Page 83 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
in Sek Kong, Hong Kong, between the then CO of HK DASU RAVC, Lt Col Paul Jepson RAVC, and a visiting Officer from Training Team Brunei (TTB), aka the British Army’s Jungle Warfare School. TTB owes its existence to the Jungle Warfare School which was formed in Malaya in 1953 to support jungle warfare training for the Malayan Emergency, and later the Indonesian Confron- tation in Borneo. The school closed in the early 1970s, complying with the Government’s ‘East of Suez’ disengagement policy. However, during this period, Military Working Dogs were an integral part of both the school and Operations. In 1976 TTB was reformed by the resident Gurkha battalion before being formally established in 1982.
1989 – 1993:
Despite the obvious lack of support from the Gurkha Garrison Commander at Tuker Lines, it was decided that momentum for the idea of reviving the training and use of the IP and Tracker in the jungle should be maintained and a place was duly allocated to Sgt Chris Ham on the next Jungle Warfare Instructors Course (JWIC). The course began early January 1990, and the following extract gives, in his own words, a full-flavour of what the Sgt experienced during that seven-weeks in training:
It was with some apprehension that I arrived at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong ready to board my flight to Brunei Darussalam. As I waited, I noticed other students arriving, mostly carrying well-worn Bergens – making my Sainsbury’s plastic bag, sprayed green, look somewhat out of place.
Soon we are soaring over the South China Sea to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of the small Sultanate. We cleared immigration formalities briskly and were soon on the way to Training Team Brunei, where upon arrival we were greeted by the instructors and were led to our accommodation which was luxurious compared to what we would soon become accustomed to. Laid out on our beds was the equipment to keep us going for the next fifty or so days; millbank bag, mosquito repellent (for which there are 101 uses; melting TAMS, excellent stuff for removing leeches, irritating eyes and ideal oil containers), gollicks, which cause countless numbers of stitches but hardly any laughter, inflatable lilos, which the weak swimmers amongst us cherished dearly during the inevitable river crossings, along with a whole host of other equipment.
We had a lie-in on the first morning until about 6am, sorry 0600 hrs, as PT didn’t commence until 0630 hrs. Once we had surveyed the local countryside, and all the ‘nodding donkeys’, it was straight into the course lectures including health and hygiene in the tropics,
emergency first aid, heli-familiarisation, casevac demon- strations, navigation and ‘lost procedure’. All this to be followed by instruction on patrolling, routine drills, signals, how to tune the PRC 320 HF; I couldn’t even get BFBS in the Orient, let alone mike three two alpha in a remote hollow of a rainforest with a dipole.
Anyway, after all this and a couple of days acclima- tisation, JWIC 31 was out in ‘the sticks’ for its first of many tactical nights. As I did my stag from three ‘til five, I wondered what on earth I was doing here while the animal and insect noises kept me alert and my mind occupied. At 0530 it was time to awaken again for ‘stand to’, after which we hastily burdened our backs with Bergens and were off in search of the area where we would try to construct ‘A’ frames. These were a vast improvement on the previous night; no bugs sleeping next to you and the luxury of a mosquito net.
Apart from the unfortunate ones who heard and then subsequently felt the surprise of cracking timber below them in the wee small hours, a good night’s sleep was had by most. Here for the next seven days, we learnt and put into practice many a drill but the most valuable lesson was not to pack so many unnecessary items into the Bergen. You see, where we went, they went and soon we became the wiser.
Range days one and two appealed to all students, with the firing of various weapons on assorted ranges – AK 47, M203 grenade launcher, M18A1 anti-per- sonnel mine or ‘claymore’, individual close quarter battle shoots, followed by the ‘small animal’ range, triangular range and the most talked about of them all the ‘board inquiry’ range. Soon the week was complete, and we were back into the five-star accommodation of TTB. I couldn’t understand why all the fuss was made about leeches, until I discovered to my dismay that these distasteful creatures reside mainly in the Labi Training area, where the course was to take us next.
With NAVEXs 1 and 2 behind us, it was back into the interior of Brunei to be assessed for another seven days and nights.
Section members took it in turns to carry out command appointments such as section commander, 2IC and radio operator. I was dreading the river crossing and my worst fears came true when I was told to conduct this mission, an attempt was made, note I say ‘attempt’, and after the second chance it did not seem quite so bad. The expressions on various faces of different ranks looked equally horrified as each man checked his Bergen for dampness and found all essential ‘dry’ equipment absolutely saturated. Once again, another valuable lesson had been learnt.
During this part of the JWIC we completed range days three and four, live firing as sections during attacks and live ambushes on very dead but moving targets. These days were certainly more appealing than NAVEX 3, a
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