[9] 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.

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.

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.

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."

[13] 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.

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.

[20] 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.

[23] 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 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.

The Army platoon was flown in and out on a combination of Blackburn Beverly, Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer and De Havilland Beaver flights.

While options for the future were being considered many of the British staff were flown to Francistown in Botswana (then Bechuanaland) on a temporary basis to build a small transmitter to broadcast BBC World Service into what was Rhodesia, that country having declared UDI in November 1965.

In the light of the fire damage and the deteriorating security situation in Aden it was decided to move the transmitters up the coast to the Omani island of Masirah.

Before the handover, the British government had put forward before the United Nations a proposal for the island to be internationalised as a way to ensure continued security of passage and navigation in the Bab-el-Mandeb,[27][28] but it was refused.

During the October War, South Yemeni artillery on Perim, along with Egyptian naval units, imposed an undeclared blockade at the southern entrance of the Red Sea.

Perim Island is strategically located at the exit of the Red Sea, and at the tail end of the Suez Canal, leading to the recent creation of an airbase.

Further backing to Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi's claims, UAE based tugboats have been reported to be shipping materials to Perim Island to aid the construction of the airbase.

Most of Perim's native inhabitants which numbered around 4500, were originally banished from the island during the period when the Soviet Union's military base was in operation.

The native Perim islanders eventually defeated the Houthis in a violent battle that lasted a couple of hours and led to a power plant being destroyed.

[36] However, based on a statement on the Saudi state news agency SPA, it was subsequently reported the construction was being carried out by a Saudi-led coalition to secure the area.

[37] Perim island is an eroded fragment of the southwest flank of a late Miocene volcano whose center was on the southwesternmost tip of Arabia.