SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  With impressive speed the enemy reacted with saturating fire from every weapon he had, but Foley and Jackson were untouched as they sped towards the troop rendezvous. Blackburn was going well too when they caught a glimpse of him to their left, but he took a diverging course and was soon lost to view; why? It made no sense, but only the man in a spot knows what he sees and feels; like James Condon in whose case no one would ever know. The enemy followed up hard, and Foley, reunited with his Troop, had no option but to retire after waiting for Blackburn as long as he dared.

  This was not the sort of operation in which the main concern now became to reach the border safely: firstly, a man was missing, and secondly, de la Billière had no intention of calling off the search for Batu Hitam until it was found or time ran out. The enemy being present in strength, he signalled for a company of the 2/2nd Goorkhas to help search the contact area in case Blackburn was lying there wounded. Neill willingly sent one and Lawrence Smith went back to the border to lead it in. With 100 men behind him – he had worked on them and they swished now, rather than tramped – he became, first, uneasy, then anxious, and finally the most wretched sergeant-major in the British Army; for he, a founder-member and father-figure of the reborn SAS with Woodhouse’s standard of excellence to live up to and twelve years jungle experience, was lost.

  Even Smith’s own dictum on which a generation of troopers had been raised – ‘You’re never lost in the jungle even though you don’t know where you are’ – returned to smite him, because now it mattered very much that he should know precisely where he was so as to meet his Squadron commander at a specified time and place. He had taken the usual meticulous care with his navigation, but no stream, ridge or other landmark confirmed his calculations. Smith’s ears glowed a radiant scarlet, proclaiming his shame to the following horde, though being themselves of dusky pigmentation they might, with luck, not recognize the symptom. Unable to contain his distress, he halted the column as though for a rest and went forward alone with feigned composure and a fervent but faithless prayer. Directly in his track and not 200 yards on, de la Billière awaited him, but so deep had been his chagrin that, rapport or no and despite his near-bursting relief, he concealed the truth with an effort both then and afterwards.

  The Gurkhas went right up to the Bemban track hoping for a scrap, but the enemy was not there. Neither was Blackburn, and de la Billière’s heart sank. There must, of course, be no question of assuming the worst without positive evidence, but all he could think of to do was institute the usual helicopter search and ask the artillery to fire a gun at intervals as a guide to the border and safety.

  Then he prised Foley and 3 Troop away and told them to search the Batang Ayer basin as originally planned. There they found signs of an extremely interesting camp, around which were heavily used tracks and four tall trees with climbing-spikes and seats at the tops, while from within it came sounds of domestic activity and small arms practice; but before they could reach viewing distance, signal-shots announced the arrival of a large enemy search force – not surprisingly considering all the British activity – so there was again no choice but to move on.

  To the north, 1 Troop was allotted the River Bemban and its hinterland east of Bemban village, outside which Wilkes set up a snatch ambush and Allen awaited his chance; but Foley’s contact not far to the south persuaded de la Billière that the enemy would now be snatch-resistant, so he told Wilkes to proceed with the search and Allen was unfulfilled.

  The Troop split into patrols and searched in ever-increasing circles, without misadventure though Shipley suffered a heart palpitation which he thought momentarily might be fatal. He was Condie’s lead scout as usual, very experienced after three Borneo tours and mentally prepared, he believed, for anything; but having sidled round the spreading buttresses of a great tree in undisturbed primary forest, he found himself without any transition fully exposed on a hillside completely cleared of undergrowth, gazing up at a massive fortress which reminded him of Durham Castle. He sprang back with irresistible momentum into Condie and Callan, who had bunched when they should not have done. All three then collapsed in a huddle, not at all in the best tradition of the Special Air Service.

  The fort was empty, as they found after a more circumspect approach. When at last they entered, with eyes wary for booby-traps, they were much impressed by the formidable complex of protected sentry-posts, machine-gun dug-outs and mortar-pits, cleverly sited to observe all helicopter activity over the border and to confound the most skilful jungle warriors, themselves. It was, however, an entirely military outpost and not the communist camp they sought; nevertheless, 1 Troop’s fifteen-day search was so thorough that de la Billière felt able to discount the possibility of Batu Hitam camp being in their area.

  Blackburn diverged from Foley and Jackson because that way allowed him to place the greatest distance between himself and the enemy in the shortest possible time, which he badly needed to do, so heavy and accurate was the fire. Nevertheless, he fell, but being conscious of no wound realized that his belt had slipped to his ankles and thrown him, so he kicked it off and sped on into the shielding forest. After covering 300 yards at full speed, he stopped to catch his breath and listen; he was certainly being followed, but now adopted caution as his policy, moving silently and covering his tracks until nightfall when jungle noises supplanted warlike ones. Then he had leisure to assess his chances, and they were poor. Just recovered from sickness on his first operation of any kind, in an environment very different from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers’ workshop to which he was accustomed, he had 9,000 yards of alerted hostility before him and wordly goods that were only too quickly mustered: Armalite with nine rounds, map, escape compass, which he found to be rusted solid, jack-knife, field dressing, matches, and one small packet of nuts and raisins.

  There would certainly be much goodwill from the Regiment, but that did not seem of any practical help when, at first light, signal shots came from every side including the direction of the Troop rendezvous. So, he was on his own; but he was fit, his load was light, lack of food would not weaken him for several days and life-giving water was abundant. Success was at least possible given singleminded determination, and having assimilated the SAS ethic well, Blackburn called that into play. He covered 2,000 yards before darkness halted him again; not far, but his progress was silent and trackless.

  On day three he came to the upper reaches of the Batang Ayer, where locals working in ‘ladangs’ forced him to retrace his steps and cross the river elsewhere. Being without a usable compass, he then followed the trend of the headwaters further to the southeast. He heard a helicopter, which was heartening even though he could do nothing about it. For the next two days he made steady progress up the gentle slopes of the main ridge foothills. He heard de la Billière’s gun for the first time but could not pinpoint its position for innumerable echoes and neither did he trust it, not being a standard operating procedure.

  He felt hunger now but suppressed it, knowing that food was the least important of his needs; a new pair of boots would have been far more welcome for his were splitting and that was serious. Nevertheless, he noticed a place where pigs had eaten some sort of fruit and tried one which they had discarded, like the Prodigal Son; presumably it nourished him a little – orang-utans maintain their great frames on nothing else – but when he searched around and found only a few nuts, which tasted horrible, he realized that his remaining energy was much better expended in making distance in the right direction.

  On day six he tackled the steep climb to the 4,500-foot border ridge with greater caution than ever, for here the enemy would be expecting him. Sure enough, on crossing over near Gunong Tempurong, he again heard signal-shots to north and south. Pressing on eastwards, he shied away from established landing-points as dangerous, hoping for a natural clearing where he might use his matches to light a smoky fire and attract the helicopter; but there was none, and he resigned himself to yet more nights in the wild and to walki
ng further again than he had already come.

  Yet, in the cool sweet air of freedom, day seven was wonderfully different. His march was downhill all the way, beginning in steep ‘ulu’ but soon on a track which there was nothing to stop him using; then came ‘ladangs’ being tilled by people to whom he could wave openly, and he rested that night in the luxury of a friendly village. Day eight was better still; marching with flip-flop bootsoles but swinging stride in company with a local Border Scout returning from leave, he attained the golden road to Sematan, and thumbed a lift.

  ‘Not bad,’ they said in the Squadron, ‘not bad at all’; especially de la Billière, who found that waiting for people to turn up became increasingly trying with experience. The whole operation was far from bad either, indeed it was unique; 50 men, commanded effectively from the jungle, had roamed for nineteen days over a strongly garrisoned enemy area with only one setback, and the standard of jungle and other skills that enabled them to do so can only have been of the highest. Never before had so much detailed information been gleaned; all there was to be had, near enough. Except Batu Hitam camp.

  The failure would normally have been transformed into a tooth-gritting challenge, but as things were it was excruciating because the tour was ended. And so ‘A’ Squadron bowed out of Borneo and the story, with much honour but less acclaim, for such is the SAS way of life; particularly true was it of this tour when the Squadron deliberately played second fiddle to the Gurkhas in their major effort, forming an essential component of an undoubted tactical success which might yet prove strategically significant too. Then again, the information on which the Gurkhas entirely relied had been amassed as much by ‘B’ and ‘D’ Squadrons as by ‘A’, but that too fitted the ethic; the aim must be achieved, but who achieves it is immaterial, or as nearly so as human pride can be subdued to a lofty principle.

  It would be intriguing to follow the men from ‘A’ and the other Squadrons into the future, and perhaps identify some of them with those rare moments when the dagger has momentarily flashed into public view from beneath the cloak; but that is not the SAS way, nor could they do their job were it possible. Sergeant-Major Lawrence Smith can, however, serve as an example; he may at times have been a handful to control, but de la Billière was in no doubt that his initiative and decisive leadership were exceptional and recommended him for a Military Cross, which he received. The MC is an officer’s award and he, a Warrant Officer Second Class, earned it by doing a commissioned officer’s job on active service for a long time with ‘Skill, courage and devotion to duty far above the norm’. After completing his time in the SAS, he went on to confirm that assessment of him by rising to command no less than a battalion in the Sultan of Oman’s armed forces, until the war there was won in 1975. Then, like so many of his fellows, he found it impossible to lead a civilian life and became difficult to trace for the purpose of hearing his reminiscences of Borneo. ‘Ah yes,’ enquiries would elicit, ‘I think he’s doing something in the Middle East’; and although that will certainly evoke suspicion that the ‘something’ was underhand in the worst traditions of modern spy fiction, and although a very few ex-SAS have let enthusiasm overtake discretion to some extent, the proud fact is that many of Britain’s allies around the world are given vital help by these men in the best traditions of the Regiment, both as to skill and honour.

  Lawrence Smith died prematurely in 1978, in his bed; but his memory endures as one of the Regiments greats, who restarted the Regiment in 1950 and built it into what it is today. The officers may think they did that and the sergeants likewise, but both know that both are right: ‘The gentlemen hauling and drawing with the mariners and the mariners with the gentlemen, showing themselves to be one company.’ (after Francis Drake).

  Even as ‘A’ Squadron packed up and ‘B’ settled in, the Indonesian communists judged their moment to have come and, having fomented riots and feverish excitement in the capital, they initiated what they believed to be the inevitable march of history; and muffed it. Before breakfast on the first of October, a group of dissident officers seized six generals and tortured them to death most horribly. That was evidently a standard operating procedure designed to discourage all enemies of the people; but who were the people, and who their enemies? By teatime, loyal troops under Generals Suharto and Nasution had utterly crushed the revolt and then the ‘parang’ was in the other hand.

  1The full story is told in A Pride of Gurkhas; see Bibliography.

  CHAPTER 12

  SQUADRON OPS

  ‘B’ Squadron’s Second Tour, October 1965 to February 1966

  Coherent news from Djakarta was slow in coming and took further time to evaluate, so that Lieutenant-Colonel Neill of the 2/2nd Goorkhas was able to squeeze in another ‘Claret’ operation. He called it ‘Flat Banjo’, which was not a mealy-mouthed euphemism because banjo, verb transitive, means in the trade precisely what Major Joy and ‘B’ Company did to seven soldiers in a speedboat at Large’s place on the Koemba: killed them all and sank the boat.

  There followed what the SAS called a ‘be kind to Indos’ period, to give the latter a chance to indicate whether the coup and counter-coup would cause them to modify their aggressive policies. Developments certainly seemed encouraging, for chaos reigned. The Djakarta mob burnt down the communist headquarters with even greater verve than it had applied to the British Embassy; the army significantly did not intervene, though its commander in central Java lagged behind events in the capital and declared for the communists, while in Sulawesi Island the communists attacked the army. The economy was in such ruins that it could hardly be said to exist. Soekarno was rumoured to be in protective custody while still nominally presiding over the government. General Suharto began to emerge as the key figure, but his attitude to Confrontation was not yet known.

  The pause gives an opportunity to recall that the 2/2nd Goorkhas and 22 SAS were not the only marauders across the length of the Kalimantan border. Many battalions qualified for the honour and had achieved some notable successes; while the Australian and New Zealand SAS performed just as effectively as the British, according to impartial observers of whom 22 SAS was not one.

  The para-SAS companies had been hard at work too, though mostly restricted to border surveillance in wild areas. In September, however, the Guards Independent Parachute Company under Major L. G. S. Head were allowed across the Sabah border to act offensively. Sergeants McGill and Mitchell with two patrols ambushed 40 enemy, killed five of their scouts and escaped unscathed. This professional performance and others were to result in the formation of ‘G’ Squadron in 1966. That would be a welcome addition to 22 SAS whose services were increasingly in demand, but which they felt unable to achieve by normal recruiting having exhausted the potential market when raising ‘B’. Standards would on no account be lowered, but since volunteer guardsmen came forward with the enthusiastic backing of their own establishment – an agreeable change from precedent – sufficient numbers passed Selection.

  ‘B’ Squadron now returned to a very different scene from the one they had left in February. Where they had ventured uneasily with blank maps, British soldiers now roamed at will for several days’ march into Kalimantan. That, while admirable, was also challenging as ‘B”s first patrol led by their Sergeant-Major, Ball, discovered; not only was there a long way to anything of interest, but crossing a wide river beyond which the enemy had withdrawn was particularly daunting lest it flood without warning and cut off retreat at a critical moment.

  On, on, to Batu Hitam; which ‘B’ had looked for first and would now certainly find, all others having failed. 6 Troop tried the Batang Ayer, which ‘A’ had thought most promising but proved not to be; and Intelligence opinion reverted to the ‘ladang’ area around Batu Hitam village itself, where patrolling was very difficult and the locals had become impatient with SAS patrols popping out of the jungle fringe and asking where the camp was.

  Major Terry Hardy had relieved Johnny Watts in command. Originally a Sapper, who enjoy
ed bomb disposal as far as it went but needed more excitement, and physically so hard that he had passed Selection without preparation, Hardy favoured the direct approach. To resolve the Batu Hitam enigma, he advocated marching through the ‘ladang’ with a force large enough to defend itself, investigating each of the several likely localities until he found the right one and then destroying it. That would be a great change from anything the SAS had so far done in Borneo, but the risk of casualties among civilians as well as SAS personnel was high, which was anathema to the General’s policy. Hardy’s thinking was, however, implemented to some extent in his ensuing operations.

  ‘Being kind to Indos’ brought no reciprocal gesture and it was they who ended the respite by sending an incursion to the Katibas basin in the Third Division of Sarawak. Whether that conformed to General Suharto’s policy or stemmed rather from local enthusiasm, General Lea took no chances and again let slip his dogs of war; if the enemy could be taught beyond all doubt that Malaysia was inviolate, he ought logically to conclude that Confrontation was a distracting and unnecessary addition to his many grievous problems. In the First Division area 2/10th Gurkha Rifles fought two successful actions, including the famous one in which Lance Corporal Rambahadur Limbu earned the only Victoria Cross of the campaign. The 2/2nd, not to be outdone – and it was hard to outdo them – fought four, and ‘B’ Squadron 22 SAS fought one; not the usual small aggressive patrol, but nearly the whole Squadron under Hardy himself, a rare departure for the SAS.

  ‘PRETEND YOU DIDN’T HEAR’

  Hardy took 6, 7 and 8 Troops to John Edwardes’s ‘Island’ to pick up 9 Troop (already there except for its commander Captain Alec Saunt and one patrol who were searching with undimmed zeal for Batu Hitam) and nineteen Cross-Border Scouts under the redoubtable Sergeant Nibau. All practised together, particularly with claymore mines, which Hardy planned to use on the flanks of his ambush. The objective was the Bemban to Sawah track, which ‘B’ Squadron had yearned to exploit ever since they first discovered it, and the aim was to inflict as many casualties as possible. Major John Slim, who came to give the final briefing, wagged his finger at the scouts and warned them, just for a laugh, which he got: