SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  ‘Dave Haley had a dreadful fright’, says Watts, and being Watts so, vicariously, did he. That was his Squadron’s last patrol and he shed his burden of responsibility with exquisite relief. Honour had been satisfied; half-trained recruits had accomplished a task which the veterans of ‘D’ Squadron, now arrived, faced with a slight gulp as demanding all their own experience and skill. It had been done without casualties, which was near to Watt’s heart. His ‘pacing’ policy had succeeded too, the men’s loss of body-weight being by no means reflected in their morale but decidedly the reverse, for to initial enthusiasm was added confidence in their proved ability. They were tired, of course, and so was he, utterly; but Woodiwiss already had several of ‘D’ Squadron’s patrols in Kalimantan, and Watts took his second evening off in four months, this time with no sequel but the sleep of the just.

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘LICENSED TO KILL’

  ‘D’ Squadron’s Third Tour, February to May 1965

  Major Roger Woodiwiss arrived before his Squadron. After discussing matters with the weary Watts, he applied his fresh mind to the still irksome matter of accommodation.

  Watts had eventually managed to move ‘B’ Squadron out of the brothel in Kuching; the change could only be a vast improvement to them, but Woodiwiss took one look at the bare warehouse, which was all that had been found to house the élite of the Army, and refused to put his own men into it. That was easy enough to say but administrative regulations tend to be inflexible; proper quarters could only be built if the war was expected to last seven years, which was not the case – happily, although it was a very nice war. So while engaging authority from the front Woodiwiss executed a surprise flanking movement, putting his people into hotels to the great uplift of their morale and the corresponding impairment of the chief obstructing functionary’s when he received the bills. The outcome was interesting; a Chinese family of, unremarkably, about 25 souls were quite content to leave their big house and live in hovels, while using their native enterprise and three months advance rent to start building a new and better dwelling, so all parties prospered.

  Woodiwiss also retrieved the few patrols remaining in the north and continued at first with the same task as Watts; reconnaissance and plenty of it. ‘D’ Squadron was much refreshed after their gruelling time eight months before, but now the Borneo scene had greatly changed with cross-border patrols the norm instead of occasionally by accident. The jungle on the far side might look the same as on this, but it felt very different. Woodiwiss was quite content for each of his patrols to have at least one mission whose aim demanded keeping out of trouble rather than stirring it up.

  Now, to tell the story of a battalion which marches and fights as a unit is very different from conveying a true impression of an SAS Squadron’s activities, split as it is into some sixteen four-man patrols doing different things in different places. The general trend and highlights must and will be recorded, but to include every patrol would mean a schedule of bald outlines. This would inevitably be dull because although it was the actual achievement of each that added its mite to the sum of the campaign, the main interest lies in the manner of the doing, the margin of success or failure and, above all the hearts and minds of the doers on whom all else depended. The ambience of mortal combat or the threat of it is barely tolerable tension, to which the veteran may be seasoned but is never immune, under which constructive thought leading to correct and decisive action is a high achievement; but that is not readily comprehended from a relaxing armchair unless we can become acquainted with a comparatively few men and feel them to be as real as ourselves.

  So one patrol’s story will be told in more detail than the others’ to serve as an example for all, yet not a pattern because each commander confronted his different problems in his own way. Which then to choose? Not one led by a hero, for there are none in the SAS; and not necessarily the most successful, for that would imply a judgement which it would be impossible, invidious and indeed imprudent for an outsider to make. The choice will be of one with an eventful story which, by great good fortune, has been told by no fewer than three of the four men.

  Don Large was a well built six-foot four inches and well entitled to be called ‘Lofty’, a gentle giant from the Cotswolds in contrast to all the Tynesiders and Scots, but with the same passionate yearning for adventure which had led him to Korea with the Gloucestershire Regiment at the age of twenty. There he had fought in the great battle at Imjin River in which countless thousands of Chinese soldiers advanced and were mown down, until a pitiful remnant of the Gloucesters was surrounded. He was captured with two bullet wounds in his shoulder, which were never treated during his two years as a prisoner; neither was his capture reported, the Chinese not being concerned with such niceties as the Geneva Convention. They did, however, try to brainwash him with communism so as to send him home qualified in subversive techniques. Yet, young as he was, Large saw the fallacies without difficulty, recognizing communism not as a new kind of fraternity but old-fashioned domination of the many by the few and inherently evil, both in its aims and methods. His arm becoming paralysed, he was repatriated as a useless soldier; another four years were then sliced out of his young life while surgeons rebuilt his body until, at last, he was fit again, for the SAS too. Throughout this ordeal, his mind remained unblemished by hate, fear or trauma.

  Large’s team comprised Paddy Millikin, a gifted signaller from Southern Ireland; John Allison, who had unintentionally crossed the border before with Richardson, Allen and Condon; and Pete Scholey, a bright and breezy lad from Brighton, on his first tour. They were one of the first threesome of patrols across the border, to explore the watershed between the Koemba and Sekayan, which might offer a good jungle-covered approach if it led to anywhere in particular. It did not; instead, the going was so rugged that Large found himself on a plateau from which further progress was blocked by 800-foot cliffs, so sheer as to be impassable even for men who hated admitting defeat above all things.

  They wandered around the plateau for several days, trying to find a way down on the enemy’s side. The patrol became thoroughly depressed by failure and, in Large’s case, by hunger too. The officers’ current obsession with keeping the weight of bergens down to 501b, even to the extent of having them weighed at the very moment of departure and ruthlessly ordering the least excess to be removed, was anathema to Large. His great frame needed vastly more than that, and since he could easily carry another ten pounds he took pains in future to circumvent the rule unobtrusively. On this occasion his suffering was slightly mitigated by meeting another frustrated patrol, in which a man who was trying to give up cigarettes and had come without any was seduced by Large’s offer of his in return for a few spoonfuls of rice.

  Large’s patrol, which had been told by base that there were no friendly forces in the area, arrived first at the border landing-point to secure it for the other two. He approached it with the usual extreme caution, and just as well for at precisely that moment the leading file of a Scots Guards platoon also stepped into the clearing. ‘When you see something in the jungle it’s through your rifle-sight’, Large explains, his trained reaction being to aim the weapon even as the eye turned and to slip the safety-catch off too. Such instant readiness at least permitted a moment for identification before the other party was equally alert, and white faces with familiar uniforms were enough to halt escalation at the preliminary stage of severe palpitations.

  Worse, however, followed. One does not stand around in the open in such circumstances, so both units melted into defensive positions to await the next SAS patrol, led by Corporal ‘Old Joe’ Lock. His lead scout was a Fijian called Takavesi, who glided warily out of the jungle just as a party of Border Scouts, attached to the Guards but unexpected by their masters, did the same opposite him. A large brown man confronted small brown men; Takavesi was the faster on aim and the scene was photographed onto the watchers’ memories, the exposure being brief because the picture would change one way or another i
n much less than a second; but Large was quicker even than that and showed himself to Takavesi, whereupon all present froze for a space before breathing again. Sergeant Spence’s patrol returned without incident.

  The same three patrols returned to the area for their next mission, which had a wider brief. Spence further explored the watershed ridge, hoping to find a way down the cliffs and a lateral track which must surely exist somewhere between the Koemba and Sekayan; but he was thwarted again and the ridge was discarded for future operations. Lock went directly to Badat, the first village on the southern, Sekayan, side where for ten days he watched local life pursue its peaceful course. There being no sign of the enemy and it now being permitted to contact natives judiciously, he learnt that soldiers were based near to the border, at Sidut and further downriver at Kapala Pasang. This information tallied with what Ray England had discovered as long ago as 1963 (Chapter 3), and soon proved to be still true.

  Large did the same on the Koemba side. His village was Kapoet, which was not at all easy of access across the Pawan tributary, where he noted a fish-trap as a navigational mark, and on through much exhausting ‘belukar’. His patrol hid their bergens and went forward to observe Kapoet. What they saw was indeterminate; some men in green trousers which might or might not have been uniform, but there was nothing positively military about their behaviour nor any sign of a weapon. Hoping for something more definite, Large peered through his binoculars, losing track of time; that was his first mistake. Then, back at the Pawan, he wrongly identified a fish-trap as the fish-trap; so his in-built personal gyro was now programmed with the wrong datum and they missed the bergens. It grew dark; it rained; it poured; they were dog-tired; and there was nothing to do but sit on their wet hunkers for eleven hours without shelter or food. They did not touch their emergency rations because their predicament was not yet an emergency, but merely the most miserable night they had ever spent.

  ‘“Lofty” was maddening’, says Scholey; ‘he’d been in that Chinese camp and you just couldn’t get him to gripe.’

  In the morning they stretched their numb and aching limbs, found the right fish-trap with some difficulty and eventually sighted the bergens; but their trials were not over, for Large’s always seemed to come in pairs. Standard operating procedure required them to watch concealed for half an hour before approaching the bergens, after which the surrounding area had to be searched, or ‘cleared’. Large and Scholey went off to do that, while Allison and Millikin prepared the ravenously awaited breakfast which, of course, included last night’s supper. The day was already well advanced when the two men started the search, and it took another hour for them to realize that they were lost, again. Concern then combined with utter exhaustion to demand their last ounce of mind over matter. They hooted like owls, but to no avail, and changed their position before doing so again. Not until a further hour and a half had passed did they hear a faint answering call.

  Insufficient daylight then remained for useful work, neither were Large and Scholey in any sort of shape for it. Even the next morning they were scarcely restored, and Large decreed a day off: ‘We’re all knackered and if anyone wants to take us on it’d be a walkover; we’re not moving till we’ve had a good day’s rest.’

  ‘“Lofty” was good like that,’ says Scholey; ‘sort of unorthodox.’

  Further north along the border three patrols headed by Squadron Sergeant-Major Bob Turnbull started together over Gunong Brunei. They continued the investigation of the Seluas to Babang track and the River Koemba en route to Siding. One patrol had a very near miss with an enemy party, smelling cooking, hearing voices and finding them to be only twenty yards away. Further probing revealed more of the enemy’s habits in this important central area.

  The first of ‘D’ Squadron’s attempts to reach the lower Koemba was made by Captain Gilbert Connor and Sergeant Townsend where the Separan joins from the east. They so nearly succeeded that they heard diesel-engined launches on the river, offering tantalizing targets. The swamp beat them as it had their precursors, but each successive failure served only to enhance the will to succeed of everyone from the Brigadier downwards, and this part of the Koemba became a watery embodiment of ‘a little further’.

  Somebody also had to go to Batu Hitam and this task was given to Sergeant Alf Gerry accompanied by Corporal Mallett. There was nothing there of course, as a hunting party they met were at pains to tell them with the same emphasis that their fellow villagers had used to Bigglestone. But these natives were most friendly, discussing the still unripe crops, the wet weather, why they were no longer allowed to trade at Lundu in Sarawak which they had done from time immemorial, and comparing their weapons, which were of great mutual interest; particularly, to the SAS, the Dyaks’ two muzzle-loading flintlocks in perfect condition, one engraved Tower 1863. But there were no Indonesian soldiers, absolutely not, despite continuing Intelligence reports of a camp in the district; The mystery deepened, Batu Hitam came to mean the camp rather than the village and determination to find it intensified.

  The southern half of the front, supplied on the enemy’s side by the River Sekayan, had now to be given attention, which was why Lillico set out to obser ve it midway between Sentas and the main base of Balai Karangan. He failed, with honour but a failure it was. No other patrols followed his, and three weeks later signs of unusual activity began to be noticed near the village of Plaman Mapu, two miles into Sarawak behind Gunong Rawan, and continued to rumble.

  DOCUMENTS

  There followed an operation whose nature bordered on the cloak-and-dagger, a useful reminder when studying the straightforward if enterprising soldiering of the Borneo campaign that the repertoire of the SAS is almost unlimited except by scale, the truly impossible, and honour. Woodiwiss was asked by a certain authority to obtain certain documents from a certain individual who was known to visit a certain hut near Sidut; the man would be useful too but the papers were what mattered.

  Captain Jonathan Mackay-Lewis was assigned the task, which was made interesting by the need for precise execution and the hut being inexactly located some distance beyond the Perditin tributary. He therefore took his patrol across the border for a preliminary reconnaissance. They found a good fording point on the Perditin but, the river being wider than expected, Mackay-Lewis refrained from crossing lest they be seen and the objective compromised. And that was just as well because on the way back they saw a uniformed figure scurrying through the jungle and soon afterwards advancing mortar-bombs encouraged their swift transit of the border.

  Twelve days later Mackay-Lewis took Spence’s patrol as well as his own, and such was the documents’ importance that 9 Company, 1st Scots Guards was sent to see them safely across the river, both ways. Three local guides were recruited to lead them to the hut, an indication of the Kalimantan people’s attitude to the enemy. With so many men, speed became the essence of surprise, and a base was established just short of the Perditin by evening on the first day; the SAS crossed after dark, accompanied by two sections of guardsmen to secure the crossing point and ambush the track leading to the hut against pursuit on their return.

  After a catlike approach the patrols spent the last part of the night lurking within 40 yards of the hut. At the first glimmer of light, they crept forward again, so cautiously that they noticed a trip-wire attached to a mortar-bomb and negotiated it safely; then they split to surround the hut and move in for the snatch, but it was not to be quite the copy-book operation they would have liked. The occupants woke with the dawn and started to move about; that might not have been insurmountable but just then a boy emerged and came boldly down the track, possibly to lift the trip-wire as part of his daily routine. He saw the SAS and shouted. A man on the verandah seized a weapon and was shot dead before he could use it. The SAS charged in, firing, and three or four men ran out behind to be swallowed by the jungle before even the SAS could aim and fire, illustrating that in such country prisoners must be taken instantaneously or not at all. The men were unarm
ed and partially undressed so there was hope that they had not taken the precious documents.

  The assault was speedily concluded; a grenade was thrown into the hut, another man emerged, dying, and then the SAS were inside. There were rifles, ammunition, grenades, equipment of all sorts and, thank goodness, papers; the guides were able to identify the first man killed as the snatch target, so there was nothing more to be done. About turn, double march; the Guards’ ambush made no mistake, the river crossing and final retirement across the border were accomplished without interruption, concluding the first successful aggressive operation by the SAS in enemy territory. Mackay-Lewis’s sponsors were pleased, but never told him what the documents revealed; neither could he read them, being in Chinese.

  Two patrols went over at the southernmost stretch of the border. Connor’s was to continue Haley’s investigation of the track between Jerik and Segoemen where he surprised an enemy patrol which fled, summoning reinforcements whose arrival was again revealed by signal shots. Connor, a nonchalant officer, did not retire immediately but sent what Woodiwiss describes as a half-baked contact report with no subsequent indication that he was all right; so that when he eventually breezed into Kuching he was ‘gripped’ by an infuriated Squadron commander. ‘I was very pleased to see him and all that, but …’ Sergeant Townsend’s search area was east of Segoemen, which he found to be occupied by the enemy, both by meeting some locals and by hearing shots from that direction; the patrol was a model in gleaning useful information without incident.