JUNGLE WARFARE SCHOOL MALAYA

I went with Capt Bill Brown who was second in command of A Coy and who had done a tour with the Parachute Regiment and Brian Davenport ,a Platoon commander in A Coy, to the Jungle Warfare School in Malacca , Malaya . We were the second tranche of officers/ NCOs to go on the course in preparation for our forthcoming tour in Borneo . The course lasted about six weeks and was mixed with officers and NCOs on the same course . It was truly international with students from : UK , America , Australia , New Zealand , Malaya , Thailand and Sri Lanka .

The only ones I had difficulty with were the Australians ( sorry Kate ) but the officers seemed to have a chip on there shoulder and kept banging on about how they had won the War . On the other hand the Australian NCOs were great .

President Kennedy had just started to get American troops involved in Vietnam , initially Special Forces. The Green Berets had just been formed and deployed ahead of major ground forces . Naturally John Wayne was at the forefront or did that come later ! 
I got on well a Sgt Kelly in the Australian Infantry . I remember we were in the same patrol on this three day navigation exercise . As part of our group was this enormous American in USMC.
He  must have been 6 ft 4 in and belonged to a Recce Unit( presume forerunner of the SEALS ).
He was a really good guy . However , one of the worst types of terrain you can hit are patches of these large ferns that are 10 ft tall. The only way to make progress is for the lead man to raise his rifle above his head and then fall flat. Well whilst negotiating a patch of these ferns this American really got a bad dose of cramps . I looked at Sgt Kelly and he looked at me. Although we did not say a word the thought was crossing our minds "we are going to have to carry this giant out . Well fortunately he recovered but was subsequently killed in Vietnam .

The British a fair amount of residual experience of operating in the jungle with outfits like the Chindits in Burma to the Malayan Emergency . After the War the Chinese Communist who in Malaya who had taken to the jungle and opposed the Japanese expected their reward would be the control of the country even although they were a minority compared with the Malaya population. When this did not happen they went back to the jungle and confrontation lasted till 1958 . It was at this time that the SAS who had been disbanded were reformed to parachute into the jungle and seek them out . Also developed was the Strategic Hamlet concept which the Americans later tried to emulate in Vietnam .

I was really glad I did this course before I went to Borneo.Although ,you cannot learn every thing in six weeks one left with a knowledge of : navigation , tracking , laying ambushes , attacking enemy camps , booby traps etc . It was also my first time away from the battalion after leaving Sandhurst.

What was happening in Blighty whilst I was in the Far east. Britain was refused entry into the EEC ; Kim Philby the MI6 spy escaped to Beirut : there was the Great Train Robbery the Profuma scandal with Christine Keeler . In Iraq General Kassem was assassinated . At Sandhurst the students from Iraq had Kassems photograph on their wall but just in case some of other Generals hidden in their bottom drawer.

In America they closed Alcatraz .

Political correctness was really in vogue then. One officer from Sri Lanka who was reall quite dark and had a waxed moustache said to me " Alan you must appreciate most of my people are Wogs ."

At the end of the course it was not worth sending us back to HK so we stayed in a transit camp in Singapore and awaited being called forward to Borneo . We were to spend six weeks with  2/6 Gurkha Rifles before the Leicesters arrived to take over from them .

HONG KONG

Hong Kong was my first experience of life in a British Colony . It of course had been fostered by those good Christian Scots so they could sell opium produced in India to the Chinese . I think Chinese and European culture are poles apart . We did not really socially have any interface with the Chinese. Madarin is the most spoken language in the World with some1,025 million speakers .
However, in south China including Hong Kong and Macau (the Portugese Colony ) they spoke Cantonese . The Madarin speaking Chinese in the north tend to look down on the Cantonese calling them "monkeys ". I never attempted to learn any Chinese , it is difficult as the same word with a different pronounciation can mean something totally different .

The Officers' Mess Colour Sergeant would have difficulty with pronouncing the names of the Chinese Mess Staff so they would be referred to as No1 , No 2 etc up to No10. However, as he berated them their No would frequently be preceded by F---king . Now Chinese have difficulty with "F" so they would refer to themselves as No Hucking One . I remember as I marched through HK carrying the Regimental Colour I heard some Chinese call out there goes No Hucking One : they obviously thought the guy with the flag was important .

 I would say there was a certain deference on the part of the Chinese towards their Colonial Masters . They had had a rough time during the Japanese occupation . The Japs did reduce TB by bayoneting any Chinese they saw spitting . At the Japanese surrender there was a rush by the Brits to get back as there was some fear the Americans might try to prevent us reoccupying HK . When I went back to HK 25 years later attitudes had changed as handover to China got closer. The HK Chinese wanted stability in an enviornment where they could make money. As that was all about to change there was no need to defer to Europeans.

I had my 21st birthday in Hong Kong . I treated myself to a shave in the Grand Peninsula Hotel, first time ever. The next time was in Edinburgh with Douglas some forty five years later.

One big event in Honk Kong was The Queen's Birthday Parade. The photographss are of me in the Colour Party . I am the one on the right in case you do not recognise Grandpa in his youth .

Little incidents come to mind wich seem amusing in retrospect. I recall being ferried round Sai Kung harbour by a little Chinese girl in a sampan going from junk to junk to haggle for the best hire price to take the soldiers to one of the islands for a picnic.  We would anchor off an island swim ashore and hope four hours later they were sober enough to swim back ! We did have a rescue boat .

One amazing thing to watch  were Chinese funerals. They had access through our camp to burial grounds at the end of the peninsula . Professional mourners would be hired . They dressed in white would head the parade wailing as if they were in an LSD trance , all part of their culture .

All the things you would expect went on : lots  of sporting events , swimming at the officers club , cocktail parties etc all part of the British Raj .

Not really sure how long I spent in HK . It could have been as little as four months as the next move was to Malaya to the Jungle Warfare School.

During my time in HK I did get a trip in a light aircraft round the territory . Years later I did a similar trip in a helicopter . The amazing difference was land reclamation .

HONG KONG
British Eagle ( now defunct ) flew us to Hong Kong in Feb 1963 . The flight took us about two days as we stopped at Palermo , Istanbul , Bombay , Bangkok and then eventually HK . It was a propeller driven aircraft. Jet travel was then in the early stages .

The battalion was deployed to to the New Territories in two different camps about three miles apart , Sai Kung & Erskine . I, with B Coy was in Sai Kung which overlooked a Chinese fishing village of the same name .

A Coy had arrived a few days before us and their subalterns had already been down town to explore Kowloon . We were more than happy for them to show us the ropes for they had discovered the bars where the girls were topless . I managed to get separated from the group but did remember the good advice I had been given : " Get in a rickshaw and ask for Steamer Point :  you will find a taxi ; say Sai Kung no see meter  ". That way you got back more cheaply as the taxi driver could pocket the fare . I think I said Sek Kong which was 40 miles in the wrong  direction but the driver twigged and said NO you Leicester you Sai Kung .

One quickly  learned the tricks of the trade . In HK you never agreed with the asking price you simply bargained for everything be it trying to buy a camera or vegetables. That is unless you were a gullible American tourist . In fact later we played this game of seeing what Americans would pay for an item and then trying to get it for half the price . We of course had no intention of buying an ivory tusk on our salary .

Sai Kung was again another of those Nissen hutted camps . The officers mess was one of these big huts but it had a nice patio which overlooked the fishing village. Looking over the harbour you could really capture the atmosphere of HK and the Chinese as the junks with their lanterns came back into port , the sound of Chinese music and just a sense a the industry of the Chinese . When you went into the village and explored the markets with fish stalls well that was just a whole new experience.

Military wise HK was fairly peaceful at that time , no riots . The police were well equipped to deal with riots and if we were deployed it would have got to the shooting stage .Things changed when Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in China but was 1966 . Then there were problems with the Red Guards on the border
One platoon task was to deploy to a police station on the River into China. The station had a flat roof and we observed and logged all the traffic going up and down the river. As the platoon commander you had accomodation on the roof and were only allowed to leave for meals . It would be a long week up there on the roof . However , on one stint I did manage to read all 1,367 pages of Les Miserables . Meanwhile below me a stream of Chinese airhostess would be visiting the HK Police Officers below . Had I joined the wrong outfit !

Looking into China there were paddy fields as far as the eye could see . When I went back twenty five years later there was a complete new city, Shenzhen which is a special economic zone ie China's answer to capitalism .

Think I will continue later as sometimes I seem to press the wrong button and it all vanishes .

THE LEICESTERS IN SOMERSET

About six months before I joined the Tigers they had returned to UK  from Munster in Germany. Doniford Camp was to be their home for the next four years .The Camp had been built during the War and originally housed an artillery unit but became an evacuation centre for casualties returning from D Day in Normandy . The Camp was right on the edge  of the Bristol Channel and in stormy weather at high tide the waves would crash onto the battalion square .

Accommodation for soldiers was pretty spartan with fifteen soldiers to a Nissan hut with a coke stove at either end .Their furnishings consisted of a metal bed and locker and a wooden box for storage. They would have to make their way through the snow to the shower blocks . As Garrison Commander in Tidworth in the 1990s I was involved in the design of new barracks in Tidworth .Soldiers had their own individual rooms with en suite showers : it took us forty years to get to that point . Officers were better off but Doniford Camp was essentially basic . Later it became a Refugee Centre for Asians who were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin . It is now a holiday camp .

Like everyone else there was a rank structure but there seemed to be a three tier system when it came to experience : the commanding officer and the company commanders had  been in the World War ; senior captains had been in Korea and junior captains had fought EOKA in Cyprus .We unbemedalled subalterns were aware we were untested .The NCOs were not old  enough to have been in the War but many had been in Korea and Cyprus .

My first company commander , John Parsons, , had been in a cavalry regiment I think but joined No 1 SAS and at 19 was parachuted into France to fight with the Resistance . However , he said he got more involved in fights between the Resistance and the Maquis than fighting the Germans and eventually had to be extracted . He was then dropped into Norway and at the end of the War was involved in sending back to Russia some of their nationals who had fought for the Germans .
The second in command was Tom Hiney who had won an MC in the Congo whilst serving with troops from Ghana. Fortunately for us Tom was a bachelor and had a small car.If it had not been for him we subalterns in B Coy would have had a pretty dull social life .

The Camp was about three miles from a little fishing village called Watchet with a high harbour wall.We were equidistant from two towns :Taunton a market town and Minehead where there was a Butlins Holiday Camp. Officers tended to go to Taunton and the soldiers to Minehead.

The soldiers always manage to sniff out totty but did adopt some strange names for the girls of easy virtue like the Wiveliscombe Witch and the Minehead Mauler .They did not get payed that much but  cider was cheap in Somerset .

Some soldiers did marry Somerset girls but not the officers.Although we were a source of bachelors and did get invited to lots of parties and hunt balls I think the County Set would rather marry a rich farmer who went hunting rather than an impoverished officers.

Not really sure the " swinging sixties " ever got as far west as rural Somerset but we did play Beatles records at parties and knew how to do the latest dance The Twist .

Oct 1962 was the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis . Although , we were aware of this at the time I do not recall being aware of impending Armageddon .We were never put on any special alert . In fact our biggest problem was coping with that severe winter and we were deployed to dig out railway sidings .

One thing that did slightly perturb me was the number of officers who seemed to want to get away. In my first week a captain who had been an instructor at Sandhurst said hullo and goodbye as he was off to join a cavalry regiment having been poached by my company commander at Sandhurst . Another was off to the Parachute Regiment and even Tom Hiney asked me when was I applying for a secondment . This was essentially about young men wanting excitement . Some officers were content to serve in UK  and enjoy Cricket and the local pub but others wanted more. Our own little war somewhere !


I suppose I wanted something more than rural England . Eureka it was all to change and the thing that sparked it off was a revolt against the Sultan in Brunei .

As it turned out the Queens Own Highlanders , Royal Marines and Gurkha's put down the revolt and the rebels fled to Indonesia (Kalimantan ).This eventually led to an undeclared war against Inodonesia which lasted from 1962 to 1964 which is highlighted in that book called Confrontation .

To continue with the Tigers, there we were in Somerset all geared up to go . Some books have  impressed me , one is a book by Adair who talks about three interlocking circles : Task , Team Maintenance and Individual  Needs . Somehow in rural Somerset by suddenly being given a positive task there was magic in the air .Probably different if you were married with two kids and had been to Korea and Cyprus but for us young bachelors this was it .

Now comes an amusing saga . As part of the Indian Army system units had Contactors, under today's jargon they are Facilities Management Companies ( Ask Cheney all about it ). Well these contractors did everything for a unit : Cooks ,cleaners, Mess staff , barber , tailors they even brought tea for the soldiers in bed in the morning.

Well as we sat in Somerset with bayonets fixed ready to deploy the Commanding Officer got a letter from this Indian Contractor : " Honorable Sahib you will remember I looked after you in Hong Kong before you deployed to Korea in 1952 . I understand you are not going immediately to Borneo or Malaya but instead to HK . You will be in Erskine Camp and Sai Kunk Camp and  I will be there to meet you ." Two days later the MOD informed the CO that was the plot .
The system worked well. Eight years later we had the same contractor in Bahrain. This was before the age of computers and these contractors kept their accounts in leather bound ledgers in copperplate writing .  Commanding C Coy the Contractor came to me and said you know Mickey Mouse and Roy Rodger still owe me 8 HK Dollars. Soldiers frequently gave false names when getting credit .

That was it Christmas leave and then off to Hong Kong .Roll on 1963 at least I am no longer a teenager !

LUNDY ISLAND

I am sure many a tale can be told about the pranks subalterns have played on new arrivals . Fortunately I think I missed what had be organised for me due to a black porter on Birmingham Station . The train that went to Somerset split at Gloster and half went to Taunton and the other half to Cardiff . The porter put my two trunks on the wrong half & I followed the trunks assuming the porter had got it right . Well after Gloster I think I must have dozed off because the tanoy announced next stop Newport . That did not ring a bell so I looked at the map in my diary . My goodness I was in Wales . I jumped off the train at Newport with trunks and thought what next . There was only one option go all the way back to Gloster and get the next train to Taunton . I rang up the Adjutant and explained I would be late (a mix up in the timetables ! )

I got into the barracks (Doniford Camp, Watchet) pretty late, had a late meal and was allocated a room .The next morning I had to embarrasingly introduce myself at breakfast . I was then taken to see the Adjutant and then meet my Company Commander. It was rumoured he ate subalterns for breakfast .

I was informed that the next day (Fri)  I was to take my platoon and the drums platoon to Lundy Island for amphibious training . Lundy Island is in the middle of the Bristol Channel off the Devon coast . In fact if you go due West you end up in Canada . The Island is 3.5 miles long and half a mile wide ; flat green plateau on top which leads to cliffs all round .

We departed at 5am and got to Barnstable about 7am . I reported to the Adjutant of this RASC Amphibious Regiment who told me breakfast was on for the lads and after that I was to load them onto these Ducks on the square. These are vehicles which can go on roads and in the water . In fact you see them in New York painted yellow presumably for trips round the harbour . All went well and we boarded this much larger Tank Landing Ship and headed for Lunday.Nobody had actually explained what we were going to do when we got there so I approached this major in the RAOC who seemed to be the most senior person present . He said his group were on the last day of a long petroleum course and were on a swan so do what you like when you get there. We did get there but all Lunday had was one pub , two derelict churches and a thousand sheep. I therefore explained to everyone they could explore the Island , Have no more than two pints at lunch and be back on the beach at 1630hrs .

Come 1630 hrs back on the beach one missing Pte Hurcomb . I quized everyone and a Pte Coppin said he had walked along the cliff with him and when he turned round he was gone so he assumed he had taken a shortcut along the beach . Well I went with Coppin and the Drum Major to the last point where they had been together and there bedded into the grass almost at the edge of the cliff was a sheet of corrugated iron .Fearing the worst I borrowed a rope from some climbers nearby and abseiled down the cliff . Hurcomb was there at the bottom very dead . We got a helicopter from Chivenar to get the body out . On the trip back this RAOC major thought we should hold a Board of Enquiry to establish the facts . Then when we got back to Barnstable he took me home to his house gave me a large whisky and suggested I ring my Adjutant. Well I got through ok and explained I had lost a soldier. His response was well go and find him. I then explained I knew where he was ie the morgue in Chivenar. You had better come back then .

On the Sat I went to a Coroners Inquest with the CSM ; Sun I practised funeral drill and on Monday we buried poor Hurcomb.That was my first week as a new second lieutenant.

POST SANDHURST
Sandhurst trained you to be an officer in general terms .Depending on what you were commissioned into determined where you went next .Gunners would go to the School of Artillery at Larkhill for further training whilst the cavalry went to the Armoured School at Bovington and the infantry to Warminster . Sappers would go off to the Army University at Shrivenham to do an engineering degree .

Where did me all end up from my platoon ? As far as I can remember it was :

Royal Artillery   4
Scots Guards     1
Irish Guards      1
R  Signals          2
RMP                  1
Cavalry              2
REME               1
Glosters             1
R Leicesters      1(me)
R Engineers      3

For the infantry the policy kept changing from going immediately to the School of Infantry or doing six months with a battalion first . I went to the battalion first but  initially had to go for two weeks to the Headquarters of the Royal Leicestershire Regiment at Glen Parva Barracks in Leicester . This is where recruits were trained .

Although I was a Leicester I was actually commissioned into the Forester Brigade and wore their cap badge .This was an early attempt to form large Regiments and consisted of the Leicesters , Warwick's and Sherwood Foresters .

Nothing much of significance happened in those two weeks . One vignette which did register was going to the Magistrates Court in Birmingham . In those days an officer had to go to court with a soldier up before the magistrate . I had to go with a black soldier who had been charged with burglary . The Company Commander at the Depot told me just to say he was an excellent soldier .

Well the procedure was that after the magistrate had pronounced if the soldier was guilty or not guilty he would say " Is there an officer in the court ." That was ones cue to stand up and spout .
Although the soldier had been found guilty I stated that he was an excellent soldier and that this offence was totally out of character ( we were short of numbers in those days as national service had just ended ). Thereupon the magistrate asked the soldier if he had anything to say before sentencing .The soldier replied " Yes Sir can I have thirty two other offences taken into account ." I felt a real fool .

The next time I went to court in Minehead in Somerset I made sure I did my homework . However , I did chuckle when an old Somerset poacher who was the case before mine was fined £ 25 by the magistrate for poaching a deer . As he passed me on leaving the court he gave me a big wink and whispered  " I got fifty quid from the butcher ."

The only other amusing tale was the soldier who on returning drunk decided to paint the pigs in regimental colours : red , grey and black .

THE LAST PARADE

At the end of the Summer Term in 1962 on the Sovereigns Parade as it was called Intake 29 marched up the steps behind the Adjutant on his white charger and through the doors of Old College. As you passed through those doors you became a second lieutenant .

Apart from one all my platoon made it : he had stolen a car in the last term and got thrown out .

What was Sandhurst all about ? My list would include : discipline , standards , tradition , history , fitness and chauvinism . That stated it was tempered with that famous British sense of humour and practical common sense . There was degree of intellectual stimulus but not really on a par with university .

The Army , and not just the British Army , tends to be a decade behind the social and moral mores of the nation .It has taken the British and American Services a long time to accept homosexuality in their ranks . Latent or not so latent at Sandhurst was the class system where you were labelled according to the school you went to , your accent and the clothes you wore .

Outside our cloistered world at Sandhurst a lot was happening .

In Feb 1961 Harold Macmillan's speech " The Wind of Change " heralded the decolonisation of Africa . This went reasonably smoothly with British Colonies except Kenya where we struggled with the Mau Mau . It was more difficult with the French in Algeria and the Belgium Congo . The Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique were a disaster . Apartheid in South Africa dragged on for another three decades and we did not come to a solution in Rhodesia till 1980 . Before the SAS got all the publicity the heroes of the day were white mercenaries with people like " Mad Mike Hoare " rescuing Austrian nuns from the Simbas in the Congo who were prone to eating their captives . Almost thought of becoming a mercenary after Borneo when soldiering in UK seemed pretty dull.

In Jan 1961 J F Kennedy was inaugurated the 35th President of the USA . Although I am cynical about the Kennedy clan at the time he seemed young , dynamic and vibrant, it was the dawn of a new era--the glamorous Camelot . Kennedy made our PM ( Macmillan) look like something ancient out of the Edwardian era .

Within the UK things were changing . I would not call it a revolution more a new dynamic and a surge of energy . The class system was being challenged. TV was having a greater impact which opened up new avenues for talent rather than us being dominated by Hollywood .

Pop culture took off-Cliff Richards-Tommy Steel and then the Beatles and the Rolling Stones . In parallel  there was a new dynamic in satire which mocked the establishment ; ppeople like Peter Cook in Beyond the Fringe .British cinema also took off with films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning . I certainly remember in the Mess in Somerset everything would stop so we could all watch on TV That Was the Week That Was.

The Cold War went on apace and in 1961 the Russians put Yuri Gagarin into space (Apr ). The Berlin Wall was constructed in Jul . Meanwhile Kennedy had his disaster with the " Bay of Pigs "in Cuba .

There was always something in the news : DNA was discovered ; the Israelis captured Adolph Eichmann and Marlin Monroe died .

Writing this all seems heady stuff compared with my mundane problem of getting a trunk and two suitcases full of brand new uniforms back to Glasgow . One was given a uniform allowance to get fitted out with all the necessary forms of dress appropriate to ones new regiment . I did envy those cadets whose parents turned up in smart cars to spirit them away .

That is it for Sandhurst. Danger lay ahead but for the time being I had only felt at risk once when Mike Farquharson and I capsized in a double canoe in Pool Harbour and got swept out to sea by a fast outgoing tide .