SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  General Walker’s good opinion also had practical effects. He continued to press strongly for a third squadron to be formed, but that would take time. The limitless Borneo frontier could absorb more SAS or SAS-type men than would ever be available, so it was also decided to train the Guards Independent Parachute Company in the SAS jungle role, with the wild Third Division particularly in mind. Later, the Gurkha Independent Parachute Company too was retrained and added to the strength.

  Individual recruiting to 22 SAS improved as well when the need became manifest. The problem was not so much to whip up volunteers but to open the door to men who needed no urging. There are always a few such, able, adventurous and mad; but most young officers and soldiers knew little about the SAS in 1963, and most commanding officers were quite content with that, not wishing to lose their best people. Now the curtain was lifted, and Woodhouse was soon able to report that the Regiment was up to strength except for the second in command’s post, which had been left unfilled since the tragic helicopter crash. Woodhouse intended that whoever filled that would take over the Command from him when he left at the end of the year, so the right man was worth waiting for.

  Now he appeared, Mike Wingate-Gray, with the coldest pair of baleful, ice-blue eyes you ever saw in your life. Here, you thought, was unfeeling ruthlessness if ever it existed and you could not have been more completely wrong. In fact, he was scared stiff. Never having served in the SAS before, though his war and subsequent record showed the right combination of daring and success, Woodhouse insisted that Wingate-Gray’s appointment would depend on his passing Selection. The thought of that is enough to turn the bowels of the bravest to water, yet Wingate-Gray, even at 42, would not have had it otherwise: ‘Commanding that outfit was going to be difficult enough anyway, but if I hadn’t proved I could do what they’d all done, it would have been bloody impossible.’ At the very moment of his arrival, they gave him the ‘bergen packed, truck waiting’ treatment and soon he was out on the hills in January with no advantage from seniority but the ability to read a map better than younger soldiers so that he never went a step too far, and an inflexible determination to think of, well, anything except defeat. The effort paid off and he was both accepted and respected.

  Woodhouse had come home to see about all these matters, but before he left Borneo he told ‘D’ Squadron that their tour would be a bare four months – thought to be the period beyond which efficiency would deteriorate in jungle warfare – and that they would be home in April. But, again, it was not to be.

  At a Foreign Minister’s conference in February 1964, Malaysia hoped to take the truce a stage further. She asked when Indonesia was going to withdraw a force that had penetrated the First Division, apparently with orders to lie up and await developments, and which although it was being harried was still there. For once Indonesia gave a straight answer: it and others would stay; and two weeks later she escalated this arrogant initiative by demanding the right to resupply her troops by air, finally announcing her intention of going ahead with a parachute drop whatever Malaysia might say. Malaysia said ‘No’, set up an Air Defence Identification Zone supported by fighters and no more was heard of that project; but at yet another meeting on 4 March when Malaysia firmly demanded withdrawal, Indonesia equally firmly refused and at last the position became clear. Whether war was declared or not, which it never was, there was undoubtedly a war on, and Indonesia set about proving it with a series of raids into the First and Second Divisions by strong forces of well trained regular troops. She tried it on again in the Long Pa Sia Bulge too, but there Sergeant ‘Smokey’ Richardson and his SAS patrol took a hand.

  THE THREE CAMPS, MARCH 1964

  The Bulge was so completely wild, mountainous and unpopulated yet of such strategic importance that Roger Woodiwiss was convinced the enemy would come again. So wild was it that near the border that the map showed nothing but the line itself and even that was suspect; this was intolerable in the circumstances, its true position must be established beyond doubt and searched for signs of the enemy.

  The task, virtually without a map, would be testing, but Richardson was an old friend as well as an ‘old Malayan Sergeant’ and Woodiwiss knew he could do it. Short in stature, ‘Smokey’ because he smoked constantly, he had the reputation of an excellent all-rounder rather than a specialist. He was to walk the supposed border from Ba Kelalan in the south and eventually meet Bob Creighton’s patrol on the River Plandok.

  Tony ‘Lofty’ Allen was an old Malayan Corporal; serious, sensitive, and Richardson’s contemporary and particular friend with whom he could debate freely and so use their combined experience and intelligence while being assured of complete loyalty when the time came for decision. With them were two youngsters: John Allison, an ebullient Scot, and James ‘Paddy’ Condon from Tipperary. The latter was short, slight, and very quiet, which made it easy to miss the enthusiasm and drive that had led him to join the British Army, against his republican family’s wishes, and become champion recruit of his batch in the Parachute Regiment. Now, a member of ‘A’ Squadron, Condon had volunteered for an extra spell in Borneo in response to an urgent request from Woodiwiss for a signaller. His job meant not just operating the radio but carrying it, maintaining it, and guarding it with his life; so integral was it to SAS operations that it had acquired a half mystical value like a regimental Colour of old.

  The walk would be a long one, so they took three weeks’ rations, and a high one, so they needed blankets. What with spare radio batteries, ample medical pack and all the rest, each man carried over 70 pounds and felt it as he climbed to the 5,000-foot ridge. But the extent of the challenge was not fully revealed until they reached the top; not only did the map show nothing, but having looked forward to panoramic views, which would indicate the border and their route, they found they could see nothing either. Ridges usually carry trees to their summits, but where the sides are steep, glimpses are afforded past soaring, elegant, branchless trunks rigged with searching lianas through a leafy frame that is often delicate like English ash and very beautiful; but here such gaps were few, and those immaterial because the ridge formed its own clinging cloud which rarely lifted. The near environment was eerie as well as thus confined; heavy rain alternated with thick, moist fog, so that all was permanently wet, with tousled sponge-like club moss hanging on trees and covering the ground to give slippery footholds and a sense of desolation; they called it ‘moon country’ in consequence, but, unlike on the moon, growth was dense and cutting ceaseless and gruelling.

  Days passed, exhausting and depressing, though at least the nights were cool, and they slept well in their blankets. But where were they now? On a ridge certainly, but what ridge and where did it lead? Ridges branch, and one such major divide should be evident where Sarawak, Sabah and Kalimantan met. Although no others appeared on the map it would be most unusual if none existed, and their planned track was not on just any ridge but the threatened frontier with an aggressive enemy. Richardson could only hope he was on it, though all he had to reassure him was the patrol’s combined but unsupported estimate of direction and distance marched along the zig-zag crest. They called that ‘dead reckoning’.

  Another week went by at two miles a day, the ridge curving to the northeastwards as the map showed. Then the first strange thing happened. Its oddity was compounded by nobody thinking it the least odd, except that it began with a, climbable tree coinciding with a clear sky which was certainly unusual. At last, Borneo was revealed in its immense magnificence – and they might have been just about anywhere in it; but they might also have been where they thought, between the rivers Paling and Plandok. Indeed, there was a glint of water in more or less the right position.

  Badly needing a resupply and the opportunity now offering, they descended the north side of the ridge. There they found a suitable place to make a landing-point where several deadfall trees had begun the work; but it still took them two days of hacking with ‘parangs’ to complete the task, which added to thei
r fatigue. All being ready, they signalled their position with a list of requirements, and delivery was promised for the next day, 10 March.

  They all listened keenly at the appointed hour, for while being not too unsure of their position, they were not too sure either; but the Whirlwind flew straight to them without even the benefit of a balloon, far less a radio beacon, which had not yet been issued. It brought good things from Frank Williams; and five letters from Allen’s wife Sue, who wrote one every day as a good Army wife should, numbered because they might arrive in any order, anywhere, at any time. Allen posted his own, which was quickly borne aloft through the crowding trees and home, where, as he now read, his daughter Tracy was doing all the things to be expected of a one-year-old in the orderly routine of a country at peace. Then he burnt the letters.

  Better even than the welcome stores and mail was the pilot’s implied corroboration of the patrol’s position, justifying, it seemed, modest pride in their navigation, which even the commanding officer might perhaps concede was up to standard, and he was hard to please. The 11th was a rest and sorting out day, and on the 12th they started north along the River Plandok, as it must surely be, to find Creighton. They had walked only 300 yards and reached the left bank when they saw a line of bare man Friday footprints on a sandbank. Was that odd? Not really; the Bulge may have been uninhabited, but hunters liked it on that account.

  They pressed on for another hour under dark primary forest and then halted beside a small tributary, easing out of their bergens. Allen crossed the stream alone to probe ahead for a hundred yards. Then the third odd thing happened; Richardson saw a man, quietly fishing on Allen’s side of the water, some twenty yards upstream from where he had crossed. The three of them rolled silently into firing positions, which was how Allen found them when he returned, having seen nothing abnormal; they gestured to him, and following their muzzles he saw the man too, no longer fishing but looking at him perplexed, as well he might. His olive-green shirt could have been a soldier’s, but that evidence was far too flimsy to warrant shooting him, so Allen called cheerfully, ‘Selamat petang, ada baik lah?’ (‘Good afternoon, how’s things?’) He was a qualified interpreter, but something about him – perhaps his white bearded face surmounted by a piratical yellow sweatband, the civilian shirt he wore for comfort, or his speaking Malay instead of Javanese – terrified the man, who fled, shouted to somebody, and disappeared.

  Oddness became suspicion; they had been sent to find the enemy and it began to look as though they had done so. Richardson conferred with Allen and decided to investigate at once, so they crossed the knee-deep stream to find what was clearly a concealed sentry-post, indicating that fishing had been only a secondary and time-passing occupation. They followed the sentry’s track, at instant readiness for action and using every skill at their command. They moved slowly, but soon became aware of man-made signs. Then they made out an obviously artificial entanglement of split rotan cane, which was often used as a delaying obstacle around jungle camps.

  Such outworks were usually accompanied by viciously sharpened bamboo stakes called ‘punjis’, which could pierce a clumsy foot and cripple it. There might also be mines, trip-wires, hidden pits and devilish contrivances of all sorts, but, if your training had been thorough, you knew what to expect and progress was possible even if barely perceptible. The camp itself began to show: bare poles of poncho-type bashas, then more, some with palm-leafed roofs, slit trenches protected by logs and earth, still more bashas, and the ashes of several fires from one of which the faintest wisp of smoke snaked upwards lazily, implying much.

  It was a big camp, but the more they saw of it and the longer they watched the less it seemed to be occupied. Richardson and Allen crawled forward, covered by Condon and Allison. On seeing the whole extent for the first time, they estimated that 100 Indonesian soldiers had stayed there; regular troops probably and, it had to be admitted, quite efficient to judge by the professional siting tactical layout, and tidiness emphasized by a single exception, a belt of ammunition left lying carelessly. That and the smouldering fire were puzzling All other signs pointed to the enemy having left at least two days before; but the way he had gone was clear enough, a heavily pounded track leading southwest-wards.

  First, Richardson sent an emergency signal reporting the startling find of a large enemy camp on Malaysian territory; and the authorities, duly startled, alerted all forces in the Bulge. Then he led back over the stream, and north to relocate the enemy track; but what he found – and it was as well that his nerves were unconductive of emotion, particularly fear – was another big camp. The same professionally cautious approach revealed that this too had been empty for several days, but had housed a very different type of unit; the irregular guerilla, force called the TNKU, which had launched the Brunei Revolt. This was proclaimed both by the initials carved boldly on a tree, and an irregular mess of unburied litter and general sloppiness. The patrol wondered whether the fastidious Indonesian imperialists had positioned these unsavoury natives 300 yards from their own immaculate residence as much for social as military reasons.

  The next discovery pointed to the military reason, but much more besides. The big track from the main camp did not end here but swung north, and at least 150 men must even now be deep into Sabah. It was an exciting moment, justifying their perseverance and, indeed, the Regiment’s existence; but their enjoyment was marred by the sharp recollection that they themselves had been compromised. And there was something more; superimposed upon the beaten track were the marks of three individuals fresh that very day, one in army boots, one in studded hockey-boots and one barefoot. That, then, explained the wood-smoke and abandoned ammunition; the sentry must have been one of a stay behind party that had hastily made itself scarce, and messengers were even now hurrying after the main body to warn it of an enemy in its rear.

  It was evening and not a moment too soon, quite enough having happened in one day. Taking more than usual care to leave no signs, the patrol basha’d down in thick undergrowth; but the night was far from restful because Richardson decreed that all four should lie on the ground under just one poncho with bergens packed ready for instant flight. Sleep became ever more elusive as they mulled over their prospects. Condon cleared his momentous report without trouble, and the reply came back that they were to follow the incursion track, as Richardson expected and as he would have done anyway. The worry was how best to do it. The aim must be to shadow the enemy as closely as was consistent with reasonable safety so as to give the infantry the best possible data on which to intercept him; but when the messengers reached him, he might well come bounding back, 150 men against four and between the four and their base. The patrol must therefore be ready to fade away before meeting the Indonesians head-on and move like ghosts, accepting the slowness and nervous strain.

  Looping was inexpedient because the growth was impenetrable without noisy cutting, so they walked very quietly on the track itself, widely spaced in the depressing hope that not all of them would be annihilated in an ambush. All ears were strained to hear an approaching enemy before he heard them. They stopped often, melting into the bush, and were fortunate in their timing because they were hidden when sounds approached, sure enough from the north. Whoever it was came crashing through the undergrowth in a thoroughly undisciplined manner, grasping young trees whose tops shook visibly, and clearly lacking jungle experience. Tensely on aim, Allen saw what first looked like a brown uniform shirt and then resolved itself into an enormous, ugly, patriarchal orangutan, waddling by as though he owned the place. In normal times he would have done so because pongo pygmaeus has no natural superior, but now pongo britannicus had the edge on him without his knowing, and he was a lucky ape not to have blundered any closer.

  Such was their stress that the men were not at all amused, and they continued northward with even faster pulse-rates. In the afternoon they stopped at the top of a ridge, though the track pressed menacingly onwards, so as not to become embroiled with the infantry. W
oodiwiss at base was also concerned to prevent that happening since he knew that the 2/7th Gurkhas were even then placing their ambushes. He told Richardson to stay where he was for the night and then go back south out of the way.

  In the early darkness of the jungle night, they again had time to discuss their circumstances, this time with a twinge of unease that things might not be entirely as they seemed. What was it that insistently checked the smooth flow of deductive reasoning; the sentry? However incompetent, he would hardly have been fishing if he had any concern for his own safety, so perhaps he had none? The camp fires? Wood-smoke in jungle is trapped beneath the canopy, spreading far and hanging long, and to make it when trying to remain undiscovered in enemy territory would be a stupid and quite unnecessary risk. And now this ridge they were on, entirely unexpectedly? Could it – just conceivably – be the border itself? The thought was extruded painfully, because it inexorably implied that they, not the Indonesians, had been in enemy territory.

  The unthinkable having been thought, they felt in their bones that it was true. To return south would, far from keeping them out of trouble, plunge them right back into it and they did not like the idea at all. Yet there was no proof that justified a signal to Woodiwiss. Wherever the border was, the enemy incursion had certainly crossed into Malaysia; and Richardson had his orders, which, contrary to a widespread misapprehension, are obeyed in the SAS as they are throughout the forces, all else confusion. So, on the morning of the 14th, they retraced their steps. They moved slowly as before to avoid discovery and slower still because heavy rain had partly obliterated the track.

  Now, Woodiwiss too began to feel disquiet, for his jigsaw of evidence was not fitting together either, and important pieces were missing; Creighton had moved southwest from the Plandok to find the enemy track but had not done so, neither had it reached the River Berbulu where it reportedly led. One thing only became clear, that Richardson was not where he thought. Where was he then, and where in consequence was the enemy? Most likely further to the east between the rivers Plandok and Morning, yet how was the successful resupply to be explained? The helicopter had flown direct from Long Semado for only twelve miles, which gave little scope for gross navigational errors. Here was a puzzle whose solution just had to be found.