SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  The Regiment mourned his loss and shook themselves out of any residual feeling that they were still picnicking in Arcadia. Woodhouse sent emissaries to the Condon family in Ireland to try and ease the blow, telling them the story that is always told, as it must be, that James’s death was not in vain because the cause had benefited and others would live because he died; but in the chill of death’s pallor, all passion spent, and such a long, long way from Tipperary, was it true?

  Yes it was. A major enemy camp complex had been discovered, sited so as to launch incursions into a most sensitive area. One such sortie had probably been thwarted for it caused no trouble, nor did any others for more than two months. Thus, the cause was unquestionably helped and lives almost certainly saved. All the same, there are causes and causes, to each of which the proportion of acceptable casualties must be graded. In the battle of the Long Pa Sia Bulge it was very low indeed, and Woodhouse re-emphasized the ‘Scoot’ in Shoot-and-Scoot. But he also told the SAS to plan for offensive operations across the border; and continued to advise General Walker that attack is the best form of defence, as the Condon patrol had unintentionally demonstrated.

  By the beginning of April 1964 the incursions into Western Sarawak had been decisively defeated by the infantry and a lull followed. Soekarno had founded his whole Confrontation strategy, diplomatic and propaganda as well as military, upon the premise that the Malaysian peoples would welcome his troops as liberators. He was therefore aggrieved and genuinely surprised to find that the locals were actively helping the British, so that his only effective allies were the communists. They were a law unto themselves and not to be trusted; but the risk would have to be taken and the CCO thus became increasingly active inside Sarawak. Some crossed into Kalimantan to return as trained agitators and saboteurs, though Special Branch was active too and achieved some notable successes.

  ‘D’ Squadron had had a gruelling four months, despite Richardson’s having been the only serious engagement. All along the Pensiangan and Kelabit Highlands fronts the enemy had built up strong forces that might attack at any time in an attempt to establish enclaves in Malaysia. Patrols were always on the move, sleeping rough and secretly. Tension ruled, since waiting to be attacked demands unremitting alertness, especially in the jungle where every tree may conceal an aggressive enemy, whereas offensive operations require courage to be screwed up only for the event. Indeed, Woodhouse had told Woodiwiss that the enemy might well attack SAS patrols which, small, isolated and near the border as they were, would pay them well if they could pull it off. Paradoxically, however, the tiredest of all were the six patrols in the far-out ‘ulu’ of the Third Division with only the occasional Punan for company and no stimulating enemy activity at all.

  The Squadron was more than ready to go home. Woodiwiss, though, was bothered by two niggles that he would have liked to resolve before handing over. Were those camps of Richardson’s over the border or weren’t they? And the incursion he had followed heading into the Bulge had not returned to its base during the five days he had spent there, so where had it been? Where, for that matter, was it now?

  Woodiwiss need not have worried about leaving an unfinished job. Word now came that ‘D’ Squadron would stay in Borneo until June, despite Woodhouse’s earlier forecast, for reasons that seemed at the time to offer the best compromise between conflicting needs. The lull in Borneo coincided with the start of the Aden insurrection, which would culminate in the British leaving three years later. ‘A’ Squadron was to go there; not, however, for immediate operations, but to train and reconnoitre in the mountainous desert of the hinterland, to be ready when the call came. In Borneo it was still hoped that as soon as the threat to Brunei was satisfactorily countered the SAS could be released, which just shows how hard it is to predict events with the limited information available at any one time.

  They could not go yet, though. The four months’ limit for jungle operations was only an arbitrary one, a longer period never having been tried, so it seemed reasonable to keep ‘D’ Squadron out there for another two. That solution was also urged by the air transport people to save expense, an economy no doubt commendable to the taxpayer, but to soldiers on active service it was inflammatory. ‘D’ Squadron officers looked sideways at their men to assess whether their morale could take the strain. The men were angry to be thus looked at. Of course they could take it, tired though they were. The decision was justified by ‘A’ Squadron almost at once becoming engaged in bloody combat.

  CHAPTER 6

  ‘CRUSH MALAYSIA’

  ‘D’ Squadron’s Second Tour, Continued, April to June 1964

  Dogged but very tired ‘D’ Squadron was consciously having to whip up that enthusiasm for operations which Woodhouse considered to be the hallmark of the SAS. When the enemy relaxed his pressure in late April and May 1964, Woodiwiss managed to allow each man ten days’ local leave in Malaya. This was on the whole beneficial, though returning to travail and tension in the knowledge that hard-earned savings were no longer available for proper leave at home was sorely testing.

  With the Indonesian communists in the political ascendant and encouraging Soekarno along the paths of unrighteousness, strident and belligerent propaganda accompanied a continuing military build-up opposite Western Sarawak, the Kelabit Highlands, and Sabah south of Pensiangan where the greater part of ‘D’ Squadron was deployed. The country here was wild and rugged, peaking to 3,000 feet, with the villages widely spaced and isolated. Communications to the coast were poor because the river system on which they depended flowed over the border into Indonesia, where it became the big Sembakung and an excellent supply line for enemy forces. More convenient still for the Indonesians was its tributary the Salilir, which ran close and parallel to the border for twenty miles, supporting the military outposts of Lipaha, Nantakor, Lumbis and Labang. The Salilir also rose in Sabah, flowing through a gap in the border ridge near the villages of Kabu and Sakikilo, where Sergeant Alf Gerry and his patrol had drawn a winner if challenge and danger were the criteria of good fortune. Lillico too had an interesting beat centred on Salilir an and Talinbakus with an enemy camp just over the border.

  The effort devoted to hearts and minds during the past year now paid well, the enemy’s strength and movements being constantly updated by border crossers who were encouraged to continue their normal traffic. But the area was too large for the SAS to visit every community often, and the Muruts’ chief concern being to survive in a dangerous milieu of warring foreigners, no one doubted that they told the Indonesians as much about the British as vice versa. Disturbed, though not unduly, the British did not punish such duplicity, but rather worked positively to strengthen existing bonds.

  Gerry’s patrol at Kabu was always within a few miles of 100 Indonesian soldiers at Lipaha. He had to assume that if the Muruts knew where he was, the enemy would very soon know too. Yet he or his Border Scouts had constantly to appear in the villages to collect information and develop close relationships; he would lose face either by not turning up or by letting himself be found, but to hide from Murut hunters meant never relaxing from the highest standard of jungle skill.

  Woodiwiss made these points among others: ‘Keep on the move or you won’t stay hidden for long, but don’t let yourselves become physically exhausted so that senses are dulled and reactions slow. Six hours marching a day excluding halts are enough except in emergency; halt every half-hour and remove bergens, though halts are for watching and listening as well as resting. Each man’s load must be strictly limited and supervised by the patrol commander; carry no more than seven days rations and hide the rest extremely carefully, returning to the cache with the utmost caution. Wait until last light in stand-to positions before putting up bashas. Ideally the camp should be on a hillside (hammocks are useful for this) so as to be clear of ridges, away from water and at least 200 yards from any track; bury rubbish more than 20 yards away and so deep that pigs cannot dig it up.’

  The successful defence of Malaysian Borne
o depended on the Step-Up drill for flying infantry in quickly when an incursion was detected, and it was constantly practised and improved. But a still more effective way of achieving security was indicated by a glance at the map of the Rivers Sembakung and Salilir. General Walker saw clearly that if the enemy were to be hit in his own bases and have his supply route constantly interrupted, he would be kept busy defending himself and have little inclination for raiding across the border. That, however, would be a bold political as well as military move which excited shock and dismay at all levels up to the highest. But nobody could deter Walker when he knew he was right, and he pressed the case with importunate vigour. Woodhouse, quietly gratified, ordered the SAS to make all preparations now.

  BACK TO THE THREE CAMPS

  The Long Pa Sia Bulge remained vulnerable to a considerable enemy threat. It was a very difficult area to patrol without locals to help and with only the barest outline map on which even the frontier was in doubt. Woodiwiss therefore made it his first priority to disperse this fog of war by sending another patrol to the three enemy camps; and because that would be even more hazardous than the first, and since he was sure it would mean crossing the border for which special permission was needed, he was able to obtain from his superiors the indulgence of leading it himself.

  Woodiwiss then went down with amoebic dysentery, a foul and totally incapacitating disease, and the operation was delayed until his return to duty. On 27 May 1964 the team roped down from helicopters at a point on Richardson’s old entry route, which they followed, led by Richardson himself and Allen. They were nine men in all, so that Woodiwiss could form two fully competent patrols should he wish to, carefully chosen as befitted the operation’s importance. Bob Creighton went along, and another ‘old Malayan Sergeant’, ‘Buddha’ Bexton, whose nickname was an imaginative change from the many ‘Geordies’, ‘Jocks’ and ‘Paddys’. The likeness was striking when he sat in front of his bergen without his shirt, smiling and benevolent.

  Not having to cut their way, they progressed three times faster than before and reached the landing-point in only four days. There they found a pair of socks and some rations which it was not good SAS practice to have left these behind, but the previous exit had been hurried. The next morning, 1 June, they hid their bergens and approached the TNKU camp in fighting order. They found it to be again unoccupied though it had been quite recently. Richardson and Allen noticed that its layout and defences had been altered.

  Pressing on past the sentry post, also unoccupied, Richardson whispered that the main camp was just in front. Woodiwiss took his word for it: ‘I couldn’t see anything, but I’m like that in the jungle.’ For those who could, some of the bashas seemed to have been destroyed, but they were allowed no more than a glance. ‘Some chap loosed off at us, very close, missed and seemed more surprised than we were; we really took off.’ They scooted without shooting because there was no one to shoot at. Only the third man caught a glimpse of an enemy soldier in uniform and he vanished as soon as seen; they thought afterwards that he might have been on his way to the sentry post. The drill worked well and they all met again intact at the emergency rendezvous. Then they ‘leapfrogged’ back to cover each other, and after retrieving their bergens, they headed north, fast.

  There was no call for heroics this time, the main point having been established that the camps were still actively occupied; further details such as the number of enemy and nature of the alterations, presumably made to confuse an expected attack, would have been useful but did not warrant risking lives. What Woodiwiss really needed to know was the position of the camps and in that he was lucky; a rare combination of clear visibility and an uninterrupted view from a hilltop revealed a spur running north from the camp area to a high east/west ridge that was quite obviously the border, while a parallel ridge to the south was equally obviously the one that had misled Richardson. Between them flowed the River Pa Raya, though it would be some months before the British put a name to it.

  Richardson and Allen recognized the spur as the route of the enemy track that they had followed, so Woodiwiss chose another spur further to the west and headed for the border. Night intervened, an uneasy one now that they were compromised in hostile territory and knew that nine men could not avoid leaving tracks, but they were unmolested. In the morning of the 2nd, they topped the main ridge into what Creighton realized was his old patrol area in the ‘ulu’ Paling, and headed northeast to relocate the enemy track. They found it long before they expected, but there was no mistaking it for its great width. Closer examination electrified them by revealing that many soldiers had used it very recently, heading into Sabah. Woodiwiss’s determination to resolve the area’s mysteries was thus fully justified.

  Darkness again dictated a halt. On the 3rd, Woodiwiss split his team, sending Richardson east to find the old trade route that led north along the Plandok to the nearest landing-point and Long Pa Sia, while he himself followed the enemy with Bexton, Creighton and ‘Dicky’ Bird, the signaller. Creighton led, finding the way without difficulty by the sweet-papers and fag-ends that littered the track, one interesting packet being of a brand not sold in Sabah. ‘These Indos were supposed to be from a crack para outfit called RPKAD,’ he observes, ‘but they seemed a load of rubbish to me’; which was a reasonable enough judgement then, but premature.

  Further acquaintance with the track gave the impression that it had been regularly used for two or three months by small groups as well as large, and Woodiwiss could only wonder, not for the first time, whether the Condon incursion had stayed in Sabah and been regularly resupplied. A night stopping place for ten men had been occupied a week earlier, and then Creighton came upon a muddy part of the track with bootprints that were both military and fresh. Woodiwiss decided to call in the infantry, who might well reap a rich reward if infiltrated between the enemy and his base. To go any further now could forfeit surprise so he returned south, rejoining Richardson who had found the trade-route.

  To arrange a rendezvous with infantry in unmapped jungle would invite failure. If by chance it succeeded, a real danger existed of positive mutual identification being achieved only when somebody was dead, particularly since the infantry in question would be Asians, the 2/7th Gurkha Rifles commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Rooney. Woodiwiss therefore decided to follow the normal Step-Up drill – reluctantly because it would take much longer – which directed him to meet them at a landing-point, guide them to the enemy track, and there leave them alone with the certainty that no friendly troops were nearby.

  Accordingly, on the 4th the patrol cut a lateral track eastward to the trade route and then marched north to the landing-point, having made a signal advocating reinforcement. In fact, several signals were needed to reassure headquarters that the enemy signs really were in friendly territory. Also, it seemed to Woodiwiss, to overcome a certain reluctance by the Gurkhas to believe it possible that there might be a large enemy force in their area. Time was thus wasted, but on the 6th a strong platoon at last flew in. It was commanded by Major Brian Watkinson, whom Woodiwiss was delighted to see for the two had not met since they joined the Army together at Sandhurst. So did the ‘old boy’ net cast its meshes to the wildest ‘ulu’, which was no bad thing for understanding and cooperation.

  Creighton was now lifted out (for an Arabic course), which displeased him much at the time and more later. Woodiwiss, Bexton and Bird went south again with the Gurkhas, feeling unusually secure among 40 heavily-armed soldiers. For their part, the smart, quick, disciplined little men eyed these bearded and threadbare guerillas with an interest that was at first critical; how could they shoot straight unshaven? But their rifles were as clean as the Gurkhas’ own and their desire to close with the enemy was as keen too, which is to say very keen indeed.

  At the night-stop the differences between the two life-styles widened again. The SAS had basha’d down – their bashas being up – with their supper cooking a bare fifteen minutes from halting. Relaxed but wide-eyed, they watched the
Gurkhas laying waste the jungle with their kukris and drawing great quantities of water as though settling in for a long stay. Woodiwiss could not but envy their commander: ‘He just sat down and waited for it all to happen; one chap built him a chair, another brought him a brew, while a third rigged his basha complete with mosquito net. He didn’t even know what was in his pack. His orderly saw to that.’

  In fact, it all made good sense. Forty men could not pretend like the SAS that they were not there; their camp had to be tactically sited and organized for defence, and their commander honoured as a man apart on whom the fate of all depended. There is no reason to suppose he did not like it, but the privilege had to be hardly earned in times of lonely responsibility.

  In the morning of 7 June the combined force traversed the newly-cut lateral track, the Gurkhas proving that they could be quieter than mice when approaching the enemy and a fight promised. They halted before reaching the incursion track, and the three SAS with Watkinson, his Platoon Sergeant and Section commanders went forward to reconnoitre and make a plan.

  When the SAS showed the track to their friends, the veteran Gurkha Sergeant’s slit eyes widened enough to gleam with expectancy as he saw the signs and pronounced them to be the real thing. Woodiwiss was modestly pleased with his achievement, a minor classic of tracking, interpretation, communications and organization leading to bringing in the infantry between the enemy and his base, apparently undetected. Now his job was done, but the thought of just walking away as the climax approached was quite unreal, even shocking; to do his job properly, he must surely show Watkinson the footprints in the mud as the most recent evidence of a certain enemy.

  They tracked north with Bexton in the lead, ‘his eyes were sharper than mine,’ says Woodiwiss, who followed; then came Bird, and after a gap Watkinson and his team. They moved slowly and silently, fully ready for action but not expecting it or they would never have risked spoiling this rare and exciting chance of catching the enemy completely unaware in a full-scale ambush of all the Gurkhas. Afterwards, Woodiwiss wrote in his Squadron Orders: ‘To use a border track is dangerous, to return on it is twice as dangerous, but to follow up along a track recently used by the enemy is suicide.’