SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  McGillivray, mortified and furious, listened to the action in which standard operating procedure strictly forbade him from joining. Slater prodded him about the old rendezvous so, in a desperate need to do something, he took two scouts part of the way there and told them to guide the ambush party to the right place. Then he met the first of the retiring scouts, excited and running pretty fast but by no means panicky, who shouted, he thought, that their revered ‘Rob’ was hurt. That decided McGillivray to go forward, standard operating procedure or not, which earned him a blast of invective from his far from incapacitated corporal that rocked him backwards with its virulence, but observing the other’s rifle levelled squarely at his chest, he accepted the rebuke meekly.

  Firing continued on the right, but the enemy was plainly deterred from advancing through the thick cover. McGillivray then discussed the position with Roberts who told him that under the log were at least two bodies which had not yet been searched. Two scouts, Ibans, stood near, strangely expectant, and when McGillivray told them to collect the weapons and any papers they leapt forward exultingly; but only when they drew their ‘parangs’, which would be useless for that purpose, did he realize helplessly what he had done. Then he visited every man’s position in the ambush to see for himself that none was left behind wounded, a selfless act which in Shoot-and-Scoot days might have been thought unprofessional, but not now.

  McGillivray collected the scouts, who had done their duty by retrieving the enemies’ rifles and exceeded it by taking their heads as well. Back at the rendezvous the scenes of triumph and jubilation took the British unawares and astonished them; these people were not generally thought to have taken more than the occasional head since the Japanese left twenty years before, but there was no doubt now that the urge persisted very, very strongly. Attached to its body, a head is the abode and window of intelligence and personality, sometimes attractive, always interesting; sever it, and the mask of those attributes instantly becomes revolting and terrifying, even though the amputation is made with the skill and precision of a surgeon. Put it in a plastic bag, moreover, and distortion of the features makes it unendurably loathsome; so that the SAS, tough and hard though they liked to think themselves, turned away and considered what they had seen.

  Could such expertise have derived from folklore alone? Practice, surely, must have played a part. Those plastic bags too, new and of exactly the right size; for what other purpose might they have been brought? And in the face of such tribal fervour was it not inconceivable to tell the Ibans to throw the bloody things away? Even dangerous? McGillivray’s turn of mind slanted towards the sinister, and he wondered whether his own head might have been forfeit if he had tried to thwart their passion. He knew that was absurd for they were his friends and colleagues in shared fun and hardship; nevertheless, he thought it.

  But, as Shipley observed, the heads were relevant only to the Ibans, whose motivation for a worthy cause was thereby strengthened, and to the enemy, whose morale was likely to be affected more negatively. No actual harm was done to anyone, but it might be should such welcome ammunition be passed to hostile propagandists. The best policy was for no one to know. It happened therefore that a certain officer not so far up the line of command and by no means noted for absence of mind was able to say with the ring of absolute candour:

  ‘Cutting off heads and putting them in plastic bags is not an incident I readily recall.’

  ‘CLARET’

  In July 1965 General Lea at last authorized an intensified series of ‘Claret’ strikes to make absolutely clear to the Indonesians that their proper place was behind their own frontier; quite a distance behind it, in fact, so that they would find crossing less and less easy, though there was never any intention of occupying Kalimantan. The main SAS commitment being to help the infantry, they were even willing to forego their own excitement if necessary, but very much hoped they would not have to. That their prime motivation was adventure for adventure’s sake and not ‘seeking the bubble reputation’ was well illustrated by these cross-border operations since very few people, even in the SAS, would know what they achieved.

  The first operation would not be until August. Failure was unacceptable so there must be no skimping of reconnaissance, planning and training. Some of 22 SAS joined infantry recce parties; others were held back by de la Billière to train for a joint operation he had devised with Neill of the 2/2nd Goorkhas. Neill had named the operation ‘Kingdom Come’, ‘because that’s where we’re going to send the Indos, or wherever it is that Muslims go’.

  The few remaining cross-border patrols concentrated on discovering tactical details of particular interest to the Gurkhas. Sergeant-Major Lawrence Smith did so in the Sentimo area in preparation for ‘Kingdom Come’; he found a large army camp on the Poeteh tributary south of Berjongkong. Sergeant Malcolm Allen of 1 Troop made two trips to the vicinity of Sawah, the centre of communications for Bemban and the cultivated area around Batu Hitam, but the open country offered little scope for ‘Claret’. Even for a four-man patrol it was hazardous enough; Allen climbed a lone tree for a view of the wide ‘ladang’ whereupon three locals sat down under it for a rest and a chat, but he remained undiscovered like King Charles before him because man is essentially an earth-bound creature who does not naturally lift his eyes to the heights.

  Two more of de la Billière’s young officers arrived and cut their jungle teeth. Captain John Foley of the Royal Green Jackets took after his forbear Thomas, one of Nelson’s captains who was renowned within that gallant band for keeping an excellent table as well as being a thorough planner, innovative tactician and indomitable fighter who would certainly have been welcome in the SAS. Foley took command of 3 Troop and went first to Berjongkong, where he saw a great deal of military activity from very close range but skilfully avoided becoming involved in it.

  1 Troop was taken over by Captain Mike Wilkes whose first objective was the route between Poeri and the important enemy forward base at Kaik. It seemed from the map to offer ideal conditions for company-size forces to ambush both track and river after a short, hilly, jungle-covered approach. More detail was needed which Wilkes provided: there were no fewer than three tracks, which might have been confusing had it not been for a telephone wire that revealed the military priority of one, and the trees continued right down to the 40-foot wide river. Reporting all this, Wilkes was told to come straight out, which surprised him as being an apparent reversal of de la Billière’s normal form. It saddened him too as he wanted to set his own ambush. He argued, not having been long enough in ‘A’ Squadron to know better.

  Surprised again but now satisfied, Wilkes had no sooner returned than he was told to get back in and tap the wire. This was not a standard drill and two days were spent improvising the gear and practising with it; an ordinary portable tape-recorder was to be connected to the line by tapping-wires with the smallest terminals available, which nevertheless stood out starkly as alien in the jungle environment. ‘Gipsy’ Smith’s moss technique might have helped, but Wilkes hit on the idea of stripping the bark from a sapling and wrapping it round the wires to camouflage them as creepers. Two claymore mines were sited to cover the tapping-point to forestall any suspicious enemy from reacting aggressively.

  All conversations were recorded over five days, at the end of which Wilkes felt he knew the main personalities quite well without understanding a word they said: the routine signallers; the soft-spoken man who courted his listener’s attention; the one who snapped too readily and alienated his; and the commander whose advent on the line was heralded by a respectful silence and the timbre of whose voice demanded attention and obedience.

  Nobody used the track for four days. Did that indicate suspicion, possibly caused by extraneous noises fed unwittingly into the line? Perhaps, though talk continued normally without noticeable tension. On the fifth day, however, there came a patrol of eight paratroopers, very smart, well-equipped and extremely alert. They stopped, apparently for a breather, right opposit
e the observation post, and noticed at once that something was not as it should be. As good jungle soldiers, they did not advertise their unease, but the equally uneasy watchers were in no doubt that they felt it by their hastening on without finishing their cigarettes. Just as hastily the SAS unrigged their gear and decamped, not a moment too soon because the enemy paras acted as smartly as they looked by advancing up the flank in a cut-off movement and engaging with their mortar.

  The tapes were safely delivered but Wilkes never knew what they contained, to his disappointment. The original aim of finding a good ‘Claret’ objective for the Gurkhas had also been achieved. Neill was delighted and made a plan which he codenamed ‘Blood Alley’, not being a man to mince his words and knowing that soldiers must be sent into action with a simple and explicit aim; in this case to kill.

  By August the 2/2nd Goorkhas had worked off their probation period and shown their fitness, so there was no further need to resist Neill’s importunity. Other battalions would also deal the enemy stinging blows across the Sabah and Sarawak frontiers, but because the 2/2nd worked closely with 22 SAS – with whom this book is concerned – their operations must serve to illustrate all.

  A month to the day after the 2/2nd’s arrival on the Lundu front, Neill launched Operation ‘Guitar Boogie’. The objective of the Support Company under its temporary commander Captain Surendraman Gurung was the River Sentimo below Babang Baba, the approach to which was now well mapped by the SAS after much patrolling in the area; but even so the going was difficult, this time because the swamp was low and the water so muddy that the only means of drinking was by catching rain, and little fell. That was typical of the unexpected hazards for which adventurers must always be ready, in addition to those they anticipate. It is sometimes said that Gurkhas are not invariably doggedly persistent when the project is routine or the end indeterminate, but all things were possible now that action beckoned. Thirsty but undetected they reached the river and killed eight soldiers in a longboat; no more, in fact, than Letts had done with four men further up the river, but the comparison is far from odious, eight were all there were.

  Neill was pleased on several counts. First, he could now reassure his seniors that company-size raids to the full 10,000-yard limit could achieve success without casualties; that is, of course, if undertaken by the 2/2nd Goorkhas, he could not vouch for anyone else. Secondly, he was pleased with Support Company for withholding fire until the range was at its least and thereby killing the greatest possible number, that being their aim as he emphasized again and again. Brutal it might sound, brutal indeed it was, but aggressors who renounce gentle behaviour are discouraged by nothing less. Once they put their hands up, well and good, but until then the 2/2nd would kill every enemy soldier they could find, and they would search diligently. Thirdly, Neill was pleased with the SAS:

  ‘Of all British soldiers I rate them highest. I planned my first operations entirely on their information and found that everything they said was true; I couldn’t have done it without them.’

  That was indeed praise even with the qualification ‘British’, Gurkhas to a Gurkha officer not being comparable with anyone.

  ‘KINGDOM COME’ – ‘BLOOD ALLEY’

  In August 1965 Soekarno fell ill and was expected to die. The Indonesian communists saw their chance and stepped up their preparations for seizing power with a purge of right-wing politicians and a crescendo of abuse at their enemies. Malaysia too seemed more than usually uncertain of her corporate destiny. Tunku Abdul Rahman expelled Singapore from the federation, fearing that the thrusting Chinese would dominate the easygoing Malays in their own country, and Southeast Asia wondered anxiously whether Malaysia would first fall apart and then be taken over piecemeal. Voices were raised urging Britain’s immediate withdrawal, but she remained resolute amid the confusion. Operation ‘Kingdom Come’ was launched; though Southeast Asia knew nothing of that.

  It was the largest cross-border operation ever mounted, with no fewer than six major ambushes by the 2/2nd Goorkhas on or near the rivers Koemba and Sentimo, while 1 and 3 Troops SAS went a little further to provoke the enemy into movement. It was also nearly the greatest wash-out. Rain, torrential even for Borneo, fell unremittingly for five days and flooded some normally dry places to a depth of ten feet. SAS and Gurkhas floundered, waded and swam, with high fortitude but sodden misery and a growing conviction that the task was truly impossible, as it proved to be for four of the Gurkha teams and all the SAS.

  de la Billière was there as he had promised himself, with 1 Troop, supported by Squadron Headquarters in the person of his trusted companion of much campaigning, signaller ‘Geordie’ Low. Low possessed the same gift for establishing communication as Millikin, and he also made good his leader’s physical disabilities of colour-blindness and partial deafness with intuitive understanding. But even Low could not raise 3 Troop, so that de la Billière’s horizon was limited to a few watery yards; all he could command was 1 Troop, which Mike Wilkes was fully competent to do by himself without a heavyweight treading on his toes, and the only decision needed was miserably to throw in the saturated towel.

  Worse still – no, the thought was ungenerous in those who fail where others succeed so the SAS confined their emotion to ruefulness – two of the Gurkha forces accomplished their missions brilliantly. Major Lauderdale with 100 men reached the River Koemba near Poeri with unfaltering determination, necessarily discounting concealment and employing any method that served including building bridges; but boldness and the weather enlisted fortune on his side so that concealment was, in fact, preserved and a boat-load of ten soldiers killed.

  Support Company went to the River Sentimo again under its appointed commander, Captain Bullock. There was so much fresh water this time – waist-or shoulder-deep depending on whether one was a Briton or a Gurkha – that the river-bank’s position had to be determined by probing with the feet. Only eight men at a time could stand there and Bullock changed them round every 90 minutes, except for himself. On the first day a boat was paddled into the ambush by a local whose eyes met Bullock’s, and who then paddled distinctly faster out of it; on the second day a python of impressive length, girth and aspect swam sinuously between the already immobile men on a level with their eyes and scared them into complete rigidity.

  By the third day Bullock was numb from the waist down, but his resolution was unimpaired, and justified. A boat came by with four soldiers, who could only have recognized the channel as a path between two lines of trees because water lay everywhere; they could scarcely have been aware of their peril before they were all killed.

  Lauderdale and Bullock had saved ‘Kingdom Come’ from failure, but the enemy had not been hit as hard as intended and two more operations therefore followed quickly. One was ‘Blood Alley’ between Poeri and Kaik, where Wilkes had paved the way and Condie had later taken Major Geoff Ashley of ‘C’ Company, 2/2nd Goorkhas for a personal view. Ashley was a bold officer, as would be expected in the 2/2nd where the other sort did not last long, with a rare talent for imposing his will on the enemy. Having placed his main force of 45 in ambush on the track, he himself took ten men forward to the river. It was a bold move because he would be very uncomfortably placed should the enemy come first along the track in strength and force the Gurkhas to retire after a fight, but it also showed flair because the enemy actually came in the order he expected. First, six men in a boat, who were all killed, and then, triggered by the noise, a large body racing down the track and probably hoping to catch that by now ubiquitous menace – a small SAS patrol.

  Ashley’s sergeant, Lalsing Thapa, let the first fifteen into the trap and his men killed them all. It was then that Ashley’s foresight proved masterly; the remaining enemy reformed quickly and came in bravely for a ‘roll-up’ counterattack, but the flank group of Gurkhas was waiting for precisely that in precisely the right place and exacted another six lives. In all, 27 young Indonesians died. That was more like it; a pity, of course, but Confrontation had onl
y to be called off for the killing to stop. In the meantime, no track or river was safe from the risk of such casualties, which were quite unacceptable, tactically and morally. The Indonesians began the process of withdrawing their forward bases behind natural obstacles such as rivers, and as for raiding into Sarawak the question just did not arise.

  ‘JACK SPRAT’, ‘HELL FIRE’

  After ‘Kingdom Come’, ‘Hell Fire’; at least that was Neill’s progressive intention for the Indonesians, but the fire turned out to be mutual and the hell too, very nearly. Bullock had barely time to dry out before being sent back in with 65 men of his Support Company, who were beginning to know the Sentimo area well; and similarly with de la Billière and Wilkes’s 1 Troop, accompanied this time by 4 Troop (still commanded by Sergeant Maurice Tudor), for this was to be another joint venture.

  Gurkha and SAS plans were but loosely coordinated, the latter even choosing their own codename ‘Jack Sprat’ with more subtle but no less deadly overtones of meaning. The Gurkhas were to ambush the Poeteh tributary, the enemy’s supply route between Babang Baba and the camp south of Berjongkong which Sergeant-Major Lawrence Smith had discovered on his last patrol. The mission promised to be interesting, so Smith himself went along as guide. Troop movement could be expected on either the river or its accompanying track. To encourage it, the two SAS troops would stir up trouble along the main River Sentimo and its continuation the Ayer Hitam.

  The SAS went in three days before the Gurkhas and established themselves in ambush on the Ayer Hitam above Babang Baba. de la Billière and 4 Troop positioned themselves on the south bank and 1 Troop on the north, though not of course opposite each other. This was when Wilkes found Letts’s loop in the river and was shaken by the devastating effects of SLR bullets. No enemy came by for three days so de la Billière sent patrols up- and down-stream to look for signs of activity. Corporal Wally Poxon investigated towards Babang Baba and after being alerted, most providentially, by the throb of a diesel generator found a large army camp with dozens of men stripped to the waist building defences.