SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  Approaching the mud, Bexton eased himself over a bank and Woodiwiss lost sight of him for a moment, which became eternity. The forest’s gentle hum was ruptured by a coarse shout expressing urgency and conveying dread. A burst of automatic fire clattered rudely, persisted brutally, and Bexton did not come back.

  Woodiwiss and Bird scooted, though not far or for long; together again they turned and retraced their steps, but now pressing close to mother earth for dear life and worming their way forward like hunting lizards. Shoot-and-Scoot procedure made no provision for going back, but to do so was logical as well as brave; the enemy would be rash to follow up his own sprung ambush and was most likely to retire immediately because he could not know the size of the British force. If, therefore, a cautious approach revealed that the Indonesians had gone, Bexton might still be hiding nearby, probably wounded. It was not to be; the enemy were talking and moving about just where he had disappeared, so that unless he had escaped altogether, which was scarcely credible, he must almost certainly be dead or a prisoner.

  As soon as Watkinson had collected his men, he took them through the contact area in line abreast, but met no opposition. The enemy, twenty in number, had left for the border by looping off the track and then returning to it; the opportunity of placing a decisive ambush further south had thus been missed but the SAS were grateful for the priority accorded to Bexton. He lay where he had fallen, instantly killed by many bullets.

  To endure the sickening descent from high purpose to deep depression and continue with an operation that seemed to have already ended in dismal failure was hard but necessary; and, in the event, astonishingly rewarding. Later in the day and but 200 yards from Bexton, the Gurkhas found a camp where 90 men had spent the previous night. On succeeding days, when the search was reinforced six more camps were discovered on Malaysian territory; all were unoccupied, but could have been used at any time for launching an attack in strength.

  Woodiwiss, typically, did not think the point worth making that he had more than succeeded in his initial aim of clarifying the frontier situation. The price paid was Condon’s and Bexton’s lives; a fair one in strictly impersonal and military terms, but as usual the SAS mourned the latest names on their Hereford clock with tough outward realism and deep inner concern. ‘Nearly everyone on that clock is there because of some mistake’, said one. ‘It’s always tragic when we lose a man; even if you hadn’t particularly liked him, you’d respected him for what he was and for what he’d achieved. We’re such a close team and know each other so well, you feel numb – until the next “op” and then you go at it just as hard as you can.’ But there was no question of anyone disliking ‘Buddha’ Bexton, whose inherent geniality and helpfulness increased as hardship worsened; a manifestation of high courage.

  Woodhouse felt the loss keenly too, the fourth death in as many months including two in South Arabia. He began seriously to wonder whether this rate of loss would unsettle his very small unit, which by no means regarded men as being routinely expendable; whether, indeed, this unexpectedly acute sensitivity might prove the Achilles’ heel of the SAS. But the Regiment’s effectiveness depended absolutely on intimate companionship, so all he could do was, on the one hand crack down on sentimentality, and, on the other, try to avoid casualties by any means short of curtailing operations. Meticulous training, planning and preparation were indubitably life-savers, and insofar as they could be raised above an already ambitious standard, they were to be, remorselessly; and since the aim of an SAS mission was rarely to stand and fight, Woodhouse stressed again the ‘Scoot’ in Shoot-and-Scoot. Even so, the Long Pa Sia Bulge had not yet claimed its last victim.

  When Woodiwiss returned to the Haunted House on 9 June, his Squadron’s long tour still had a fortnight to run. The men braced themselves to endure it, ruthlessly suppressing any yearning to relax because all the signs pointed to the enemy’s long build-up having reached the stage of action. The trial was much harder than starting up the Brecon Beacons for the third time. The mountains were twice as high anyway, and the physical effort alone of keeping constantly on the move with wasted bodies and months of accumulated weariness, trying to forestall the enemy by being everywhere at once, was not comparable. In addition, there was the mental stress of always expecting to be ambushed, a particularly disturbing element of which was nagging anxiety lest one should react incorrectly. Even success would not bring the clear-cut satisfaction of an offensive mission achieved; only a painfully gradual awareness that the enemy had not won.

  All along the Pensiangan front SAS patrols were well briefed on the enemy threat, largely from their own painstaking work over the previous months. Other Intelligence agencies were also involved, which was normal, but co-ordination was initially poor; unhappily, this is often the case owing to the secret nature of the business and the need to safeguard sources. Lillico, at Saliliran, became suspicious of the comings and goings of one individual, wasting much time and effort until he discovered that this intelligent and resourceful man was already working for the British.

  There was little that Lillico did not know about the enemy garrison at Nantakor, just a mile down the track; for instance, that two machine-guns were posted every day pointing north into Sabah. He had established their exact positions by going to look, crossing the border, which he should not have done, but: ‘only a little way. However, I was refused permission to take them out, which I could easily have done before NAAFI break. What annoyed me even more was that a young Royal Green Jackets officer had been over and nobbled one of these guns on another part of the front without asking anyone.’

  The obvious gateway between Kalimantan and Sabah was along the line of the main river between Labang and Bantul. To the east, a secluded side entrance was offered by the Gap, which Dennison and Lillico had virtually discovered a year earlier and where signs of an Indonesian reconnaissance patrol were indeed found. But when the enemy decided to test the British defences in greater strength, he went for Sergeant Alf Gerry’s village of Kabu on the 11 June, and the first thing he did after crossing the border was to ask a Murut where the SAS were with a view to assaulting them, as Woodhouse had predicted. This incursion may have been just a reconnaissance in force, because later in the day the enemy withdrew, releasing the man whose message came straight to Gerry. The latter gulped, flashed a Step-Up signal to base, and moved on. The infantry, again the 2/7th Gurkhas – which illustrates the considerable length of frontier being covered by one battalion and the key role of the SAS in rendering it effective – came in quickly, to discover ample evidence that 40 of the enemy had been and gone.

  Gerry and his two young troopers then began the most difficult and exhausting fortnight in his experience. ‘Have you ever tried to scream quietly?’ he asks. Everything had to be done quietly up near the border with, for all he knew, the enemy between him and his base. While quietly chopping hammock-poles, he was startled by his mate quietly whispering that he thought he heard something, and slashed his finger to the bone – quietly. ‘No stitching needle and had to use a sewing one; left a lump.

  ‘We lived like terrorists in hostile country. The Indos could look down onto the area from the hills either side of the river valley and came and went as they liked. They never found us although we knew they were chasing us, but it was dodgy. Only once had a good night’s rest when we were surrounded by Gurkhas. Never went into the villages now, but kept in touch through my two Border Scouts.’

  The long-fostered liaison with the Muruts continued to work quite well. On 14 June another 40-strong incursion was reported southwest of Kabu; this time the enemy clearly intended to stay, but after a determined stalk lasting three days the Gurkhas made fleeting contact and the Indonesians retired. Lillico, too, had a moment of excitement when his Muruts detected a force approaching Saliliran, though it left hurriedly before it could be ambushed. Similar indications were found near Bantul, but only when the enemy had been and gone. Such irresolution was a poor start to crushing Malaysia, and is probabl
y explained by the raiding force commanders finding themselves detected so soon after crossing the border that to continue meant heading into death traps. If so, they were likely to be right. In the Second Division of Sarawak, two 60-man raids were intercepted by the 2/2nd Goorkhas under their formidable colonel Nick Neill and lost nineteen killed. In Sabah the infantry awaited their opportunity with simple enthusiasm, frustrated only by the obfuscating jungle and the enemy’s apparent timidity.

  The Indonesian commander at Lipaha, however, was both determined anc persistent. On the 22 June fresh tracks were again reported near Kabu, anc again the Gurkhas flew in; but this time they were fired on at the landing-point itself. Unshaken, they reacted characteristically fast to seize the initiative. The enemy withdrew, but he did not leave Sabah and a confused and dangerous hunt ensued. That night, mortar bombs fell close enough to Gerry to make him believe: he was the target, so he moved in the darkness, a difficult and anxious undertaking with the enemy nearby. The next morning when he was talking to the Gurkhas’ Company commander, a burst of fire passed between them. The latter resumed the pursuit with vengeful vigour; but he had to endure three more days of nerve-racking intensity, such are the constraints of jungle fighting: critical decisions must be made from the slightest clues, the enemy is never seen until final contact, and the side which is moving at that moment is at a grave disadvantage.

  The two forces at last met on the 26 June, which was Gerry’s very last day on patrol. That he was really leaving after all those months would have seemed scarcely credible but for the fact that standing next to him, listening to the distant firing, were ‘A’ Squadron’s commander, de la Billière, and the second in command of the Regiment, Wingate-Gray, who had flown in to be briefed on what was then the most sensitive spot in Borneo.

  The battle itself was not a murderous affair but another brush in a continuing war of attrition. Yet it is typical of such wars that hindsight would show it to have been decisive. Never again did the enemy make a thrust at Kabu, which was saved by the grinding, unsatisfying exertions of its own people, the Gurkhas, the SAS, and the teamwork between them. Then, however, the threat still seemed real and immediate to the inhabitants of the border villages. They began to wonder whether the British could really protect them; and whether it was wise to continue giving their whole-hearted support for fear of reprisals from the enemy. The change was almost inevitable, the enemy having come very close to home and the SAS being, apparently, scared to visit the villages; it was sad too, in breaking down the previously warm relationship, and serious in undermining the fundamental concept of General Walker’s policy.

  To put matters right would be ‘A’ Squadron’s first task, ‘D’ having done its bit. General Walker said so, warmly, acknowledging that no enemy incursions had entered an SAS area without being detected; Woodhouse noted that it was becoming quite fashionable to take a favourable interest in the SAS. Back in the Haunted House, Gerry removed his jungle boots for the first time since the raids started. This was a significant act not only of high environmental impact and voluptuous relief, but symbolic of laying down a barely tolerable burden. Restoration to full health, vitality and motivation, however, would take much more than just peeling off the rotting canvas; Woodhouse had warned that when SAS soldiers showed signs of exhaustion, it would be most unwise to assume, after all their endurance training and having gone a little further and then a little further still, that they were not approaching total collapse.

  With the cause of stress removed, the stress remained. Silence was tangible; conditioned to straining for the least sound that might spell danger, the men could not change their instinctive reaction and every noise now grated harshly. Friends who had scarcely seen each other for half a year with many adventures to exchange had insufficient energy to do so; even drinking was an effort. They hardly noticed Brigadier Harry Tuzo, under whom they had operated, when he kindly came to see them off from Brunei Town, nor even their journey by slow boat downriver to Labuan and air over one third of the earth’s circumference.

  Then they went home, to the concern of their officers that their wives would think the long separation unreasonable, and finding them skinny and listless would work on them to leave the Regiment. There proved to be no need for worry on that score, but the Squadron was unquestionably non-operational for the time being and pointed the lesson sharply that a unit must never again be run down to such a degree, except in the gravest emergency. Six months in enemy-infested jungle was too long, and four became the statutory limit.

  Lillico, however, would not be so definite. ‘It depends how you look at it; some blokes lived on their nerves and couldn’t sleep, but I always got a good night’s kip in a thick bit of vegetation and woke up fresh next morning. I lost a couple of stone in weight like everybody else, but I don’t think that does your health any harm if you’re getting your vitamins and a balanced diet. Some of the married men got a bit agitated but I never got married, no time for two jobs; nothing against women, but it slows you up – perhaps when I retire. This is the job I enjoy and that means staying on it as long as I’m needed; proud of the Regiment and reckon it’s up to us to set a style, a standard. Mind you, some people think I’m a bit of a nut; it’s a matter of opinion.’

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE’

  ‘B’ Squadron Raised and Trained January to October 1964

  Lieutenant-Colonel John Woodhouse wrote in early January 1964 that the project for expansion, zealously pressed and lobbied ever upwards in the Army establishment, had been tossed so high as to be out of sight; but before the end of the month it fell to earth right side up. The new squadron had to be ‘B’, the one disbanded after Jebel Akhdar amid bitter talk of treachery in not having been allowed to go there and distinguish itself like ‘A’ and ‘D’. It is a moot point whether squadron loyalty is stronger even than regimental, but five years later survivors of ‘B’ dispersed within the Regiment were still unswervingly faithful to their old mystic letter. Now, ‘A’ and ‘D’ would have to provide the NCOs for ‘B’, whose morale would be all the better for having some members with an already established loyalty. Woodhouse had long preached that a man could not be a fully qualified SAS soldier in less than three years, but to pull its weight in Borneo, ‘B’ Squadron would have to be deployed there in November. That meant putting between 60 and 70 barely trained recruits into the field throughout the Regiment. But no one knew better than Woodhouse how best to select the right men and train them; and if they were indeed the right ones, with the restless, irresistible urge and balanced confidence to achieve all things, they would, well led, surmount even a lack of training. Selection therefore, always crucial, became paramount.

  First to be chosen were the leaders. The first of these was the Squadron commander, with whom there had to be no mistake. Major Johnny Watts was the man, and Woodhouse set about ensuring his availability when the Squadron was formed and ready to command. Of immediate priority were the NCOs, Woodhouse having conceived the idea that if they were to select and train the actual men whom they would command operationally in troops and patrols, enlightened self-interest would ensure the best possible job. Their absorption in the challenging task would soon dispel any chagrin at being moved; and since the old squadrons’ attitude to the greenhorns would be at best patronizing, a powerful incentive to catch up and overtake would be generated. ‘Tanky’ Smith was one such Troop Sergeant.

  At first it seemed as though the men themselves would be easy to recruit. Volunteers flocked, over a hundred in each of January, February and March, but, as usual, only one in ten survived the first three weeks. What then of the nine who wanted to pass and thought they could, yet of whom ‘Tanky’ and his fellows could predict on the very first day that their hopes were vain? They knew well, for they were told the harsh truth plainly, that they would be invited to drive themselves to the point whence they could go no further in order to prove that they had the motivation to go further; but perhaps it is not possible
entirely to comprehend such an idea, and certainly no one who has not been tested to the limit can be sure how far his motivation will take him.

  Among those about to learn in the January batch was Jim Penny of the Black Watch, and his motivation was apparently somewhat less than sublime: ‘I was a fugitive from bullshit. Didn’t know much about the SAS but had a friend in it so I volunteered; my CO wouldn’t let me go and after six months I wrote to my friend who told Colonel Woodhouse who fixed it. Then I found out; bitter winter, snow and frost, but I couldn’t go back to my Regiment after all that and face the finger of scorn, so I passed. Maybe that’s a silly attitude but I reckon it gets a lot of people through; it doesn’t matter what form your motivation takes so long as you’ve got it.’

  Yet Penny would agree with most thoughtful opinion that unconquerable motivation must derive from some profound, positive force, whatever the lesser impulse that tops the immediate hurdle; though even those who have it in Ml are hard put to say what it is. Love of country or freedom, hatred of tyranny and cruelty, religion or ideology, may be powerful influences but are rarely the whole story. Fame is certainly not the spur, and how the SAS hate it! Adventure? Only in part since too much ceases to be motivating. Courage, yearning to be tested? Of course, but what if the test is too severe? Duty? This surely is the key; for duty is greater than the individual and, at its highest, unstoppable.

  More than 80 on Penny’s course, some no doubt with loftier ideals than his and physically fitter, gave up of their own accord; not a few after the first short five-mile walk. After long experience the SAS were hardened to expecting such astonishing figures. They explain that Selection is 70 percent psychological, and the devil works insidiously on minds concentrated by hard, uncompromising reality. ‘Inner doubts creep in’, says Penny. Is this way of life really for me? Bloody though this Selection is, it’s nothing to what they’ll make me do if I pass’. Am I prepared to give the total dedication they demand? Would my marriage stand the strain? God knows I need to prove myself to myself, but what if I go through all this and then fail? Much better get it over quickly.