Initially the Egyptians used the codename Cleopatra for the operation to liberate South Yemen. This evidently Egyptian name held no cultural resonance with anyone outside of Egypt and was switched in June 1964 for the more suitable codename, Operation Salah al-Din. This moniker appears to have only ever been known to the Egyptians and the Yemenis they worked with. It does not feature in any of the British archival material, even as a passing reference, and from a British perspective the insurgency was known as the Aden Emergency.

The influence of Egypt seems mostly forgotten by the majority of southern Yemenis now. After all, 1967 was half a century ago. But there are one or two remnants if one looks over the map. The most obvious is what was Falaise Camp. This was constructed at enormous and controversial cost to the British taxpayer and was barely used before it was renamed in 1968 as Camp Salah al-Din. As with many places and buildings around Aden, the new authorities of the National Liberation Front (NLF) sought to remodel their streets and neighbourhoods in their own image, dusting away the anachronisms of 128 years of British colonialism. Southern Yemenis had earned the right to replace the names of locally incomprehensible British victories over Germany such as “Falaise” and give these locations national names that connected with the local population.

And so, Falaise, the name of an obscure area of the battle of Falaise Pocket in France in 1944 that mattered to Britain, gave way to the name of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, or Saladin as he is known in the Anglicised version of his name – an Arab name that mattered deeply in Arab history. The Muslim general who defeated the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was also the conqueror of Egypt and established the Ayyubid dynasty. To this day he looms large as a historical figure in Egypt and his citadel in turn stands sentinel over Cairo, visibly dominating the city from its highest elevated point. In calling the operation after Salah al-Din, Gamal Abd al-Nasser was summoning the spirit of one of Egypt's greatest liberators to bring about a modern defeat of an occupying power in Arab land and embodying that spirit in a warrior figure who has deep resonance with all Arabs. The name Salah al-Din mattered to the NLF because it bequeathed their own victory in Aden.