SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  Returning to the cave-rock they climbed to the top. Now knowing what they were looking for, they saw the line of the main track curving southeast outside the river bend to Siding and also a left fork leading over the border. The area thus had exciting possibilities for ambushing both track and river from excellent cover. Bennett therefore settled down to observe the pattern of movement; but he could stay no longer than a few days because the all-pervading damp gradually devitalized the radio. One routine call was missed and they tried cooking the set over a hexamine stove; two, and the Squadron commander started clucking; three, and they came out according to the rules.

  Smith’s and Little’s patrols were turned round quickly and sent in again. Smith went over Bukit Knuckle (so called because it resembled a clenched fist), but was foiled again by swarms of locals harvesting sugar-cane, though he did find a track with footprints that might have been soldiers’. Little tried opposite Tringgus and watched the track along which the enemy had raided that place in earlier days. The cover was good here and promised well for future operations, but this time the patrol saw only locals and had to return early because their radio too succumbed to the damp. This was just not good enough, Watts complained, and the operational research team at Hereford applied itself urgently to waterproofing the sets.

  Sergeant Dave Haley led his first cross-border patrol to another likely incursion track between Gunong Jagoi and Gunong Brunei and watched it for a week despite the predominantly open country with ‘ladangs’, longhouses and many locals. Then one of the patrol became tensely aware of a man close to him and their eyes met simultaneously. Unlike Freaney’s encounter this was a slow-motion, hushed affair. The man was squatting motionless, intent as it turned out on stalking a honey-bear, and so remained until after a brief conversation by whispering and sign language on the lines of ‘Good hunting, we be of one blood, thou and V (Kipling – The Jungle Book) when they all softly went their separate ways.

  Watts experimented with the idea of sending three patrols over the border together, parting for their separate missions and rejoining before coming back. They would be more detectable than four men but safer when in company; and also when apart, because one patrol could be ordered to support another in emergency. None knew where the others were going, however, a sensible precaution with sinister overtones. The infantry liked the plan because it demanded fewer sponsor platoons. The SAS greatly appreciated the infantry, who carried their bergens and shielded them from the harsh world with a trace of awe that rude, soldierly disparagement could not altogether disguise; marching erect with loose shoulders and light tread they felt like kings, or, moods being changeable, sacrificial victims.

  Such was the case on the foothills of Gunong Brunei as twelve SAS men strode upwards surrounded by 40 soldiers of a famous British Regiment. The slope steepened, the heat intensified, humid air wheezed into heaving breasts and, with bowed backs and drenching sweat, some of the sponsors could no longer bear their extra loads. The SAS first retrieved their own bergens and then, pitying the poor fellows, relieved them of theirs too and continued with powerful, buoyant steps to the border crest. There they crossed and vanished, leaving those of the infantry still present silent upon a peak in Borneo.

  The three patrols marched together until well into enemy territory, established a rendezvous and separated. Bennett had been allowed only one day at base before being included in Corporal Thompson’s patrol to show him the way to the cave-rock, which afforded a wonderful observation post; they manned it in pairs, the two off duty being in the lying-up position some distance behind in thick jungle. A succession of locals passed both ashore and afloat. After some days a, second track on the far bank of the river seemed to be indicated by the appearance of a soldier in uniform who strode up and down gesticulating, his manner suggesting either mental derangement or an officer giving orders. The latter was proved to be the case by eight armed men rising from obscurity, shouldering their packs and moving off westwards. Scarcely had they gone when three more came and sat down to rest at the same spot.

  Almost immediately again the watchers’ growing interest was sharply heightened by a murmur of voices at the cave-mouths directly below. In straining to see who was there, they dislodged a boulder; it toppled only slowly at first, but evading their grasping fingers bounded and rebounded down the cliff face in hideous dissonance that ended at long last with a sickening thud and a silence so absolute that it seemed to embrace all Borneo. The two men crept soundlessly back to the LUP and froze there with the others, every sense alert. Nothing ensued and Thompson boldly resumed the watch, hoping that those below had assumed the rock fall to be natural. His decision was justified by the absence of a, search, but there was no more enemy activity for the rest of the patrol either.

  Daubney’s experience was less satisfying. He and his men were only a mile or so downriver from Thompson, but wherever they probed there was either insufficient cover or their feet sank into the soft mud of drying swamp to leave tracks like dinosaurs’. They saw just a few locals and no soldiers, but painstakingly recorded a great deal of topography. The outcome of these two patrols was a detailed knowledge of this stretch of the Koemba which ‘D’ Squadron later exploited; in Thompson’s beat of course, not Daubney’s.

  The third of the three patrols was Corporal Bigglestone’s, due west along the Gunong Brunei ridge. Watts had accepted that the track between Babang and Stass was impracticable for unobserved reconnaissance and ambush, but the route remained important. He wanted to see if it was approachable beyond Babang, where it led to the enemy’s known base at Seluas on the Koemba. It seemed to be, for although the patrol did not actually reach the track, they could see that their fine, jungle-covered ridge extended to it. They were not disturbed as they investigated and mapped the area.

  The three patrols reassembled at their secret rendezvous as planned, warily lest the enemy should have found signs of their earlier presence. Then they marched by a different route to the border where they were met by the same platoon of the famous regiment. But what a change! Regiments do not become famous by good fortune but by their reaction to adversity, and while limping back to their jungle fort, those men had determined to retrieve their honour at whatever cost. It was not just on their leaders’ orders, but by the tooth-gritting will of each man that they spent every waking hour bashing the jungle and themselves remorselessly. Now, after ten days, here they were again, tall, grinning, rippling muscles glistening with healthy sweat, bearing crates of beer and other luxuries, and ready to carry not only bergens but the SAS too had they so wished. It was a good homecoming.

  Bigglestone’s report that the Seluas to Babang track could be approached unobserved was just what Brigadier Cheyne wanted to hear. Knowing that this key area contained at least a company of Indonesian troops, he decided on a ‘Claret’ strike, obtaining General Walker’s approval as he had to do. Two Gurkha platoons were guided in by Bigglestone’s patrol, but the operation was not a success. The infantry carried only five days’ rations and needed a precise objective in order to waste no time searching, but Bigglestone had not been able to find a good ambush position, so the attempt was premature. Still, those and other lessons had to be learnt, so the exercise was useful.

  So much for the first-priority area immediately opposite Kuching; on the whole a poor one for offensive operations, but much information had been collected of great value should a threat be mounted from there, though at a price which Watts observed with some concern.

  ‘Bill Cheyne really put the pressure on us; that was his job of course, very good guy, loved the SAS and reckoned we could get him the info he wanted, but he wasn’t accountable for the Squadron’s welfare and long term morale and my poor blokes were getting knackered. On any one day I’d have five or six patrols over there, another five or six going or coming, and four or five de-briefing, resting, or being briefed for the next job. They’d be lucky to get three days off, and instead of building up their strength with wholesome food the silly ba
stards spent their time boozing downstairs and got weaker still; lost weight, came out in sores and ulcers and were less resistant to disease. And you couldn’t abort a patrol just because someone got sick; had to bloody well sweat it out and hope he could walk by the time you were due to return, and if he couldn’t you’d have to go on half of what little rations you had left until he could.’

  Now, in late January and February 1965, the Brigadier wanted to know about cross-border areas to the northwest; particularly the River Koemba at Poeri, where it seemed from the map that the enemy’s main line of communication could be threatened, forcing him to divert troops to guard it. Detailed reconnaissance would be needed first, for nothing was known of the 6–8,000 yards between border ridge and river, except that air reconnaissance photographs showed most of it to be thickly wooded; that at least was promising, but what of the ground beneath?

  The answer, anywhere near the river, was impassable swamp. Three patrols entered it and although they accepted defeat only when the water reached their necks, none reached the bank; but bootprints and mortar-fire showed that enemy patrols were active. Another indication of their presence was gathered by Sergeant Dick Cooper as he watched a track being cut by locals, gaining the impression that the enemy had employed them to do so. Watts then sent Haley farther downstream to the 10,000-yard limit. He too found signs of the enemy but no approach to the river. The lower Koemba was thus revealed as one of those challenges which the SAS delighted to surmount, for it was clearly vital to the enemy and the Brigadier was determined to exploit any opportunity that persistent probing might reveal.

  The next river used by the enemy for access to the border was the Sentimo tributary with its own tributaries. Daubney and Thompson took their patrols to the vicinity of what was subsequently found to be Babang Baba. They too were hindered by swamps, even more extensive than those on the Koemba but shallower so that they were at least negotiable. This area too became the objective of many British visitors.

  A point struck Watts forcibly; to carry a casualty through dry jungle was difficult enough but in swamp it might be impossible. Only a helicopter gave hope of survival, and he pleaded successfully for an emergency procedure to ensure a quick response should a sortie be approved at high level. Although none of his men needed such a rescue, Lillico soon would.

  North now to the last stretch of border before the sea, drained on the enemy’s side by the Rivers Bemban and Sempayang. It was particularly important here to prevent the enemy feeling secure on the high Pueh Range, whence he might sweep down across the narrow strip of Sarawak to the coast. Furthermore, Lundu, a pretty market town and port, harboured more than its fair share of clandestine communists who were known to be supported and encouraged by a constant flow of cross-border subversives.

  Bigglestone was sent to find a place called Batu Hitam (Black Rock). He found it, an ordinary Land Dyak longhouse set among green ‘wet-padi ladangs’, but he had been led to expect an enemy camp, of which there was no sign despite the country being so open. Moreover, he met a field worker to their mutual embarrassment and made the best of it by asking questions, though to little advantage. The man was terrified. He swore that there were no troops in Batu Hitam; there were no police in Batu Hitam; there was not even any food in Batu Hitam because they had run out and the rice would not be harvested until April. So please, please would Bigglestone not go to Batu Hitam where there was nothing whatever to interest him. The more the man protested the more sceptical Bigglestone became, and he left Batu Hitam with a large question-mark over it for his successors to resolve, he too being the first of many.

  The River Sempayang was navigable to Sawah, and from there a main track ran on up the dwindling upper reaches until it turned due north over a spur of the Pueh Range and down to Bemban on the river of that name where there was thought to be an enemy garrison. The jungle-covered spur afforded a concealed and dry approach to the track, which two patrols led by Graham-Wigan and ‘Tanky’ Smith found to be regularly used by the enemy, revealing bootprints, military litter and, finally, two armed soldiers in person, casual and very tempting.

  Graham-Wigan’s stay was curtailed by a chance encounter with locals, so hard to avoid as others had discovered, but he was eager to revisit the Bemban track, and Watts let him. This time he took Sergeant Jimmy Hughes’s patrol which included Fred Marafono, and they watched undisturbed for ten days seeing many locals and another pair of soldiers. That small number would have been disappointing had it not been for all the signs of vastly greater usage, and Graham-Wigan returned seething with ideas for a large-scale ambush. Sadly for him it was now mid-February and ‘B’ Squadron’s time was up, but the thought persisted in their minds for implementing the next time round if nobody else forestalled them. In the meantime, the Bemban track became a household word in the SAS, along with the Koemba, Sentimo and Batu Hitam.

  Why the Bemban garrison had to be supplied by track from Sawah when it had its own river was explained by Captain Alec Saunt and Sergeant Cooper, who took their patrols to the lower reaches where they found it to be only just navigable. Ten miles further up at Bemban it was therefore unlikely to have been any use, and although they did a comprehensive topographical survey they saw nobody.

  John Edwardes and his Cross-Border Scouts also operated in this general area, looking for a camp ‘somewhere beyond the Bemban’ and that was all he had to go on. Numbers were therefore needed and his method was to take about 30 men across, set up his base camp in some wild and unfrequented spot and send Penny and Abbott patrolling with the scouts. It was hard, slogging, unrewarding work and Edwardes needed all his ebullience to keep the team cheerful; drenching monsoon rains flooded the valley to a great width, and the country being new to the scouts they often floundered through swamp for days without knowing when they would hit dry ground again. By the end of ‘B’ Squadron’s tour they had found only indications of a camp, evidently used for jungle training by the many tracks criss-crossing the area, but not the camp itself. Never mind, the truth would be revealed by persistence, and the SAS were not short of that.

  Having accorded first priority to the enemy forces supplied through the Koemba river system, Brigadier Cheyne now became concerned with those dependant on the important Sekayan, whose headwaters shared a watershed with the Koemba’s and flowed parallel to the border in the opposite direction, supporting several garrisons and outposts.

  Balai Karangan was the enemy’s main base on the Sekayan, and being just within the 10,000-yard limit, Cheyne mooted an SAS patrol there. Watts was keen enough in principle, though when air photos revealed a dismaying pattern of cultivated land studded with longhouses all the way from the border, he demurred, gently at first; but when Cheyne persisted, he took the distasteful course of opposing a respected senior and appearing fainthearted as he did so:

  ‘It was suicide and I wouldn’t do it. Furthermore, I didn’t have to; that’s the great thing about SAS command and control. I could have gone straight to Walter Walker.’

  That was not necessary, the two commanders worked together too well to split on such an issue, and a compromise was reached. Seven miles east of Balai Karangan was the village of Jerik – not quite Jericho, nor was it planned to demolish it with a trumpet-blast – and the same distance on, Segoemen, the main track between them running over a wooded spur of the border ridge as at Bemban and presenting an equally attractive objective. Two patrols were chosen, Haley’s and Little’s; they passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for them on the other side, a fitting salutation for pilgrims.

  First, however, they carried out their missions successfully. The patrols split and Little found an 80-man camp, unoccupied but indicating that soldiers were no strangers in those parts, while Haley located the track on which military bootprints led him to the same conclusion. He earmarked a good ambush site for future use and settled down to watch, dividing his men between an observation post near the track and a lying-up position on the spur to the rear.

  At noon
on the second day the unhurried tempo of civilian traffic changed abruptly to one of urgency and stress, when ten men passed at high speed heading west toward Jerik. The first seven were unarmed and dressed as civilians, but the other three wore khaki and carried shotguns, the last man sporting a bushy moustache like a traditional sergeant’s and confirming that impression by shouting orders to his squad. They were presumably the Indonesian equivalent of Border Scouts, and although quickly out of sight they had performed the useful service of stimulating the watchers to intense alertness. In less than ten minutes an apparently endless column of regular soldiers in jungle-green arrived from the direction of Jerik, hunched and purposeful with weapons at the ready as though their objective, whatever that might be – and a frisson of alarm suggested one – was not far away.

  Five men passed the observation post, and evidently feeling no need to be silent were heard to leave the track and start climbing the spur east of the patrol; others did the same to the west and the two groups maintained touch by shouting, while yet more spaced themselves along the track and faced north. The two SAS crawled quickly and quietly back to the lying-up point, but not a moment too soon and possibly too late, for even as they told Haley their news, shots rang out from east and west, south whence they had come and, shockingly, north where they must go. It was a moment for savage self-control; the shots, coolly assessed, were probably signals to pinpoint and coordinate the enemy groups, but Haley too could use them to advantage.

  He set off northeast-wards as fast as was consistent with reasonable silence, deducing that his inward track must have been found and followed for the enemy to have been able to mount such a set-piece attack. The shots to the north and east grew louder – were they indeed signals? or decoys? – but Haley steered between them, adjusting his course as they moved, until with agonizing slowness they fell away, first to the flanks and then the rear, to form by evening a straggling line at ever increasing distance.