Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq by James R. Arnold

Author:James R. Arnold
Format: mobi
Tags: Counterinsurgency - France - History - 20th century, Military - 20th century, France, Great Britain, United States - History, War, Europe, France - History, Counterinsurgency - United States - History - 20th century, Modern - 20th century, Military - General, History - Military, Revolutionary, Great Britain - History, United States, Military, History, Counterinsurgency, Counterinsurgency - History - 20th century, Military history, Counterinsurgency - Great Britain - History - 20th century, Modern, General, 20th century
ISBN: 9781596915039
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
Published: 2009-06-08T11:00:00+00:00

Paths Not Taken

When Lau Yew perceived that acts of terror had failed so far to drive off the British or to create Liberated Areas where the guerrilla force could expand and gain strength, he ordered increased attacks. Isolated police stations were a special target. Lau Yew thought that a massed force of several hundred guerrillas could easily overrun a station defended by a sergeant and his ten constables. Most of these attacks were humiliating repulses. With hindsight it could be seen that Lau Yew was guilty of strategic impatience. He had thought that the insurrection would achieve decisive results by the end of August 1948, but in fact the Communists had come nowhere close.

In mid-July 1948 an informer told a British police superintendent, the legendary Bill “Two-Gun” Stafford—a veteran of fifteen parachute jumps behind Japanese lines in Burma who earned his moniker by always carrying a revolver under each armpit—when and where some important Communist officials were to attend a jungle meeting. Stafford and some of his loyal Chinese detectives surrounded the meeting place. During the ensuing firefight Stafford shot and killed an armed insurgent who turned out to be Lau Yew. Lau Yew’s death threw the insurgency into disarray and left its military operations in the hands of inexperienced and not particularly able leaders. Here was opportunity for the British if they had the wit to perceive it.

One officer who possessed the combination of experience and insight was Lieutenant Colonel Walter Walker. Like Two-Gun Stafford, Walker had fought in the Burmese jungle against the Japanese. The unique skill set required to survive in jungle combat informed his decision to create a “Ferret Force” in July 1948. It consisted of small teams each composed of twelve British Empire volunteers, soldiers from the Malay Regiment, a signals detachment, highly skilled Dyak trackers recruited in Borneo, and a Chinese liaison officer. A British volunteer with local knowledge led each Ferret Force group. The Ferret Forces were thus perfectly tailored for the task of hunting insurgents in their jungle bases. Unfortunately they disbanded within five months, a casualty of bureaucratic infighting over policy, administration, and methods. Still, the abortive experiment demonstrated the value of its innovative core concept, namely, small patrols guided by native trackers and accompanied by interpreters and local troops.

Walker was also convinced that many hard-learned lessons in World War II–era jungle warfare had been forgotten because of the army’s focus on conventional warfare. This amnesia was particularly apparent when regular army units conducted large-scale sweeps. They called it “jungle bashing” and in Walker’s mind this connoted exactly what was wrong. An officer described a jungle-bashing operation: “We had now been in the jungle for five continuous weeks, taking part in one of those big operations . . . During the whole period we had neither seen nor heard any sign of the enemy.”3 To help rectify this problem Walker established a training center dedicated to “studying, teaching and perfecting methods of jungle fighting.”4 This Jungle Warfare Training Centre contributed useful

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