Memories of Peter Short – Malaya 1952–1955
EVACUATION BY AIR
I graduated from the Air OP School at RAF Middle Wallop in February 1952. I requested a posting to BAOR Germany and was sent instead, along with Captain Ken Bath, to 656 Air OP Squadron RAF in Malaya. We had a fairly uneventful voyage to Singapore. Ken was a senior gunner captain, having spent most of the war as a POW in Italy. We immediately struck up a good and lasting friendship. In fact I was his best man when he married his long-time girlfriend, Daphne, in the military chapel of HQ Malaya.
At that time 656 Squadron was stationed and headquartered at Noble Field HQ Malaya. We had four flights:
1907 flight was stationed in Singapore at the Royal Naval Air Station at HMS Simbang, in Seremban, overlooking the causeway and naval dockyard and the southern state of Jahore. This was our operational area.
1902 flight was stationed at Benta in Pahang covering the central and east coast.
1911 flight was stationed in Seremban covering the central Malaya area.
1914 flight was stationed at Taiping in the state of Perak in the north.
It was generally accepted that newly arrived pilots should spend about a week of acclimatization before going out to the flights – this did not always happen.
One episode which stands out in my mind of my early days in Malaya is as follows:
I was in the Intelligence Officers’ office, located in a wooden hut at Noble Field, next to the OC’s office, when I heard Major David Oldman, calling, ‘Peter, come here,’ in a very urgent tone.
I went quickly into his office and he said, ‘Go up to Bidor. The Royal Worcesters have suffered casualties on patrol and one soldier has to be flow to the military hospital in KL (Kuala Lumpur) for urgent treatment.’
I asked, ‘Where is Bidor.’
He responded, ‘Get a bloody map and I’ll show you.’
I saw on the map that Bidor was about fifteen minutes flying time south-east of Ipoh and approximately ten minutes off my track.
The navigation was not difficult as the railway line from Siam to Singapore was a wonderful guide to follow. When I got in sight of Bidor I first observed that both ends of this temporary runway were clear – that is, not covered by high trees, as many runways in Malaya were at that time. As soon as I landed the MO got out of a jeep that was parked next to the waiting ambulance. After initial greetings he said to me, ‘You know this is a stretcher case don’t you?’ I responded that I didn’t know but it was okay because we could make room for the stretcher by taking off the starboard door and removing the Army 62 wireless set. This was done quickly as I inquired regarding the wounded soldier. He said that this National Serviceman was an eighteen year old on his first patrol and had been shot through the eye and part of his brain was exposed. The left side of his face and head were covered in bandages. As the casualty was strapped in and I replaced the aircraft door, there was no room for the Army 62 wireless set, which I ended up leaving behind.
On the way to Bidor I had seen the clouds building up along the mountain range and thought it would be a pretty close thing to get back to K.L. before the storm set in. The MO gave me two small injection syringes and said, ‘If he begins to wake up or move give him a shot right away as he must be kept absolutely still.’ I told the MO to give our ETA to Noble Field and to alert the British Military Hospital in Kinrara that we were on our way to Noble Field with the casualty.
The nearer we got to K.L. the more concerned I became regarding the storm coming down the mountain and covering K.L. and Noble Field. When I got over Batu Caves I could see clearly that the storm would be covering Noble Field and RAF K.L. before we got there and there was no way we could land in those conditions. I thought I should notify them of my plight, completely forgetting that I had to leave the Army 62 wireless set behind in Bidor. I looked at my map and my petrol gauge to try to work out how long I could stay airborne before going in to land. While looking at the map I saw there was an emergency strip at BMH Kinrara, made up of two or three football fields which could be used in an emergency. I flew to Kinrara and saw that the storm had not yet reached the BMH and that soldiers, who had observed my approach, were frantically pulling down the goal posts.
I went in low to have a look at the surface, which did not look too bad, and in quick time an ambulance stationed itself alongside the playing field. The wind was coming in strong from the east with the storm. Ideal conditions for landing; if I could get the aircraft down before the storm arrived. I said a silent prayer and went in on my final approach, just as the leading edge of the storm was less than 400 yards away. By the grace of God I ‘greased her in’ and made a perfect landing. I stayed put until the ambulance arrived and the casualty was transferred to the ambulance as it was pretty bumpy for taxiing.
Captain Peter Short, his OC Major “Banger” Wheeler and an unknown visiting officer, in front of Auster AOP 6, WJ356, in Malaya in the early 1950s.
I called the IO from the ambulance radio, giving him a run down on what had taken place and estimated that I would be back at base in one and a half hours.
I followed-up on the progress of the National Serviceman and found that he stayed in intensive care for many days and had lost his eye but was making a good recovery. I later learned that he was invalided out of the Army and returned to England.
BREAKING THE RULES
There was a policy in 656 Squadron that to qualify to command a flight one must have at least six months remaining to serve in Malaya before returning to the UK. I readily agreed to serve an additional six months and was given command of 1902 Flight, at that time stationed at Sembawang – the RNAS at Singapore. This for me was an ideal situation as my wife Ann had given birth to our son, Walter, who was born at BMH Kinrara. This was before independence and there was no emergency in Singapore and I was lucky to get the rental of a small wooden bungalow, with no electricity, in the ‘cabbage patch’ on a rubber plantation at 11th Mile Nee Soon – five minutes away from my base at Sembawang
1902 Flight had the difficult task of covering the very Terrorist-active area of Jahore: despite a very efficient SWEC (State War Executive Committee) which was chaired by the Sultan of Jahore, or his nominee. The Committee depended greatly on the information provided by 1902 Flight on the location of terrorist clearings and camps from which the terrorists grew food and operated. There were many interesting and challenging times, almost on a daily basis, but one operation particularly stands out in my mind and memory.
The 1st Fijian Regiment (1st FIR), under the command of New Zealander, Lieutenant Colonel Lowe, was stationed at Malacca, right in the heart of terrorist activity. After flying Colonel Lowe around the operational area a few times I got to know him fairly well and we developed a good rapport. He said to me, ‘Why don’t you leave one aircraft here in Malacca to save the down time of flying back to Singapore every evening during the operation.’ This suggestion made sense to me so I told him I would recommend it to HQ. This was done and accepted on the condition that 1st FIR provided the necessary security at the Malacca airstrip.
One of the most difficult tasks that a flight commander in Malaya had was arranging the flying programme for the next day and putting it up in chalk on a blackboard in the operations room. I decided to do the detachment to Malacca myself as I knew the area better than any of the other pilots. It was agreed that the detachment to Malacca was not to last longer than three days.
On the late afternoon of the second day I was returning to my temporary base at Malacca and the sun was very low, when I flew right over a terrorist camp. There was a pig fence around it under the trees and the ‘bashas’ were quite visible. I could not believe my eyes, as it was located only about ten minutes from the base. I decided to turn the aircraft around and have another look – and there it was. Then suddenly I felt the whole aircraft shake and I reckoned that I had been hit by gunfire under the engine. I flew back to base at Malacca without difficulty and let my ground crew, an engine mechanic and an airframe mechanic, know that I would make a low flying pass over the runway with flaps down and asked them to check the undercarriage. After doing the slow fly-past they reported that no damage could be seen and suggested that I carry out a normal landing, which I did with no difficulty. I was also told that Colonel Lowe was waiting to see me. I got out of the aircraft quickly and went straight to have a look under the engine. In a matter of minutes the airframe mechanic called out to me, ‘Come and have a look at this sir.’ We all converged at the tail of the aircraft and saw five bullet holes in the tail fin. The jarring that I had felt was in fact the relayed impact on the rudder pedals under my feet. The bullets must have missed the rudder pedal cables by a couple of inches.
While we were chatting about my close escape, the airframe mechanic was quickly patching the holes, clearly made by bullets from a Bren Gun. The Colonel, in the meantime, was speculating as to how we should respond and informed us that all his troops were committed and by the morning the CTs (communist terrorists) would have broken camp and disappeared. Then he said, ‘I know, why don’t we drop some grenades on them? We can’t just sit here and do nothing.’
I responded, ‘That is a very dangerous exercise and completely against regulations.’
He said, ‘To hell with the regulations! This is a war and we have to respond in a positive way’.
He repeated that he could not send in any troops as they were all committed, and in any case, tomorrow would be too late. We discussed the possibility of an air strike, but this would take too much time to mount. The Colonel was adamant that action had to be taken urgently. Uppermost in my mind was the fact that flight commanders were told to inform all pilots that they, the pilots, were in command of the aircraft and were not to give in to pressure from senior officers, particularly regarding weather and light. The pilots were the sole judges and would have to make the decision if, for example, the weather was good enough to take off.
I agreed rather reluctantly to the Colonel’s idea, giving way to pressure and ignoring common sense logic, in the full knowledge that if this got back to HQ I would be for the ‘high jump’. We had to hurry as the light was fading fast. We took an empty Fraser and Neave orange juice crate and put twelve fully charged hand grenades in it. I took off the aircraft doors, which was standard procedure for dropping small supplies, and told the Colonel to use the starboard door space while I would use the port door area from which to drop the grenades.
When we were about five minutes away from the terrorist camp I saw a small column of smoke from the area to which we were heading. I said to the Colonel, ‘They’re marking the target for us.’
I flew in as low as possible without endangering the aircraft, which was a bit sluggish with the doors off. We dropped three grenades each on the first flyover. I did a sharp 180 degree turn for the return attack and we dropped the remaining three grenades each. I could not say how effective the grenades were as I was fully occupied flying the aircraft and sorting out the grenades. The whole operation took twenty-eight minutes before we were safely back at the Malacca airstrip. The Colonel was overjoyed and delighted with the operation which had been accomplished successfully, in good time, and just before night set in.
The Colonel asked me to dinner in his Officers’ Mess, but I said I would come over for one drink only (we did not drink when we were flying). He sent his chief for me along with a security escort. When I got to the Mess the Colonel was at the bar with some of his officers and two men in civilian clothes who I did not recognize. The Colonel stood up and came over to me. He put his arm around my shoulder and said in a very loud voice, ‘Gentlemen, this is my bomber pilot.’ I quickly cautioned the Colonel, who appeared to have already had a couple of drinks, about the confidentiality of the operation. My worst fears where confirmed when I discovered that the two civilians were reporters from The Malay Mail and The Straits Times. It turned out that the Colonel had already given his version of the operation that day. I politely as possible avoided the questions of the reporters, had a quick drink, and departed.
After my encounter with the media men I felt pretty sure that within a couple of days the ‘news’ would be in both local newspapers in Malaya and Singapore. I did not have long to wait. The Malay Mail headline, in bold print, announced ‘Airborne grenades send “reds” fleeing.’ I cannot recall the wording of the report in The Straits Times, but it was given full coverage.
Later that morning I got the not unexpected phone call, from the OC of 656 Squadron, Major Sandy Robertson, who asked me if the reports were correct, to which I replied, ‘Yes, substantially so.’
He said, ‘Look Peter, you’re in some trouble and the GOC Malaya, Major General Sir Hugh Stockwell, would like to see you forthwith – and I can tell you he is not pleased. Drop everything and fly up here immediately.’
This I did, fearing the worst but hoping for the best. I landed at Noble Field and was met by Sandy Robertson, to whom I gave a detailed account of what had taken place and accepted full responsibility.
He said, ‘My advice to you is to tell the truth as you have told me, say a prayer and hope for the best.’
Within half an hour of my landing I was standing at attention in front of the GOC Malaya, General Sir Hugh Stockwell. I gave him the story while he listened attentively. Then there was what seemed to me a very long pause before the General responded. He gave me a tremendous dressing down, telling me what a serious matter this was and how I endangered the life of Lieutenant Colonel Lowe, my own, and risked destruction of the aircraft. He let me know how very stupid I had been.
He then said, ‘You can go now.’ The words that I had prayed to hear.
I think I said, ‘Thank you Sir, it certainly won’t happen again.’
Before I could leave his office he called out, ‘Peter, come back here, take off your cap and sit down.’ All of this in a very different tone of voice. Then he continued, ‘Bloody good show! I would probably have done the same thing myself. I have told your OC that this must not appear on your Confidential Report.’
Then he added, ‘By the way, how is your cricket?’ The General had seen me make seventy-two runs for the Army against Oxford University at the RMA Sandhurst when he was on the staff there in 1950. We chatted for about another five minutes and as I was leaving, Major Sandy Robertson’s parting words were, ‘You’re a damned lucky young man.’