Where’s the mindless thug image come from?
They have all types, but if there’s one common factor it’s that they have to have good mind control over their skills and reactions.
I think its evolved from the way the press began to publicise their exploits following the Iranian Embassy incident. That operation caught most of th press with their flys open. As the operation was broadcast live (I had a ringside seat from my apartment window at the time), interrupting the World Snooker Championships, I remember one news reporter asking “Who are these people?” 
Of course, the tabloid press got a hold of them and portrayed them in a fashion that they considered would increase sales. The rest is history. Hence, my stressing that those members which I spoke with a few weeks ago were gentlemen, which they were - the mindless thug doesn’t pass selection!
Absolutely still now, even to his eyelids, Lillico was afraid. Yet his fear was by no means numbing; he realized at once that although he could see the bloke, the bloke could not necessarily see him in his carefully chosen hole with plenty of foliage around it, dried blood caked with mud camouflaging his body to perfection.
The man’s gaze and Lillico’s attention were both diverted by a distant drumming which, approaching, resolved itself into a helicopter. In the citation for Lillico’s Military Medal, Woodiwiss wrote; ‘He showed superb presence of mind and courage in not switching on his Sarbe and thereby probably preventing the loss of the helicopter and its crew’; but Lillico would have none of that. ‘It would have been stupid to switch on and bring it in. It was only a Whirlwind and all those Indos could have shot it down easy and what good would that have done? The Sarbe was only a beacon. You couldn’t talk through it and explain the position; but I knew they’d keep looking until they found me, they, or Johnny Ghurkha.’
(What faith we Tommie’s have in Johnny Ghurkha. 32B)
Two bursts of fire came from not far away and Lillico’s immediate thought was that the Indonesians had found Thomson.
Thomson crawled and crawled and his bone crunched so he jabbed yet another Syrette of morphine into his other leg and kept on crawling and crawling, feeling no pain and with his mind as clear as a bell.
(Thomson had come across a horde of about twenty syrettes before leaving base-camp and, so, helped himself to a couple of handfuls. 32B)
There’s also the aspect that they’re portrayed as some kind of super ninjas who can do superhuman things. It’s the same uninformed awe that thinks that someone trained in karate or taekwondo or whatever is an unbeatable killing machine. A boxer can hold his ground against a lot of them, as Mohammed Ali showed in his bout with Inoki, although it was rigged by rules which prevented Inoki using all his skills.
I remember a mate of mine 30 odd years ago, who was an Australian major who’d had a little to do with our SAS, being asked about their state of fitness. “About as fit as a (national football code) player.”
It’s the mental ‘fitness’ that matters more. They’re the very select people who can push themselves way beyond even the best of most of the rest of the army.
As for mindless thugs passing selection, that reminds me of cinema rubbish like the Dirty Dozen where criminals or bad soldiers are presented as having the qualities to make ruthless and effective soldiers. Most criminals are thugs, bullies and parasites who lack the personal and moral qualities to do what even the weakest rifleman will do much more effectively. They’re the last people you’d want to serve with.
Thomson’s mind was clear enough, certainly, to find his way up and over the border ridge, past Melancholy Mountain and into the rendezvous, a satisfying achievement of navigation in view of his worm’s eye view of recognition features, circuitous evasion route, and other difficulties.
He made a very cautious approach because the enemy might have found the place and ambushed it, a common jungle practice; advances a yard or two in dead silence followed by longer spells with every sense alert disclosed nothing at first, yet that was no proof that the place was deserted as he knew from hard experience, none better.
He recognised his own Bergen with Lillico’s beside it.
The choice open to Thomson was the same as the previous evening’s but more pressing; he could either curl up and die, which a benign providence gently urges when his degree of weakness and hopelessness is reached, or not. He chose the latter because the former just was not done in the Regiment.
He crawled on. Crawling was the opposite to curling up, but it may be that the clarity of his mind was becoming less bell-like than he thought because it might have been wiser to have hidden near the bergens, whose position would be known to rescuers and must surely be the focal point for a search. As it was he plunged himself once more into the limitless jungle towards Sain, 5,000 yards away. He had covered two hundred when he reached the limit of his self-propulsion.
Thomson pulled himself under some bushes beside a stream on the friendly side of the watershed and lay there comfortably, though not contentedly as Lillico had done. The there was the helicopter. That it might be friendly and concerned for his welfare never crossed his mind, and certain that it brought enemy troops for his destruction he opened fire. One’s belief, whether true or false, dictates one’s actions and misunderstanding is the more common especially when stress is present. The shots must have been those which Lillico heard and interpreted despondently.
He, Thomson, could receive clear impressions and respond instantly and fiercely, but lacked the mental energy to reason beyond tense alertness; dark eyes in the olive face scanning the ground minutely and rifle following the eyes, Thomson had no thought but, Bloody Indo! Well, if I’ve got to go, this bastard’s going with me.
He could still raise and aim the Armalite under inch-by-inch control without alerting his target. The range being short the best point of aim was the head, a quick kill being imperative. But having eased the safety-catch soundlessly and hooked his finger to the trigger, he could not help but notice that the foresight was steady on a red head-band. He recalled only dimly that this might have some meaning, but it was enough to make him hesitate, the hesitation became a pause, and the pause prolonged itself until, with a sublime outpouring of bated breath and griping tension, his weapon sank gently to the forest floor.
‘Johnny….Johnny!”
When Lillico judged that the enemy had moved far enough for him to bring in the helicopter safely it was no longer there, and no amount of Regimental spirit could construe that as fortunate. The stress engendered by his eyeball to eyeball near miss with the tree-climber had left him weaker even than before. Few hours of daylight remained, and although his resolution remained unimpaired, his chance of surviving another night without medical attention had to be dispassionately assessed as small; and he was still in enemy territory.
This last consideration offered him at least and excuse for action; and despite the Herculean effort needed to move at all being compounded by the strain of unremitting wariness, that was a great deal better than wallowing like a pig in far from glorious mud with ever dimming hope. He moved a good two hundred yards, right onto the border ridge itself where, although the enemy might still be encountered, he was the more likely to be found by friends. He had also made the helicopter’s task easier, a ridge being more negotiable than a slope. But although the country was still ‘belukar’ tree-stumps, felled logs, saplings and undergrowth precluded a landing.
The forest knew before he did that light had begun to dim, and signalled the event with a perceptible increase of insect noise that he could have done without. Straining through the thrumming for not greatly dissimilar rotor-beats, he could have imagined them at any time had he let himself; but there was no question of that, he was entirely in control of himself and intended to remain so.
(Some insects which hover by in the complete blackness, which is the jungle night, do have similar sound to various engine noises, particularly two-stroke, and rotor-beats. 32B).
Perhaps it was on this account that he delayed acknowledging an alien sound until it had repeated itself, or that being tuned to helicopters he was slow to adjust to something else. Thunder; not isolated cracks but deep, rolling, prolonged and, when he had assessed its implication, sinister. The light faded faster that the sun decreed as a huge black cloud swept up from behind the mountain and there were no more shadows to measure; a breeze stirred the tree-tops, bland at first but full of portent, and then lightning slashed the cloud and lit his hiding place. It would be no mean storm, though not unusual for Borneo; you could not expect tropical rain forest to grow without tropical rain, but neither could you expect a light chopper to fly through it that was not reasonable.
Reasonable or not, suddenly there it was. Its noise, masked by the thunder until right overhead, roared generously and unmistakably. He had fumbled for the Sarbe, held for so long at instant readiness but recently laid aside. Even now he hesitated. How close were the enemy? Dare he use it?
Flying Officer David Collins had spent two busy days flying over trees infinite in number and impossible to see through. Although well aware that an enemy on the ground could easily see him, he could not fly at above small-arms range for fear of missing any sign of the men. But his briefing had been that they were probably dead anyway, and as he quartered the ground for the eighteenth time the task seemed hopeless. Yet every task must be accomplished with maximum efficiency or no deduction drawn from a negative result would be valid and, if apparently hopeless, the spur was even sharper so as to counter any tendency to inattentativeness. And he was young, new to the game with only 200 flying hours, and those men below whether dead or alive were very real to him.
So when a call came from the Ghurkha to lift Thomson out and get him to hospital – quick – Collinson’s frustration was hard to contain, because the trees were just too tall for his winch-cable. He tried place after place, brushing twigs with his blades and even depressing them a little with the down-draught, but the strop dangled bafflingly inaccessible from the ground and there was no nearby clearing to which the wounded man could possibly be moved before nightfall.
Accepting defeat with bad grace, Collinson then saw the gathering storm, decided that his duty was to return to base before it broke – and did not. The light remained adequate as he grimly started his nineteenth pass, and barely had he left the high primary jungle for the ‘belukar’ when Lillico’s Sarbe bleeped, loud and close. Right! Collinson’s mood angrily rejected even the possibility of a second failure and was admirably suited to the challenge presented by the angled mass of scrub beneath him.
Lillico dragged himself clear of his log and waved. Collinson saw at once that he could expect no further movement which might simplify his own manoeuvring within the constraint of utmost speed dictated by nightfall, storm and enemy. The strop must be placed within arm’s reach, and this he did by descending clear of the man where the growth permitted and then backing his hovering aircraft like a car until the tail rotor was neatly parked between two high and jagged tree-stumps.
But Lillico’s severest trial was still to come. He fitted the strop snugly under his armpits, that was all right; grasped his rifles and signalled to hoist, and that was alright too; but as he rose he realized with alarm that one hand could no longer support the weapon, and with dread foreboding when both together id not prevent slipping. Yet again he called forth all his determination to force his body to his will, and would have succeeded had it not been for the friendly roughness of the crewmen who were concerned only to get him safely inside. The rifle fell, and nothing in his future mattered but the sheer awfulness of reporting back to the Regiment without it. How could those airmen just sit there grinning? But, of course, they did not understand.
Thomson feared at first that he had been mistaken after all because the Gurkhas would not come down to the stream to get him; but that was because they were professional soldiers and had first to check that the enemy was not using him as a decoy. Then Kevin Walsh was bending over him and he put his arms around his neck, which was significant because Kevin did not have the sort of face that naturally invited an embrace. The chopper came and went and the Gurkhas made him a stretcher with a poncho. It rained so they made him a tent (‘basha’) with another poncho, and jabbed him with penicillin and streptomycin.
Then it was morning and four of those little guys carried him on his stretcher. He remembered that all right because it hurt like hell; it was slow going too because the Gurkhas ambushed the track behind to ensure that the enemy was not following and then had to catch up. They cut sown tree with their kukris and made a landing-point, but it was on a slope and when the chopper came again it could only get one wheel down while the other still hovered and the rotor whipped the shrubs on the high side. ‘But they shoved me in and Collinson was flying it and he got a DFC and deserved it.
After a very long time, years, in the hands of the medical profession, for whose skill and devotion they are lavish in their praise, both men recovered. Lillico did so completely and resumed his front-line career with the SAS, but Thomson became ‘The Clog’ with his left began inch and a half shorter that his right and not quite up to it, though he stayed in the Army for a period. After that he had to brave the world outside; and for one to whom the very breath of life was adventure, seeking challenge and surmounting it, risking his own life in a worthy cause, civilian existence was the greatest trail of all. As Sergeant Alf Tasker of ‘A’ Squadron put it:
‘I can’t talk to civilians. They don’t know what I’m talking about and I’m wasting my time doing it. They can’t understand why I like this job and I can’t explain because I don’t know why. It’s crazy; know what I mean?’
Flying Officer David Collins had spent two busy days flying over trees infinite in number and impossible to see through. Although well aware that an enemy on the ground could easily see him, he could not fly at above small-arms range for fear of missing any sign of the men. But his briefing had been that they were probably dead anyway, and as he quartered the ground for the eighteenth time the task seemed hopeless. Yet every task must be accomplished with maximum efficiency or no deduction drawn from a negative result would be valid and, if apparently hopeless, the spur was even sharper so as to counter any tendency to inattentativeness. And he was young, new to the game with only 200 flying hours, and those men below whether dead or alive were very real to him.
So when a call came from the Ghurkha to lift Thomson out and get him to hospital – quick – Collinson’s frustration was hard to contain, because the trees were just too tall for his winch-cable. He tried place after place, brushing twigs with his blades and even depressing them a little with the down-draught, but the strop dangled bafflingly inaccessible from the ground and there was no nearby clearing to which the wounded man could possibly be moved before nightfall.
Accepting defeat with bad grace, Collinson then saw the gathering storm, decided that his duty was to return to base before it broke – and did not. The light remained adequate as he grimly started his nineteenth pass, and barely had he left the high primary jungle for the ‘belukar’ when Lillico’s Sarbe bleeped, loud and close. Right! Collinson’s mood angrily rejected even the possibility of a second failure and was admirably suited to the challenge presented by the angled mass of scrub beneath him.
Lillico dragged himself clear of his log and waved. Collinson saw at once that he could expect no further movement which might simplify his own manoeuvring within the constraint of utmost speed dictated by nightfall, storm and enemy. The strop must be placed within arm’s reach, and this he did by descending clear of the man where the growth permitted and then backing his hovering aircraft like a car until the tail rotor was neatly parked between two high and jagged tree-stumps.
But Lillico’s severest trial was still to come. He fitted the strop snugly under his armpits, that was all right; grasped his rifles and signalled to hoist, and that was alright too; but as he rose he realized with alarm that one hand could no longer support the weapon, and with dread foreboding when both together id not prevent slipping. Yet again he called forth all his determination to force his body to his will, and would have succeeded had it not been for the friendly roughness of the crewmen who were concerned only to get him safely inside. The rifle fell, and nothing in his future mattered but the sheer awfulness of reporting back to the Regiment without it. How could those airmen just sit there grinning? But, of course, they did not understand.
Thomson feared at first that he had been mistaken after all because the Gurkhas would not come down to the stream to get him; but that was because they were professional soldiers and had first to check that the enemy was not using him as a decoy. Then Kevin Walsh was bending over him and he put his arms around his neck, which was significant because Kevin did not have the sort of face that naturally invited an embrace. The chopper came and went and the Gurkhas made him a stretcher with a poncho. It rained so they made him a tent (‘basha’) with another poncho, and jabbed him with penicillin and streptomycin.
Then it was morning and four of those little guys carried him on his stretcher. He remembered that all right because it hurt like hell; it was slow going too because the Gurkhas ambushed the track behind to ensure that the enemy was not following and then had to catch up. They cut sown tree with their kukris and made a landing-point, but it was on a slope and when the chopper came again it could only get one wheel down while the other still hovered and the rotor whipped the shrubs on the high side. ‘But they shoved me in and Collinson was flying it and he got a DFC and deserved it.
After a very long time, years, in the hands of the medical profession, for whose skill and devotion they are lavish in their praise, both men recovered. Lillico did so completely and resumed his front-line career with the SAS, but Thomson became ‘The Clog’ with his left began inch and a half shorter that his right and not quite up to it, though he stayed in the Army for a period. After that he had to brave the world outside; and for one to whom the very breath of life was adventure, seeking challenge and surmounting it, risking his own life in a worthy cause, civilian existence was the greatest trail of all. As Sergeant Alf Tasker of ‘A’ Squadron put it:
‘I can’t talk to civilians. They don’t know what I’m talking about and I’m wasting my time doing it. They can’t understand why I like this job and I can’t explain because I don’t know why. It’s crazy; know what I mean?’
Flying Officer David Collins had spent two busy days flying over trees infinite in number and impossible to see through. Although well aware that an enemy on the ground could easily see him, he could not fly at above small-arms range for fear of missing any sign of the men. But his briefing had been that they were probably dead anyway, and as he quartered the ground for the eighteenth time the task seemed hopeless. Yet every task must be accomplished with maximum efficiency or no deduction drawn from a negative result would be valid and, if apparently hopeless, the spur was even sharper so as to counter any tendency to inattentativeness. And he was young, new to the game with only 200 flying hours, and those men below whether dead or alive were very real to him.
So when a call came from the Ghurkha to lift Thomson out and get him to hospital – quick – Collinson’s frustration was hard to contain, because the trees were just too tall for his winch-cable. He tried place after place, brushing twigs with his blades and even depressing them a little with the down-draught, but the strop dangled bafflingly inaccessible from the ground and there was no nearby clearing to which the wounded man could possibly be moved before nightfall.
Accepting defeat with bad grace, Collinson then saw the gathering storm, decided that his duty was to return to base before it broke – and did not. The light remained adequate as he grimly started his nineteenth pass, and barely had he left the high primary jungle for the ‘belukar’ when Lillico’s Sarbe bleeped, loud and close. Right! Collinson’s mood angrily rejected even the possibility of a second failure and was admirably suited to the challenge presented by the angled mass of scrub beneath him.
Lillico dragged himself clear of his log and waved. Collinson saw at once that he could expect no further movement which might simplify his own manoeuvring within the constraint of utmost speed dictated by nightfall, storm and enemy. The strop must be placed within arm’s reach, and this he did by descending clear of the man where the growth permitted and then backing his hovering aircraft like a car until the tail rotor was neatly parked between two high and jagged tree-stumps.
But Lillico’s severest trial was still to come. He fitted the strop snugly under his armpits, that was all right; grasped his rifles and signalled to hoist, and that was alright too; but as he rose he realized with alarm that one hand could no longer support the weapon, and with dread foreboding when both together id not prevent slipping. Yet again he called forth all his determination to force his body to his will, and would have succeeded had it not been for the friendly roughness of the crewmen who were concerned only to get him safely inside. The rifle fell, and nothing in his future mattered but the sheer awfulness of reporting back to the Regiment without it. How could those airmen just sit there grinning? But, of course, they did not understand.
Thomson feared at first that he had been mistaken after all because the Gurkhas would not come down to the stream to get him; but that was because they were professional soldiers and had first to check that the enemy was not using him as a decoy. Then Kevin Walsh was bending over him and he put his arms around his neck, which was significant because Kevin did not have the sort of face that naturally invited an embrace. The chopper came and went and the Gurkhas made him a stretcher with a poncho. It rained so they made him a tent (‘basha’) with another poncho, and jabbed him with penicillin and streptomycin.
Then it was morning and four of those little guys carried him on his stretcher. He remembered that all right because it hurt like hell; it was slow going too because the Gurkhas ambushed the track behind to ensure that the enemy was not following and then had to catch up. They cut sown tree with their kukris and made a landing-point, but it was on a slope and when the chopper came again it could only get one wheel down while the other still hovered and the rotor whipped the shrubs on the high side. ‘But they shoved me in and Collinson was flying it and he got a DFC and deserved it.
I’m going back about forty years, or so, now, but another story these chaps told me; not sure whether pertaining to Borneo or Malaya (but I think it was Malaya), was of one fella that had received a stomach wound and was, once again, alone in the Ulu. He lay on his back and gathered up his intestines, which were extruding from his abdomen. He stuffed them back into the cavity, and then spent several hours crawling to a nearby tree, just a few yards away. He then gathered moss from the tree-trunk and used it as a form of poultice. Having done that, using the tree-trunk to assist himself, he raised himself to a kneeling position, and, with his stomach pressed against the tree, he used his toggle-rope to tie himself to it and waited to be found.
That just about sums it up. It’s usually those whom have no experience of the disciplines of which they are in awe, that get-off on every word of every report in the tabloids.
Some of the senior officers involved n the Borneo Confrontation had fought against the Japanes in Burma. They rated the Indonesians as being, at the very least, as good as the best of the Japanese, which once again underlines the value of training.
I have a tale of a joint Gurkha and SAS ‘Claret’ operation,which demonstrates this rather well, as well as it being a ripping good yarn, should you chaps wish me to post it?
Tommy Atkins and Johnny Gurkha - Claret.
In July 1965 General Lea at last authorised 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.
‘Hell Fire’ was Neill’s (2/2nd Goorkhas) progressive intention for the Indonesians, but the fire turned out to be mutual and the hell too, very nearly.
Major Bullock had barely time to dry his feet from his last Op. before being sent back in with 65 men of his Support Company (2/2”nd Goorkhas), who were beginning to know the Sentimo area well; and similarly with de la Billiere and Wilke’s 1 Troop, accompanied this time by 4 Troop (still commanded by Sergeant Major 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 main 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 Ayre Hitam.
The SAS went in three days before the Gurkhas and established themselves in ambush on the Ayer Hitam above Babang Baba. de la Billiere and 4 Troop positioned themselves on the south bank and 1 Troop on the north, though not, of course, opposite each other.
(At this point, de la Billiere was ‘A’ Squadron Commander. He had reached a point were he found it more and more unbearable to continue sending his men into danger while he himself was safe. Therefore, he, together with Lt Col. Neill of the 2/2nd Goorkas could cooperate on larger operations designed to have a greater debilitating effect on the Indonesians. 32B)
No enemy came by for three days so de la Billiere sent patrols up-stream and down-stream to look for signs of activity. Corporal Wally Poxon investigated towards Babanga 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.
This, de la Billiere realized, must be the enemy’s response to the 2/2nd’s previous assaults, and that the place to catch enemy boat traffic now was even further downriver beyond the camp. He took 4 Troop there accordingly, accepting risk of being on the wrong side of all those soldiers because of his men’s ability to lose themselves in the jungle. They arched in a wide detour around the previous ambush sites as well as the camp crossed the tributary and hit the river again further than anyone had been before where the enemy would least expect trouble.
The rainstorms had ceased, the river-bank gave good cover among the dried-out mangroves, and Tudor had the whole Troop in ambush by one o’clock on 1 September. De la Billiere and Low guarded the bergens at the immediate rendezvous(RV) 50 yards behind and seized the opportunity to catch up with events elsewhere; but although 1Troop was only 5000 yards away, they could not be raised, and de la Billiere again felt guilty for being in the wrong place in order to satisfy his personal compulsion. Base responded, however, and signals were tapped out and received, coded and decoded, though there was still a backlog when at one forty-five the ambush sprang into murderous life.
Two longboats out of a possible four (the following ones being but fleetingly seen) were allowed into the killing zone; their eight-man crews were smartly dressed and looked out keenly, though for all the good that it did them they might have taken their last few minutes of life easily. The killing was accomplished coolly and professionally, and after two minute’s firing the stillness of death lay on the water. The leading boat had sunk and not a ripple emanated from its occupants. The second had grounded within two yards of the nearest trooper, and its crew lay in its bottom without a twitch or a groan.
The first men to return from the ambush burst into the RV before de la Billiere and Low had collected codes, maps and signals. They all left hurriedly nevertheless, prudently because the crews of the rear enemy boats again justified the Indonesian’s reputation as worthy opponents by landing and advancing rapidly. A mortar opened fire from the direction of the big camp before long, and signal-shots then indicated a large-scale follow-up. A lengthy journey to the border lay ahead, made longer by the need to give the camp a very wide berth. But by nightfall it became clear that the enemy assumed the Troop to be taking the direct route and had lost the trail.
4 Troop reached the border in three days without incident, unlike earlier Indonesian raids deep into Malaysia when every retribution was usually exacted on the way out.
That was not only because the British had more helicopters with which to position cut-off troops on the ground, but because the Indonesian soldiers, despite their courage, were not trained to anything approaching the standard needed to pioneer a diversionary route through unknown jungle and had to plod back on the well-worn track by which they had come. On this occasion, however, they were also otherwise engaged.
Meanwhile, the Gurkhas had arrived on the Poeteh, guided by Lawrence Smith, who underwent the split mental condition common to SAS in those circumstances: delighted to be surrounded by large numbers of brave and competent soldiers, but appalled by the clashing of mess-tins, the thwacking of kukris and the tramp, tramp of the boys marching. Also present was a gunner officer from New Zealand, Captain Masters, forward observation officer (F.O.O.) for the guns that were now being airlifted by helicopter to remote spots whence they could best support the cross-border operations from friendly territory. The technique had been pioneered during this campaign and would make possible the advance on Port Stanley in the Falklands.
Bullock put 40 men in ambush on the Poeteh and its tracks, with 25 in a secure base to the rear where Smith also stayed:
‘Once you’ve taken them in you’re better off out of the way and let the Company commander get on with it; which he did. Young chap, quite good really.’
Collaboration between Gurkhas and SAS may have been loose, but apparently it worked, for the day after the latter’s engagement a company of Indonesians hurried down the track from Berjongkong and straight into the ambush. The Gurkhas were outnumbered by three to one, but that only became evident after the first 25 enemy had walked into the trap and lost twelve. The main body came storming in from the flank, perhaps expecting the usual SAS four-man patrol, but not in any way dismayed by the formidable force they actually met. The ferocity of the Indonesians was hardly surprising after their recent losses, even without their knowing that they had picked the right outfit to wreak revenge, if they could.
Bullock was quick to see that withdrawal was imperative and urgent. His machine-guns were well sited to cover this, but as each group fell back on his orders to a check-point just behind the ambush, so the enemy was equally quick to realize that they had left, following into a hail of fire with unheeding courage and to the admiration of the Gurkhas. The melee around the check-point surged in to five feet at one moment and seemed dangerously confused, but Gurkha discipline held and Bullock with great skill was able to withdraw his force to the secure base with only three men unaccounted for.
The missing men were the Company Sergeant Major, the signaller, and Masters the F.O.O. whose absence was critical at just this moment when gunfire was essential to check the still-advancing enemy and enable a clean break to be made. But, Smith came to the rescue. Inactive, unseeing, but with sharp ears of long experience, he formed in his mind an amazingly accurate picture of the developing situation:
‘You note the volume of fire and where it comes from; mortar there – burst there; that’s a rifle, rifle, rifle, rifle; light machine-gun, one of ours…’
Realizing that the Gurkhas were retiring with the enemy after them, Smith alerted the guns on the border, worked out a fire-plan which he presented to Bullock on his arrival and, with the latter’s ardent approval, put into immediate effect. Smith had never been a gunner, but the SAS pride themselves on being able to fill any breach; had a tank surprisingly materialized among the trees, he would have confidently have driven it into the battle.
Smith’s first sighting round startled the jungle very close to where Wilke’s and 1 Troop still lay in ambush on the Ayer Hitam. That was the alarming climax to an hour’s anxious listening to the savage din of a major battle not far behind them, and seemingly coming closer to judge by the occasional mortar-bombs which also exploded nearby. Enough being enough, Wilke’s withdrew the Troop some distance and tried to find out what was going on from his Squadron commander, who was, of course, miles away and out of touch. Then he asked base, who told him about Tudor’s ambush for the first time, advising him that the river-banks were probably being searched. Later, at the evening call, Wilke’s was ordered to move and did so. It was not a happy time.
Smith found the Indonesians range and the effect was telling, the enemy halting and keeping his distance. The Indonesians tried engaging with mortars, but whenever one fired, Smith gave it a salvo too. Bullock waited 90 minutes for the three missing men; that is to say, his Company did, but he himself went back with two Gurkhas to find them. They ran into a large party of enemy, which was surely inevitable, and killed several instead of all three being killed themselves, which was surely not. Culpably foolhardy? Sublimely brave? No one can say who was not there, but such acts by a commander for his men will make his unit invincible.
The final withdrawal went smoothly with one night-stop; shell- bursts controlled by Smith brought up the rear and in the last stages heavy mortars were also used, discouraging the enemy and earning Bullock’s generous thanks: ‘Without his help we would have been faced with a running battle back to the border.’ And that could hardly have been accomplished without more casualties. He thanked the gunners too for an impeccable performance, in person because the gun position was also the border landing-point.
There too was the Gurkha signaller with a riveting story of how he had shot one of a group of enemy surrounding him at such close range the body fell on top of him, and of how after a discreet, death-feigning pause he had crawled out, evaded the enemy, who were everywhere, and walked the five miles back without map or compass. But Master’s story capped even that and it was not yet ended. Arriving later in the day with his strength nearly gone, he told how he and the Sergeant-Major had been similarly isolated in the battle of the check-point; how the Gurkha had been shot in the leg and completely immobilized; how he himself had fought back to earn a respite ; and how when the main battle of the check-point flared up and distracted the enemy, he had hoisted his companion onto his shoulder and staggered with him out of the combat area and as far as an incredible 6,000 yards further. That was his absolute limit so he had laid down his burden and come back alone for help. That was his absolute limit so he had laid down his burden and come back alone for help, utterly exhausted but ready to turn straight round as he knew he would have to do if the man was to be found.
And so it was; Bullock led the search party, which Smith – who can doubt it? – joined and further endeared himself to the Gurkhas by finding a winching-point, homing-in the helicopter in a thunderstorm and supervising the lifting of the Sergeant-Major whose life and limb were saved, but only just for gangrene had begun.
A serious casualty meant inescapable publicity (something which required much consideration when planning every individual ‘Claret’ operation) so it was put out that the battle had been in Sarawak. Thus the only people in the know apart from the participants and a very few on the British side were the local Indonesian commanders.
They should have told Djakarta, but probably did not so as to leave the impression that aggressive operations into Malaysia were continuing splendidly. Unwillingly therefore, the British abetted the enemy’s propaganda on which his Confrontation largely depended; but that was unavoidable because the military security of Malaysia came first.
At Kuching base the masculine environment permitted that delicious sensuous pleasure, the discarding of sweaty clothes. De la Billiere stretched luxuriously on his veranda with nothing on his mind but the next operation, a wholly congenial preoccupation, and nothing on his body but his Army issue – Briefs: cellular, tropical.
Immediately below him several cars drew up at the front door, without disturbing his absorbed tranquillity, until a tingling at the back of his neck caused him to turn in alarm and behold with awe the Brigadier West Brigade Bill Cheyne, the Director of Borneo Operations Major-General George Lea, the British High Commissioner for Malaysia Lord Anthony Head (later to become the Colonel Commandant of the SAS Regiment) and full supporting cast of staff officers.
‘We have come’, they said ‘to be briefed!’
Does anyone know of where I might find information of similar incidents occurring in Vietnam?
I would suppose that the Australian SAS had similar experiences there.
Did the US mount anything similar to ‘Claret’ operations in Vietnam? If so, does anyone have any source books?
The Australian SAS Regiment " The Jungle Ghosts " arrived in South Vietnam on the 15th June 1966. Three fighting Squadrons served in rotation in the Phouc Tuy Province 70 kilometers south east of Saigon. On the 26 June 3 Squadron commenced operations from its base at Nui Dat. Their role was intelligence gathering and recon. Specifically, they were to find the whereabouts, movements and habits of the two main force enemy units in Phuoc Tuy province. Members of the Squadrons had already been in Vietnam since 1962 as advisers. The Squadrons performance won great praise from their American allies as they carried out deep reconnaissance and ambush patrols. In Vietnam the Australian SAS developed new tactics for Helicopter insertion and extraction. The SAS patrols had such an impact on the VC that one report stated that the VC had placed a bounty of $US5,000 dead or alive on the head of each ‘Ma Rung’ - Phantoms of the Jungle. January 1967 a Australian SAS patrol became engaged in fire fight with a large enemy group and one SAS patrol member was wounded. The patrol was extracted under fire. The injured soldier was returned to Australia for treatment, but due to complications he died. He was the first SAS and only Australian SAS to die from enemy action.
1 Squadron, SAS departed Vietnam on the 16th of February 1968. They were replaced by 2 Squadron. During their tour 1 Squadron mounted 246 patrols, killed 83 VC and sighted 405 enemy. Their own casualties were one died of wounds (DOW) and one wounded (WIA). On the 21st of February 1969, 3 Squadron SAS arrived to replace 2 Squadron SAS who had completed their first tour. During their tour the 2 Squadron accounted for 151 VC with a further 22 possibles. 3 Squadron SAS completed their on the 18th of January. They were replaced by 2 Squadron SAS. During their tour 3 Squadron had mounted 230 operations with 78 contacts resulting in 144 enemy KIA plus 32 possibles. The Squadrons withdrew from South Vietnam in 1972. Many of the men who had served in Vietnam went on to become instructors at the SAS Jungle warfare school in Malaya.