural harbour, it became ineffective starting in the mid-19th century as iron and steel ships of greater draught were being built. Starting in the 1860s, many of the larger steamers had to stay well off Aden Harbour, making the process of coaling and taking in provisions both time-consuming and hazardous.. This deficiency was not to be overcome until dredging projects began in earnest in the early 1890s..
In 1881, a complete outsider, Hinton Spalding of London, was granted permission to start a coaling station on Perim, whose inner harbour could accommodate vessels of any draught. With the backing of a number of large ship-owners, he launched the Perim Coal Company (PCC) and on 29 August 1883 Perim Harbour supplied coal provisions to its first steamer. This marked the beginning of a struggle between Aden and Perim for the Red Sea coaling business that was to be waged by the two ports until the mid-1930s..
During those 50 years, Perim was to be entirely geared for supplying coal: the harbour, roads and accommodation for workers were laid out for this purpose only. As for Perim's lack of water, it was no more a drawback than at Aden: both ports supplied water from condensers to the ships since Aden water, delivered from out of town, was considered too brackish for the purpose. Before long the PCC was also able to grab the lion's share of the salvage business due to it being very near the most dangerous waters in the area..
Between 1923 and 1927 more coal was being loaded at Perim than at Aden.. However, Perim's decline came fast due to its failure to grab a share of the fast-growing oil fuel business that was cornered by Aden as coal-burning steamers were being retired. The PCC went bankrupt in 1935 and Perim slipped back into insignificance.
During the First World War, the Ottoman Turks in Arabia sent a force to threaten Aden and the British communications along the Red Sea. This included an assault on Perim on the 14 and 15 June 1915 when Turks landed on the north coast of the island. They were driven off by a detachment of the 23rd Sikh Pioneers garrisoned on the island under the command of Captain A.G.C. Hutchinson. The troops on the mainland facing the island were subsequently pushed back by troops from Aden supported by the Royal Navy and by the end of the year all threat to the island of Perim had been removed.Stephen Luscombe, "Perim Island". The British Empire. Accessed 18 April 2017.
In 1964 Perim took on a new role, it became the base for the British Middle East Relay Station. This was built by the British Diplomatic Wireless Service to be a relay station for the World Service of the BBC. The station had been previously based in Somalia and called the East Africa Relay Station but was closed after a disagreement between the new Somali and the British Governments. The same transmitters were used in both stations and were sent back to the DWS main technical base at Crowborough in the UK for a thorough service prior to being set up again on Perim.
The base was built from scratch with new large diesel fuel storage tanks being situated in the port area and a supply pipeline installed to serve the Deltic generators at the transmitter site. 20 prefabricated houses were built on the western side of the island next to the transmitter site for the engineers and their families. In addition two small barrack blocks provided accommodation for the platoon of Aden based soldiers that were on a two week ‘RnR rotation’ to provide security. The foundations for all these buildings are still visible on Google Earth.Neil Spalding