SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  England trained his men for a week until de la Billière was satisfied. On 13 August they flew to a landing-point near Bantul and were met by the resident patrol, commanded by Jimmy Catterall. Then they marched together to the border for two days, living on their hosts to save rations. A border rendezvous was jointly established so that both could be certain of finding the place again after the patrol or in emergency.

  On the 15th they symbolically donned their boots DMS and crossed the great divide, feeling small and lonely in a big and hostile world; except for England, who was possessed by a sense of transcendental serenity. He knew precisely how this had been engendered. During the preparations the atmosphere had been electric, not only at the Haunted House but up to General Headquarters itself and perhaps beyond. The risks were great, but the mission must on no account fail, otherwise all cross-border operations might be revoked by a nervous high authority. If that should happen, it was inconceivable how else the campaign might be won. It is therefore understandable that England had been seized with vivid foreboding of utter catastrophe, including his own death. Being an experienced soldier, he knew this was more than normal pre-operation nerves and realized, sadly rather than fearfully, that it must be accepted as fact; so, breathing a silent farewell to his wife Dorothy and baby son, he stepped out to meet his destiny. Immediately, all the grinding stress dissolved and flowed away through his modified boot-soles, though the premonition remained.

  It was most extraordinary. Far from finding himself in a state of saintly resignation, he had never felt more positively and joyfully alive. Expecting to be ambushed at any moment, his perceptions were at their keenest; navigating in unknown country, his eye made sense of ridges and spurs revealed by infrequent glimpses so that he took the right ones to avoid descending into valleys and climbing up again unnecessarily, and all the while he remained aware of the jungle scene which he thought had never looked more beautiful. Poor Manbahadur, however, in a severely practical mood, gazed at his compass despairingly. They headed in every direction but the right one, and he wondered how he would later lead his Company through this labyrinth.

  Progress was oh so slow, one and a half miles a day, but at that speed they moved almost soundlessly, left few tracks, observed minutely, reassessed their situation at leisure as it developed, ran little risk of blundering into trouble and were well poised to react smartly if they did. Cutting their path had, of course, to be a last expedient, and they did not need to; the forest had been undisturbed and dense shade from huge trees left the floor mostly clear. Scrub grew thickly where deadfalls had admitted light, but there animal tracks abounded; like the soldiers, animals preferred high ground for travelling, but also leading part-hunter, part-hunted lives shunned the crests where one only walked if one had nothing to fear. So much game implied few human hunters and there were no signs of any.

  They made three night-stops on slopes between ridge and stream, where they were hard put to find flat ground to sleep on and were therefore uncomfortable; but that was expected and no setbacks occurred. Then, on the afternoon of the 18th, there quite suddenly down a steep 300-foot slope was the Sembakung. So much imagination and anticipation had been concentrated upon this river that it had assumed a mystical significance, like the sacred Alph, and England in his exalted mood was quite taken aback to find it just like any other: 70 feet across with a wide shingle beach on the near side and rather muddy. He had to acknowledge that fortune had favoured them, and this was confirmed when after very little searching they spotted half-way down the slope the upturned roots of a great tree which had fallen outwards but retained a toe-hold. It offered a perfect nest where they would be invisible from below and, with a little help from nature, from above too for the slope was thickly wooded.

  On scrambling down they found that all the ledge lacked was a wide view of the river. But again, as though intended, a smaller tree-root a little further down presented itself as an ideal observation post. They did not take long to settle in because they remained at instant readiness to move as though they were still marching, with nothing unpacked but what was in use at the moment. Each pair manned the OP for half a day in turn. Unremitting alertness, though a strain, was stimulated by the activities of the locals; some fished, and this was evidently a good spot with traps and nets being raised and reset regularly; others journeyed up and down, sometimes paddling their narrow boats, sometimes walking on the flat beach, and sometimes when going upstream combining the two, the passengers leaving the boat to relieve the strain on the paddlers. But two whole days passed before the patrol first saw what they had come for, soldiers. Even then there were only two; they paddled a boat with a bearded civilian, clearly a foreigner, and some boxes that might just possibly have been military stores. At last there was something to radio home about.

  Interest intensified, only to dwindle as days slipped by with nothing more to revive it so that it had to be maintained by conscious will, as did all aspects of morale in the micro-world of the upturned tree-root. Of the two pairs, England and Hoe were old friends, who spoke little except of the day’s events because they had already discussed most topics of mutual interest exhaustively; they knew more of each other’s private lives than would perhaps have altogether pleased their respective wives, and their personal habits evoked no friction. England read his book through several times to his vocational profit, it being a Malay dictionary with phrases; but he came to wish he had brought something like War and Peace instead, together with some sweets to suck while reading it, and subdue the distracting insistence of hunger. Hoe’s wife Janet sent him a record request on ‘Forces Favourites’, which the Haunted House relayed. Although the radio was ill-suited to music, he improved the resonance of the earphones with his tin mug.

  Manbahadur and Condie, on the other hand, found that both being hill tribesmen, from the Himalaya and Grampians respectively, was not a close enough bond when deciding a delicate matter such as which part of a broken biscuit was. the larger; and it is only the pompous who cannot admit to have ever been so childish. They needed to laugh, but whereas Condie could crawl to the other basha for a chuckle – “Why can’t you bloody officers stick together?” – Manbahadur had to contain himself until back with his own kind in the mess at Pensiangan.

  England was on watch when two soldiers walked along the beach and stopped, looked up straight into his eyes and kept on looking. Shooting monkeys is good sport and the men may have thought they had found one, or they might have heard the swarms of flies which buzzed with loathsome zest around the only spot the patrol could use as a latrine that was both invisible and accessible on the slope. There were no monkeys and the men moved on, showing no sign of having been alerted. That was only partly reassuring because to betray that one is aware of something potentially dangerous can trigger a pre-emptive strike, and England had to judge whether the patrol had been compromised and should retire. He decided to stay, and then spent an uneasy 24 hours wondering whether by doing so he had invited the disaster which his orders specified must be avoided at all costs.

  The next day, the 23rd, all was shown to be well by six carefree soldiers paddling lazily downstream; and that was the surprisingly unremarkable highlight of the patrol when there was every reason to expect a constant flow of personnel and logistics. On the 25th, it was time to leave, and the final task was to descend to the beach and take photographs up and down the river from the water’s edge. With extreme caution they managed to do so without being detected and were astonished to see the roofs of villages in both directions no more than 400 yards away in whose hunting areas they must have been. Their luck seemed amazing, yet their infinite capacity for taking pains had perhaps contributed even more to their concealment.

  Then came their worst experience, completely unexpectedly; undernourished and unexercised they were as weak as invalids and could hardly begin to climb the bluff, wondering in a moment of real alarm whether they could haul themselves to the top. But such a challenge had only to be recognized for th
e mind-over-matter switch to make; the immediate hurdle was surmounted, creaking joints became lubricated, and with light bergens and a more direct route observed on the way in they reached the border rendezvous after only one night-stop. Catterall’s patrol were there just as they should have been, and having their priorities exactly right spread a repast before the pilgrims that their shrunken stomachs could scarcely contain.

  Thus did they enter the underworld in expectation of high drama, carrying in their bergens the hopes and fears of mighty men; but they saw only a few minor devils and escaped their clutches with so little difficulty that the impression may be given of leaden anticlimax. Not so; relief in high places that such missions were practicable ensured their continuance and expanding scope, while the SAS had proved their techniques to be on the right lines and returned with a useful if negative report which at least saved the Gurkhas an unnecessary journey and freed them for some more profitable enterprise elsewhere.

  STRIKE AT NANTAKOR

  The policy of cross-border strikes having been decided, a start had to be made. Nantakor was selected as the most suitable place within the 3,000 yard limit, for two reasons. First, the enemy platoon there was most unsettling to the Salilirans; and, secondly, so much was known about the place and its defences through the efforts of ‘Gipsy’ Smith’s Border Scouts, Headman Likinan and others that the attacking commander would start with every advantage.

  Why send an infantry force which would be lucky not to incur casualties when aircraft were available to take Nantakor off the map in a few minutes without opposition? Simply, because Denis Healey in accepting the former as a calculated risk had strictly disallowed the latter for compelling reasons, despite the airmen’s eagerness to play their part. In the first place, such escalation would directly contravene Britain’s muted policy; and in the second, civilians might get hurt which it now became another cardinal principle to avoid, except for self-defence in extremis. Long experience had taught that soldiers fighting each other, though a nuisance, need cause little general ill-feeling; but that one unnecessary civilian casualty can generate hate and opposition in a whole community where none existed before. Britain had no quarrel with the Kalimantan natives, but every reason to solicit at least their passive acceptance of her soldiers on their soil. Most weapons could be aimed selectively, but an air strike into jungle was partially blind; it was not therefore to be used even if the chance of civilians being present was slight. There must be no possibility whatever, and since that could never be guaranteed, there were never any air strikes in Borneo. Contrast Vietnam now getting into its indiscriminating and bloody stride, whereby friends were lost and new enemies created.

  Major Digby Willoughby’s ‘A’ Company of the 1/2nd Goorkhas, whose Assault Platoon was commanded by Manbahadur Ale, were chosen for the task. Willoughby had been responsible for the follow-up after Long Jawai and exacted heavy retribution for that disaster, but this time the plan, the execution and above all the initiative were to be his. The plan derived mostly from ‘Gipsy’ Smith’s Intelligence: the layout of the enemy camp with its outlying machine-guns, the fact that the main cross-border tracks were mined, and many details beside. Its execution relied on Smith’s landing-points (tactically sited just far enough from the border not to give the show away and of sufficient capacity to pass the whole Company through in the shortest time); on his being the man on the spot and, most of all, on his Border Scouts, who led Willoughby all the way.

  Smith himself was not allowed to go and nor was there any point, he having stuck to the rules with an effort and refrained from visiting Nantakor previously. The story of the battle is therefore out of place here, except to record that when the advance was checked by a troublesome machine-gun, Manbahadur’s platoon overran it from a flank in a spirited action. The operation was a complete success; the enemy commander and five of his men were killed, and the rest fled down the tributary to their Company base at Lumbis. Nantakor camp suffered the immemorial fate of being razed to the ground, and the Indonesian propaganda machine, usually so strident, breathed not a word.

  Best of all, the effect on the nearby border villagers was one of unconfined joy. The Salilirans nipped smartly over to Nantakor and salvaged all they could, and then became scared that the enemy might retaliate; but they were reassured with a Step-Up from another unit of the 1/2nd, nothing happened, and soon the immediate area was Arcadian again. SAS patrols moved freely where they pleased, slept in villages without apprehension, and even – just occasionally and, of course, solely in the line of duty – got drunk, secure both personally and in the knowledge that any incursion would certainly be detected and reported. The price was four Gurkha soldiers wounded. A small statistic perhaps and incommensurate with the gains, but it is no fun being wounded.

  OPERATION ‘VIPER’

  There being no hearts and minds to be won in the Long Pa Sia Bulge and no local help for the three overstretched patrols in detecting incursions, logic suggested a way of making at least some use of this grave disadvantage. If explosive ambushes were to be laid on the enemy’s most likely entry routes, he might both be endangered and unwittingly reveal his presence. The Gurkhas could then instantly deploy to cut him off.

  England was given the task of detailed planning and organization, and he naturally brought in his Troop Sergeant ‘Gipsy’ Smith, whose speciality this was. Claymore mines were the centrepieces; dished canisters holding 900 steel shot and firing in cones up and down the track:

  ‘Deadly’, says Smith; ‘Wherever you were within fifty feet you collected about thirty balls; we put them up trees to avoid the undergrowth and filled in the gaps with grenades, all wired together to trigger at the same moment. The big problem was the detonator cord, which was white and stood out a mile, so we stuck moss onto it with black glue and when we came back later the moss had actually grown and the cords looked so like creepers that even the Border Scouts couldn’t spot them.’

  Success needed a keen imagination which could predict the enemy’s actions and reactions and induce him to destroy himself; a ghoulish art, yet performed with impersonal professionalism. Positions were chosen where the enemy would be disinclined to leave the track by reason of some natural obstacle, such as a steep slope, and where it was leafy enough to conceal the weapons but open enough to permit their full blast. The layouts were planned in precise detail to include as many enemy as possible in the killing areas and then ensure that they were all killed. Triggers needed much thought, sited so that animals were less likely to activate them than men; and Smith, heaving heard of the enemy’s notice to ‘go no further’, used one of his own – ‘Sabah, Keep Out!’ – deliberately brusque so as to rile an Indonesian into knocking it down. Exact drawings were made with copies for base, showing in addition to the hardware the procedures for arming and disarming.

  Painstaking slowness was the hallmark of laying. When at last it was done, ‘Gipsy’ would stand with outstretched arm like the artist he was, critically studying the subtleties of light and colour in relation to his composition; only a masterpiece would deceive men trained to read danger into the least abnormality. Then he would be left alone in the lethal zone to make the final connections, knowing that in due course he must return for the even more hazardous task of taking it all away. No fewer than nine of these Groves of Baal were created, a considerable undertaking.

  Arming Day was 1 October, after which Smith and his patrol sat at the centre of his web waiting for the flies. He was ready to distinguish a detonated ambush – ‘Stingray’ from ‘Snake-pit’, ‘Tapeworm’ from ‘Big Wheel’, ‘Black Beauty’ from ‘Scotch Egg’ – both by its bearing and its individual explosive signal that he had added for the purpose. Time passed stressfully, particularly because the other two SAS patrols had been withdrawn so that early warning in the Bulge now depended entirely upon ‘Viper’. Professional fulfilment insistently demanded that the enemy should come and be torn to shreds.

  ‘Thar she blows!’

  ‘Pork Scen
t’ without a doubt. A signal was made; the Gurkhas deployed; helicopters dropped noisy battle-simulators to drive the enemy in their direction; and the SAS returned cautiously to the ambush site with queasy expectancy. But all they found for their satisfaction were strewed branches, charred bark, lacerated leaves, and a meal of devilled pork from what little remained of the luckless animal. And that was all that ‘Viper’ produced during ‘A’ Squadron’s tour. Perhaps the enemy had heard of it and been deterred, though it seems more likely that after his earlier abortive attempts he had no intention of coming anyway, thus enhancing the significance of the encounters in which three SAS men had been killed.

  Smith was at first disappointed and then, as he considered the implications, pleased: ‘It meant that nobody had come through, and because the ambushes were really there to find out what was happening, it was just as good as clobbering people.’

  CROSS-BORDER

  Cross-border operations having been proved possible and politically acceptable, meaning that no one who might object had heard of them, continued and developed because the enemy’s overall behaviour was seriously aggressive. Checked at one point he tried again at another, more assiduously in Western Sarawak than in Sabah, and even made two descents into mainland Malaya. Disastrous failures though these were, it was clear that he must be firmly deterred from continuing such adventures, or hearts and minds on which the integrity of Malaysia ultimately depended might waver.