Section Training
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NINE SECTION TRAINING I. SETTLING DOWN The only break at the end of basic training was the normal weekend, which was not much since the POP was on Saturday, 13th August and section training began on Monday, 15th August. There was no change to the configuration of the platoons and sections. Strictly speaking, each trainee was now a private soldier, but for some reason they were usually referred to as ‘trainees’, probably a force of habit. By now, however, the trainees had settled down to life at SAFTI and nearly everyone took the regimented routine in his stride. Friendships and loyalties had developed and housekeeping duties had sort of synchro-meshed. Collective punishment, especially extra-drill and the threat of confinement, had made it in every trainee’s interest to cover his barrack-mates and present a united front against the instructors. Physical fitness had reduced the stresses of life and improved reactions to the unexpected. A perceptible hardening had taken place in the last two months, and recovery from the previous day’s exertions was usually complete after a night’s deep sleep, even when it was brief because of late training. The sense of being constantly hassled was being replaced by a can-do spirit: the instructors had become to some extent predictable and pre-emptable. Besides, less ‘mistakes’ were being made. One of the most significant and welcome changes was that the trainees no longer had to move as platoons to and from the dining halls (exclusive to each company), but instead, went on their own or in random groups during the scheduled times. Tailgate party. Fresh rations in the field. SECTION TRAINING 157 Content.indd 157 18/6/15 4:33 PM NINE This phase saw training increasingly move out of the immediate precincts of the SAFTI training area to other parts of Singapore. Resettlement was going on from the market gardening plots of Pasir Laba that would eventually be Areas A, B, C, D and E and also the area around Tuas, to Lim Chu Kang, Neo Tiew Road and Upper Jurong Road, east of the Jalan Bahar/Boon Lay Road junction, with some of the farmers moving as far afield as Marsiling and Punggol (short-lived as their prospects of remaining farmers would prove as Singapore’s development plans caught up with them). Section training exercises were conducted in the then undeveloped rural areas of Changi, Seletar, Bedok, the Mandai forest reserve, Bukit Timah, Marsiling (Spot Height 110) and even sectors off Upper Jurong Road that had been slated for resettlement from the SAFTI/Tuas area. In the SAFTI training area, unofficial names had taken hold for various reference points such as Four Track Junction, Mangosteen Junction, Flag Pole Junction, Mast Hill, Snake Hill, Red House Hill, Bunker Hill, Elephant Hill, Zailanni Patch, Cowdung Hill, Sawmill Area, Good Morning Hill and Python Hill (south of Tuas). Tracks with official designations such as Track 11, Track 41, Track 48, etc., and features identified by spot height in the topographical maps remained as such, with trainees and instructors becoming increasingly familiar with these locations in their mental maps. They were also becoming familiar with the distinguishing characteristics of many features: the steepness of the slopes, the thickness of the vegetation, the hardness of the soil for digging and how marshy the re-entrants were. One bothersome story also began to make the rounds. There was a narrow creek running across the western flank of the Choa Chu Kang cemetery area, which was rumoured to be the burial ground of unclaimed bodies from hospital morgues, presumably with cheap coffins and done by indifferent undertakers employed as casual labour. It was claimed by several trainees that after they stepped into the creek, they experienced sores and rashes. If trainees developed such symptoms, the explanations were probably more straightforward than that, but the idea gripped the imagination, especially in a seriously superstitious community. In the immediate vicinity of SAFTI, the locals had readily grasped the economic potential of large numbers of soldiers training in their midst. Enterprising villagers quickly identified strategic rendezvous or dispersal points and began to offer soft drinks in bottles or plastic bags, cigarettes, sweets, and even packaged meals like nasi lemak. They soon established what items moved fast, but it remained a mystery how they managed to zero in on the location and timing of gathering troops. The presence of country belles as salesgirls was not accidental either. Some form of ‘jungle telegraph’ was at work and possibly also some kind of protection racket to guarantee stakeout rights. A few dollars of profit a day was a big thing to the farming communities in the 1960s who had diffculties making ends meet. As SAFTI training became ubiquitous, the ‘F’ (food) echelon became so familiar with training programmes that these itinerant stall operators on bicycles not only became adept at predicting the arrival of the training troops, but were sometimes more reliable than the ration delivery. They probably prayed that troop transport after exercises would be delayed because it could mean a sell-out, even with a re-supply from the sources. 158 SECTION TRAINING Content.indd 158 18/6/15 4:33 PM NINE There was a less charming angle to the camp followers as well, which would eventually lead to tragic consequences. Packs of children would enter the gazetted grounds or hang around when blanks were used in maneuvering areas to pick up the ejected shells for the brass bases to be recycled as a cottage industry. As they became bolder, they would follow up live-firing exercises, which offered vastly more brass from the empty cases and in due course even material from unexploded blinds and mortar shell fragments. SAFTI had to institute a continuous public education programme around the training areas in the hope of deterring this dangerous practice, because the warning sign boards along the boundaries only served to deter the faint-of-heart to the advantage of the bold. It became a standing operating procedure to dispatch boat and road patrols before live-firing commenced, partly to alert those who had accidentally strayed into the grounds and partly to deter deliberate entry. However, it was by no means a fool proof process. SAFTI’s footprint grew rapidly around the Jurong area. Among the economic beneficiaries that had a fairly long run of good times was the laundry and a restaurant at 15½ milestone Upper Jurong Road and several food stalls at Tuas. SAFTI’s official laundry service was provided by the Prison’s Department, which not only mangled and mixed up uniforms but also frequently returned items with holes burnt into them. When this happened to bed sheets and pillowcases it was not a problem for the trainees because the QM store would replace them, but it was quite another thing with uniforms because of inspections. Many trainees had also taken the trouble to alter the issued uniforms for a better fit and it was a routine to drop them off at the laundry on the way home for the weekend and pick them up on the way back a week or so later, or even within a day in urgent cases. The laundry staff was soon able to identify the trainees by their regimental numbers and it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. When there was no night training, trainees would sometimes combine a visit to the restaurant and the laundry. However, there were several occasions when fights broke out. In one instance, there was clearly some secret society activity involved and several first intake trainees demonstrated their marked preference for discretion over valour. The weight of evidence suggests that somehow, the trainees had given offence, because one of the characteristics of secret societies was that they preferred to keep a low profile in their dealings with the public, unless provoked. There were no reports of untoward events from the food stalls at Tuas, a village on the east bank of Sungei Tuas (now possibly the Southern Tuas Basin, the river and village being completely erased by reclamation and industrial development). Ramshackle as the wooden buildings were, the seafood and other village fare like garden fresh vegetables, ‘hor fan’, Hokkien mee, char kueh teow, kueh chap, smoked pigs’ ears and fried-egg and seafood soup were a real treat, all for a pittance. Alternative sources of food from those of SAFTI cookhouse were welcome. The military fare could be wolfed down after a morning or afternoon of relentless physical effort, but not as a meal to be savoured unhurried. Throughout the training of the initial batch in SAFTI (and from evidence thereafter) there was little improvement in the culinary capabilities of SECTION TRAINING 159 Content.indd 159 18/6/15 4:33 PM NINE Grass cutting with garden shears was a little easier than with scissors. 160 SECTION TRAINING Content.indd 160 18/6/15 4:33 PM NINE those who supplied the food. It would take the sustained outcry of National Servicemen to bring about the change that eventually led to high quality camp food in nearly all SAF units. II. OBJECTIVES OF SECTION TRAINING Section training was in line with the thinking that every infantry officer must be fully familiar with the skills, role and scope of duties of the infantry NCO; or, to put it more succinctly from the Advisors’ point of view, officer candidates should be selected from the NCO cadre. As such, the training was a fusion of section level operations with the role of a section leader. But, as there was not yet an NCO base in the SAF, Manpower Division was following the reverse of the IDF approach.