SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  To end this mainly reconnaissance phase of the campaign six SAS patrols were deployed simultaneously to watch the central front between Stass and Tringgus while the local infantry battalion handed over to another which had not been to Borneo before, Intelligence indicating that the enemy knew of the move and might be preparing to exploit it. The SAS did not like the task which tied up nearly half the Squadron defensively and severely curtailed their more adventurous programme, but it was important and had to be done.

  Turnbull’s patrol was one of the six and with him was Kevin Walsh on his second mission, the first having been with Lillico and harrowing enough but this was quite exceptionally unpleasant. When they had just crossed the border it chanced that a friendly aircraft roared close overhead from behind and was instantly engaged, ineffectively, by an enemy heavy machine-gun not 50 yards dead in front into whose field of fire they would certainly have blundered. Their deliverance seemed miraculous, but whatever kindly fate had fixed it now exacted a heavy fee. The aircraft reported the gun, the two SAS patrols on either flank took bearings of the noise and did the same, and so did Turnbull together with his own position which was of course nearly identical to the enemy’s, but his was the only signal which did not get through; and it was evening.

  The Royal Artillery gunners behind the border were delighted to be given such a precisely located target and opened fire with their 105mm and big 5.5-inch weapons, keeping it up at intervals all night. Ear-splitting explosions far nastier than the crack of discharge, lurid flashes around and above, splinters tearing through the foliage, branches and whole trees crashing down, the hopelessness of moving in the dark knowing it might be straight into the next burst, the agony of trying to keep calm and transmit a message which for whatever local anomaly or other reason could not be heard, and the pointless irony of being killed by one’s friends unknowingly, all combined to lower their spirits to the point where they could only remind themselves that while there was life there was hope, but not much. Walsh had reason to wonder whether his SAS career would continue in the downward progression of tribulation with which it had started to an early end, but after many active years, this night proved to be his most disagreeable recollection.

  Large’s patrol was deployed too, without Millikin who was in hospital for an emergency appendectomy, but for once nothing went wrong. The infantry turnover was completed without interference and the new battalion, the 3rd Royal Australian Regiment, signalled the old eastern Commonwealth’s decision to join Britain in thwarting Soekarno.

  The decisive period began with Major-General Walter Walker’s relief by Major-General George Lea as Director of Operations. This event was hard luck on the former because it was he who had launched the offensive policy in principle and achieved the means for implementing it: political backing, reinforcements, the initiation of cross-border operations, and, above all, bringing his troops to such a pitch of professional excellence and morale that Lea was amazed and delighted when he met them.

  Walker had successfully defended Malaysian Borneo, but left under a clouc. nevertheless; mainly because of his efforts as Major-General, the Brigade of Gurkhas, in trying to save them from the economic axe. His bitterness at that threat was not founded just on sentiment but on a lifetime’s experience of their enormous value to Britain, culminating right here in Borneo, where he put them in the forefront of the battle and they well repaid his trust. He was allowed to creep home without the knighthood which precedent should have accorded him, despite the enthusiastic backing of important people such as Healey, Mountbatten and Begg without whose help he might even have been retired.

  Walker said on leaving: ‘It is true that we have imposed the present lull on Soekarno and that the Borneo frontier is under our control. I don’t think the Indonesians will risk all-out war, but I am sure they will increase the scale, tempo and intensity of raids and terrorism, and it will be a major tragedy if a complacent mood that the crisis is passing develops. We must not underrate the Indonesian soldier, who is tough and well trained, and the threat of the Clandestine Communist Organization though now controlled could explode if a large-scale Indonesian incursion succeeded in setting up a puppet regime in a pocket area.’

  Lea paid good heed to that, but the front did indeed seem quiet when he took over on 12 March. True, the enemy had recently raided mainland Malaysia again, which revealed his unrelenting mood, but in Borneo there was nothing except continuing reports of strange if minor happenings around Plaman Mapu. These were not accorded much importance, perhaps partly in consequence of the turnover at Headquarters and partly because the 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment were only now taking over the area and had not yet been in Borneo though it remains odd that Brigadier Cheyne and his experienced staff at West Brigade did not prick up their ears.

  Lea let the organization continue to function as before while he mastered his; intricate and demanding job, which was both military and political with responsi bilities to many authorities and councils. He had to woo those departments and interests whose cooperation was vital but would only be given wholeheartedly if they trusted him. Lea was extremely good at that; relaxing his victim with transparent honesty which was never belied, and then stimulating him with irrepressible enthusiasm and energy. The same qualities also pleased the troops, whom he visited constantly in and out of the jungle. They agreed that he too was a soldier’s general.

  Lea having commanded 22 SAS during its period of greatest achievement in Malaya, the Regiment welcomed him warmly. They liked him, and as the man for whom they would work they knew he understood their capabilities, limitations, methods and outlook as well as liking them in his turn. Liking them so much, in fact, that he felt it necessary to suppress his urge to visit Lillico and Thomson in hospital lest it be thought that his first act was one of favouritism.

  Wingate-Gray was in Borneo, opportunely, to make Lea welcome, promise faithful service, and to ensure being present when policy was formulated. He was also there because the SAS task was expanding and the available units with it, the British Squadron commander being fully occupied operating his own patrols in the cross-border role. Three independent parachute companies were watching the border in the less sensitive areas, a half squadron of New Zealand SAS were training in Brunei to take the field in April and the Australian 1 SAS Squadron would do the same in May. A small SAS theatre headquarters had therefore been set up on Labuan Island near the Director of Operations with either Wingate-Gray or his second in command John Slim always there in charge.

  As soon as Wingate-Gray thought he could get away with it, he tackled the General and his Principal Staff Officer Colonel Anthony Farrar-Hockley on whether the SAS might take offensive action. Reconnaissance was all very well if the resulting information was put to good use, but the aim was to find precise and worthwhile targets for the infantry and it was not at all clear what those should be. To attack a defended enemy base like Nantakor was now considered a wrong interpretation of the hyper-secret ‘Claret’ philosophy; the inevitable casualties would give the show away, and more than a few were not acceptable in any case. In addition, to catch the enemy in ambush needed more detailed knowledge of his habits and consequently more reconnaissance. But in the meantime he was not being hit at all, which would surely encourage him to further aggression; besides, the SAS badly wanted to fulfil the function for which they were so highly trained, indeed they might get into bad habits if they were always made to run away.

  Lea understood his man perfectly and chuckled, but he took the point too. Knowing the quality of the SAS, he calculated the risk as small that they would leave attributable evidence of their presence in enemy territory; particularly their own dead bodies, not perhaps being fully apprised of how nearly Lillico’s and Thomson’s bodies had come to being so left. Indonesian bodies would be all right, unless of course the enemy complained publicly; a few SAS pinpricks would usefully test his reactions in that regard, as well as keep him on his toes and looking inward. The order was made;
reconnaissance was still the main aim and offensive action was only to be taken during the last two days of a patrol against those targets which offered a realistic chance of complete success.

  The first opportunity came in April and was grasped by Corporal Marley Carter and his patrol of Ayres, Dicker and Tapstaff. Carter had been on the Lillico patrol, a reverse to the Squadron, however gallant, that needed rather badly to be offset by undeniable success.

  Acting on information received – from Bennett, Daubney and Thompson of ‘B’ Squadron – they went to the cave-rock area on the River Koemba south of Gunong Brunei. First, to investigate two apparently newly-built huts that had appeared on aerial photographs and then to watch the river. They found the huts to be old and of no importance, but local craft passed constantly on the water. Many of these carried soldiers and obviously military stores mainly in the direction of Siding, which made Carter think that the enemy must maintain his base there mainly by river; indeed, it was hard to see from the map how else he could do it. He might therefore be considerably embarrassed by a pinprick, which a four-man patrol could apply as effectively as a company of infantry because neither could expect more than one small boat as a target.

  Accordingly, on the morning of the sixth day of noting every detail, Carter selected a boat being paddled downstream from Siding by three soldiers in uniform, their weapons readily to hand in the bottom of the boat but not readily enough. At a comfortable range Carter shot the centre man, who slumped dead in the boat. The other two were flung overboard by the immense thrust of SLR bullets from the rest of the patrol; one never resurfaced, but the third man swam a few strokes before being killed by grenades thrown into the water beside him. The boat drifted languidly with the current, turning slowly in an expanding pool of pink water. The patrol withdrew, and that was that.

  Few patrols found such suitable targets, but reconnaissance continued with great intensity in April though that aspect can only be recorded in the barest outline, regrettably. Particularly sad is that I have no mandate to tell the New Zealand and Australian SAS stories.

  Patrols went to Bemban and built up evidence that the garrison there was supplied by the track from Sawah rather than by water, though the camp believed to be somewhere beyond the river had yet to be found. The camp at Batu Hitam also eluded them yet again, even when a man defected from there, led Turnbull to the border and pointed out the precise route. Irritation was not too strong a word for SAS feelings towards Batu Hitam. They tried to reach the Koemba near Poeri and their appetites were whetted by the sound of large powered craft on the river and signs of some heavy construction work, but the swamp beat them every time.

  Large renewed his quest for the enemy at Kapoet, but it began to seem as though this tour would offer him nothing but a succession of brick walls.

  Millikin rejoined from hospital and exercised hard to get fit quickly; but Allison was lost to the patrol and Woodiwiss sent for Large to tell him:

  ‘I’ve got a replacement for you’, and shouted, ‘Walsh!’

  ‘There was an answering bellow from outside,’ says Large, ‘and in came this horrible little man, an object of degradation after a night out with the Navy in Kuching. I was in a state of shock for ten minutes. When I told the other NCOs, they said nothing would induce them to go into the jungle with him or any of my lot, far less all three of them together.’

  Appearances, however, can mislead. Kevin Walsh was certainly little, a good foot shorter than Large. With his boxer’s face set squat on powerful shoulders, he undoubtedly presented the image of one with whom it would be unwise to trifle; but that is a requirement rather than a sin in the SAS. A second glance would have shown the eyes twinkling humorously with much more behind them than Large, reeling, had had time to observe.

  Large tried a new route to Kapoet and it proved a nightmare, strewn with thorns attached to unyielding undergrowth and broken only by high cliffs with deep ravines. They reached the village nevertheless and saw signs of the enemy on tracks, but never found his camp despite unremitting patrolling. Tired and dispirited after nine days on the other side, they returned to the border landing-point where the first part of their accustomed double misfortune befell; no helicopter was available. They were ordered by radio to walk 2,000 yards down a specified track to the nearest infantry fort where they would be expected, but having done so their greeting from the officer in charge was:

  ‘Who the hell are you and how did you get here?’ and when they told him his face turned ashen. ‘My God! We’ve got ambushes out all over the area – well not on that track of course – I mean nobody’d want to walk down there would they? It’s mined.’

  But they survived yet again, and the mission served at least one useful purpose in showing that Kevin Walsh was one of those whose effectiveness increased in adversity. Indeed, Large began to wonder whether his little team was not really rather good whatever his colleagues might say, even capable of achieving something out of the ordinary if only fortune would, if not smile, at least stop frowning quite so loweringly; though he, being himself, did not yet fully realize that the strongest justification for this notion was the liking and trust they had learnt to accord him personally.

  Sergeant ‘Blinky’ Townsend’s objective was Kapala Pasang on the upper Sekayan, long since known as an enemy forward base. His aims were to find the camp and a good ambush position overlooking the river. He achieved both objectives, the only difficulty being that the village was on the near bank and the camp on the far so that it was almost impossible to watch the latter without being spotted by locals. Surprisingly, these were neither welcoming nor scared but just not interested, vouchsafing little information of value so Townsend boldly stayed to find out more for himself. The river traffic was sparse and apparently all civilian. The camp was mostly hidden by trees and no more would be revealed without crossing the river, which was out of the question, but the enemy did not do so either and apparently left the sensitive area to the border unpatrolled. Then, on the second day of watching when sticking their necks out trying to see more, the patrol was spotted by the enemy who opened fire. Townsend quietly withdrew.

  Brigadier Cheyne concluded that to ambush the river would be unprofitable for lack of targets and to attack the camp on the far side impracticable; but Kapala Pasang was close to the border with a good jungle-covered approach and if it were possible to lure the enemy out of his camp and into an ambush the aim of the ‘Claret’ policy would be furthered.

  A company of the Scots Guards was detailed, and while they were getting into position Townsend found a local who was much more forthcoming than his previous contacts. Apparently, at the camp were Major Harim and eighteen Javanese soldiers whom the villagers heartily detested for taking their food, shooting their pigs and being generally arrogant and unpleasant. But brave though they were at browbeating the natives they hardly ever ventured out of the camp, and were supplied by track because they were frightened of using the river.

  This confirmed Townsend’s own deductions so, in order to instil some life into the enemy, he asked his friend to go home and spread the word that he had seen a very small British patrol that could easily be destroyed. Scared of what Major Harim might do to him, the man refused; the enemy made no move in the ensuing two days, and when Townsend took his patrol back to the river opposite the camp, its occupants were relaxed and obviously unaware of any threat.

  His task was clear though uncongenial; he shot two unarmed soldiers who appeared on the far bank, expecting a hornet’s nest about his ears and a hazardous dash back to and through the Guards’ ambush, but the enemy cowered behind his defences and the enterprise just fizzled out in anticlimax. Nevertheless, a main purpose of ‘Claret’ being to lower enemy morale, it was useful to know that the Kapala Pasang garrison’s was already at rock bottom.

  One hundred and fifty first-class Indonesian troops supported by two more companies attacked Plaman Mapu before dawn on the 27 April, after giving four weeks warning that they might do so; no
t the village either but the forward base of ‘B’ Company, 2 Para, and with the clear intention of seizing it because wave after wave came in with dedicated courage. The greater part of the Company was out looking for the enemy in the jungle according to Walker’s doctrine, and an under strength platoon of what Lea calls, with high approbation, cooks and bottle-washers held the position by the narrowest of margins in the classic British outpost style, fighting hand to hand in the very weapon-pits. Company Sergeant-Major Williams, Distinguished Conduct Medal, inspired his men with unbreakable fortitude though blinded in one eye half way through the fight. Over thirty Indonesian casualties were inflicted for two British killed and eight wounded.

  The SAS played no part in this, neither had they been watching the border during the warning period as they had for the Australians’ take-over in March. Only Lillico had ever been there, though whether there was any connection in the enemy’s mind between that incident on Gunong Rawan and his selection of Plaman Mapu just behind it as the objective of his major adventure can only be guessed, but is no less interesting for that.

  General Lea on the other hand was much concerned. ‘Had we been turned out of Plaman Mapu,’ he says, ‘our little faces would have been very, very red.’ If the enemy could so nearly succeed with just a company what might he not do with a battalion or even a brigade which he had available? Lea flew there at once and ordered all jungle forts to be moved to higher ground when that would improve their security, though not so far from the villages as to leave the locals feeling unprotected. Increased vigilance hardly needed to be emphasized, particularly to 2 Para who now had an axe to grind and decisively defeated an enemy thrust at Mongkus in May without letting him get anywhere near the place. But although effective defences were vital Lea was sure that ‘Claret’ should be the fulcrum of his strategy, deterring aggression and persuading the enemy, gradually maybe but surely and finally, that Malaysia was uncrushable.