The Vital Link by Philip Warner

Author:Philip Warner [Warner, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General
ISBN: 9781473820319
Google: E4ejAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 1989-01-01T03:12:41+00:00

19 Brigade HQ and Signal Squadron served a nine-month tour in Borneo in 1963. Captain (now Colonel) M. F. H. Colman described the situation:

We moved by sea and air, to a carefully considered plan, into Sibu. 3 Marine Commando had established their headquarters close to the small, rather primitive airfield. Over a period of a very few days we set up our own headquarters with our half-dozen or so battalions, enabling the Marines, who were there temporarily, to be withdrawn. The distance over which we communicated stretched sometimes as much as 150 miles. Owing to these extended distances, the inherent problems of communicating in the jungle, and the language problem (at various times we had Malay, Gurkha, Commonwealth and British battalions under command), the Brigade Command net was always established on morse. The results which were achieved were remarkable and said much for the expertise and devotion to duty of the Royal Signals soldiers. They were quite magnificent. Our rear link to Labuan was by land line backed up by HF radio (D11/R)230. It was a work of art to keep this link established and to provide a reasonable service. The use of an Air Despatch Service was essential as an overlay to our normal means.

Sibu at that time had approximately 30 miles of road, much of it narrow and rough. The only way forward towards our battalions, who were mainly deployed on the border with Indonesia, was by air and river. I deployed on a number of occasions with the brigade commander (then Brigadier, later General Sir David, Fraser) and the Tactical Headquarters. We pre-positioned a small vehicle-borne headquarters by Chinese lighter up the River Rajang. This, in itself, was a unique, fascinating and hair-raising experience.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.