Hrltaln's Secret War the Indonesian Confrontation 1962-66 CONTENTS
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Hrltaln's Secret War The Indonesian Confrontation 1962-66 CONTENTS THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND 3 • The Brunei remit. December 1962 CONFRONTATION 6 • The phases of0pcr.ltions - the baulclicld - the troops • General Walker's operational principles WILL FOWLER hn wortled • 'I leans and mil1d~' - 22 SAS -the Border ScOUlS In Jourmllllam and publishing • Summary of Commonwealth forces .Ince H112, reportIng for Europe.n, American, Aalan 'nd ArabIc magazlnea from INDONESIAN CROSS-BORDER ATTACKS, Europe, the USA, the Middle E..t, Chi", .nd SE Alia. 1963-64 11 Amongst hIs more than 30 • Longj<w..ai. Scplt"mber/OclObcr 1963 - Kalabakan, publllhed books II the belt December 1963/Febmary 1964 - Long Miau and the MllIng MAA 133 Sattle for R~ang river,Janlialy 1964 -lhe BanH"kok talks the Fa/Illanth: Lsoo Force•. A TA Hldl., for 30 years, he • Track 6, "larch 19fi<!- British reinforccmcllts wa. cornml..loned from the ranks In 4th Bn Royal Green MAINLAND RAIDS, 1964-65 15 JlCk.~, .nd volunteered for Operatiofl 'Granby' In • Indonesian seaborne and airborne landings in Malaya the Qulf, 1HO-91. In 1993 • Australian and New Zealand commiunent, 1965-66 1M ,nteh,latad from the French Anny _ ,taff office,. THE CONFRONTATION IN THE AIR 18 cou..... at the Ecole Milltalre, Parla. WIll .. married and livea In RomMy, Hampshlra. TACTICS 19 • Jllngle forts: I GJ at Stass,July 1964 - 2 Pam al Pia man Mapu. April 1965 KEVIN LYLES Is an expert on the history of the Vietnam • Patrolling connie!., 'nd , talented • SAS tactics lIlustnltor of 20th century military subjects. He ha, 'CLARET' OPERATIONS 24 ll1~tratlld Mveral book' for OIpray, and has elso written • Taking lhe war to the enemy - rilles of engagement tlu.s on the US Army In • SAS Claret operalions Vietnam, a aubject In which • Australian SAS 1M h.s along-standing • New Zealand SAS klte...t. Ka lives and wortls In Hertfordshlre, UK. THE LAST YEAR 38 • Gunon~Tepoi: Rarnbahadllr Limbu, VC • Gelling OUl: the Indonesian COllp - peace agreemell1 sllmm,lIy ofcasualties THE PLATES 43 INDEX 48 Men-at-Arms· 431 Britain's Secret War The Indonesian Confrontation 1962-66 Will Fowler· Illustrated by Kevin Lyles Se"es ed, tar Milrt,n W,ndrow Fm published '" a-l ernUl '" 2006 by Osl:ny NlIlsIlIr>g. Artist's Note MkIIand House. West Wwy. Solley. O~!ord 0:<2 OPI-l. UK «3 p,n, Avenue S<lulh, New Vork. NY 10016, USA Readers may care to note thai the original paintings from which !hi Emd: lnloOoopno\'PUbl!oIIll111.<lOm colour platllS in this book were prepared are available 'Of private sale. All reproduction copyright WhalS08Yflt" is Illlwned by the C 2006 Ospfev f'vI>/Wllng Ud. Publishers. All enquiries shookl be addressed to: AI lights ...-. Apart fftIm any ,air -r.g lor UW IUJIOU 01 prlvale .1\.o:jy. KIIVIO Lyles. 10 COw Roast, Tring. He<1s HP23 5Rf. UK .-aroI'l. CtIIicISIIl Of" _. lIS ptm'IItIelll¥ldef lIle CopyrIght. 0Mlgna WKl PIl""la Act, 19f1ll. no par1 011" publicIIlon may lie teprOOuCed••_In The Publishers r&glllilhat they can ante< into no corrospondenc:e • ~ S'f$IIIm, or uanamttled In any torm or by IIlV "-'S.~. upon !1Iia manEll". 1IIctncaI. chImicaI, rTIlIChatucaI. opI.o:e1. pIloIOCXlP)'ing. AlCOI'Iling or <>IheIwlH• ...lhout uw prior writI"" penTI&SSIor> oIlhe copynght _. EnQo.>nes __ lie .odrIIsed 10 lIle PublIshIra. ISBN I II4«J3 048 X ISBN 13 918 1 84ro3 048 2 Editor· Mart... Wondrow P~ llyoul. by AllIn Hemp TVPMI '" New BaskerVllltl and Htilvetlca Mapa by John RictWdI Indu by GIyn Sutcille OrIgIneted by PPS~.~.. UK Ponlld In 0- I/II'OIJ9Il WOOd PI1nt ltd. 060708091010987654321 FOfl A CATALOGUE OF ALl900KS PUBUSHED BY OSPAEY MIlITARY AND AVIATION PUAS€ CONTACl' Nonh AmerIcI: Osprey Olrect C/o RlW>dom HovsI Di.trlbution CIr1t... 400 H"'n ROad. Wntmln.t.... MO 21167, USA Emsd. lnlOOOopNydl....,t.com All ollleor <IiI1~ Osprev DI....,I UK PO BoI 140, WlllIIngboroiJOh. Kortllanta, NNa U~ UK £majt lnl~I""LCO.uk SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Ulaxl<tnd, Gregory. '171' IlLgimnl/S lkpllrf, William Honn:r. Da\id. SAS - PllOll/oms oflIltjlll/gU>, Greenhill Kimber (London, 1971) Books (Londoll. 1991) Cross. LtCoI j.P., :A Faa lik'lI Chirllm S fjacksjd,~ jackson, Cen Sir William, lI'ilhdrr/llJ(jIJrom Empire. Greenhill Books (London. 1996) B.T.B.1I5ford (London. 1986) Cross, LtC.oIJ.P.,jllllgl.e mllfall', Arms & Armour Prcss james, Harold, & Denis Shcil-Smith, Tile L'mledm1!d Hat. (London. 1989) Leo Cooper (I..ondon, 1971) Dt,nnis. Peter, &.Icfrcy Grcy, Emergrncy (/1111 umfirm/{/fioll: L1dd, .James, SHS - Th, bll'isibll' RairlC:5, l\rlllS & Armour A/ISlmllflll Mililflr)' Opcl"fllicms 1Il "'nlilJa mill IJoIllff) Press (London, 1983) 1950-66, Allen & Un\\i'l (NS\\'. Aunralia, 1996) J....;ldd.jalllcs, TM ROJal Man·Ill!S.jane's (I..ondon. 1980) De\\~lr, Michael, llnul/ HI'(' 1I11/')", Robert 1·lalc (London. McAlister. Cell R.W., Bllgl,& Kllllri, \'012 (Regimental 1984) Trust. 10th l'l;ncess Marl's 0\\11 Gurkha Rifles Dickens, Pelcr. &AS - TIu! jlll/gle Fron/itT:. Arms & (1984) Armour Press (Loudon. 1983) Nasution. Cen Abdul Ifaris. FlIIlI/mnmlaL~ ofGlltrrillu Flimha11l, Victor, Air m"l1:S- and AirrmJl, Arms & Armour I\tl'filll', Pall Malll'rcss (I.ondon, 1965) Prcss (Londoll, 1989) BRITAIN'S SECRET WAR: THE INDONESIAN CONFRONTATION 1962-66 THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND OPPOSITE Two of the e ••entlal HE WHOLE OF SmITH-EAsr ASIA saw dramalic changes between Ult' factol'll In the British victory mid 1950$ and lhe early \9605. Se\'erdl fonner Dutch, French and In the Confrontation: Gurkha British colonies in the region had become independent nations, hlfantry, and a Fl••t AIr Arm T sOllie of them after bloody guerrilla campaigns, and were now asserting Wessell helicopter, which hal JUlt dropped them on the their newfound national idemil)'_ United Slates agencies had been tleliplld built out,ide a hilltop involved in South Vietnam - fonned)' part of French Indochina- since fort In Bomeo. The foreground 1954, and since 1961 US Army advisors had been assisting its aoldle. carrie. an LMG fleld governmelll. By the end of 1964 there would be 23.000 US personnel in modified with. forward plltol Viemam, and the following March the first major ground units would gnp. (Royal Navy} arrive, beginning a commitment \\'hieh would last seven grim years. The former Bdush colony off\.'!alara had been granted independence within the Commonwealth in August 1957. after the suppression of a nine-year communist guclTilla campaign (the ·E.mergency·) almost entirely limited to the large Chinese minority population. This had involved some 100,000 British and Gurkha troops with Australian, New Zealand and Malay support; but the new government w:a.~ both stable and well inclined towards the West..' Indonesia had achieved independence from the Netherlands in December 1949, but these hundreds of islands - stretching some 3.000 miles from ,,'est LO east - were only partially controlled by the Djakarta government; their population ofsome 85 million, divided into 17 major ethnic b"'Oups. was riven by unrest. Ne\'ertheless, in 1962 the president. Achmad Sukarno, an aggressive nationalist with pretensions to wider leadership among the 'non-aligned' nations, had a grandiose dream of forging a new Pacific union called 'Maphilindo', to bring togt.'lher MalaYA, the Philippines and Indonesia as a regional power bloc. This dream had been born in r.'!arch 1945 when Snkamo bad been a member of a body set up by theJapanese mililall' adminiSffiltion of the occupied Netherlands East Indies, The greater, southern pan of the hllge jungle island of Borneo (to the Indonesians, K..'1limanLan) lay within Indonesia: and iniliallv Sukarno \\'ished to extend his control o\'er lhe neighbollring British colonies and protectorates in nonh-western I~orneo - SarJ.\\'ilk, Sabah and the Sultanate of Brullei, knowll collecti\'ely as the North Borneo Territories - which were also approaching negotiated independence. In May 1961 the Prime Minister of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman. proposed that r-,'Iala)'a. the island Slate of Singapore and the North Borneo Temtodes should fonn a fedemtion named Malaysia. Although at first sceptical, the British go\'ernmenl So.'1W the advantages that this plan offered, and the scheme would be acceptable to the United Nations. 11le 1 See M«>-al·Arml132, ThaMaiayan ~ 1948-60 3 ~~-- I..., :_,'...-, ·, ,'",~~ SO TH-EAST ASIA : TIlAlL.AND ~'11>', •, ?--I•... ' \ : ':VIETN"M ,I .:. S (I /I I h • IA' , ... China LAY J Ewm1lNEA • ,,,,,,,.'AUT: DON E 5 A • •· ~.~~""''';;;:;.~~. • ~._----~-.,:,,_--_.'~-- TunJ...u was well qualified to lead t\.lala)'sia; an aristocratic Brilish educated la\\'}'cr, he had established his crcdclllials both with ~lalayans as an am.i-eolonialist. and \'o'il.h the British as a staunch allli-communisl. In Indonesia, SUKarno sal. lhis move as a rebuff to his plans for Maphilindo. A flambol"31l1 oralor and 'headline addict', he taned including in his public rants a slogan that "ould become hi catchphrase: 'Cmyong MalaJ'sia' - 'Smash Mala\'sia', AfLcr many di.scussions the Federation of ~Iala,:.ia was finallv proclaimed on 16 September 1963 (though without the Sultanate of Bnll1ci. ",!lich preferred sovereign independence), TIle Indonesian Foreign Ministcr, Dr Subandrio, tJlen began making public references to a poliC) of Confl'omation or KOIifrrmtasl towards Malaysia, accusing the ncv.' StalC of being 'accomplices of nco-colonialist and nco imperialist forces pursuing a policy hostile towards Indonesia', In lhe words ofGen Sir William Jackson, 'He did nOl ~pell OUl \\hat was meant b~ -confronL.,tion~, but it was assumed to be a blending of political. economic and milira.n presstlresjust short ofwar: The Brunei revolt, December 1982 The first sholS of the ConfronL."ltion pre-dated the fonnation of Malavsia, On 8 December 1962 a rebellion mmembers ofthe Kedayan uibe broke alii in tllC oil-rich Sulmnate of Brunei.