Malayan Crash Survivor Found In Jungle

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28159, 24 December 1956, Page 11

Malayan Crash Survivor Found In Jungle

(Rec. 7 p.m.) KUALA LUMPUR, Dec. 22 Nineteen-year-old Thomas Lee, a British soldier who, on December 10, survived an R.N.Z.A.F. Bristol Freighter crash in the thick jungle of central Malaya, staggered today into the arms of a Malay Army patrol after having been posted missing, believed killed, for 12 days.

The Air Officer Commanding, Malaya, Air Vice-Marshal W. H. Kyle, described Lee as the “million-to-one chance” survivor of the crash in which eight others lost their lives.

An Air Force spokesman said that Lee. after his escape from the burnt and disintegrated aircraft, had walked almost four miles through some of the most difficult and mountainous jungle country in Malaya. The R.A.F. spokesman said that Driver Lee had followed a main river and would eventually have emerged on a road where he would have found safety.

Driver Lee, from Atherton, Lancashire, is a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps, and was acting as an aid dispatcher in the Bristol plane, which was dropping supplies to troops fighting terrorist forces. Driver Lee was found by patrols of the 4th Malay Regiment and taken by helicopter from the jungle to Tapah for preliminary medical treatment, then flown to the British military hospital in Kuala Lumpur later this afternoon.

An initial medical inspection showed him to be suffering from bruises, superficial burns, and exhaustion, but the medical report said that “by and large, he is in pretty good shape and cheerful.” an R.A.F. spokesman said. The R.A.F. court of inquiry into the crash of the Bristol, which was carrying nine men—seven crew and dispatchers, and two Malayan Film Unit cameramen who were photographing the supply drop—has re-

assembled in Kuala Lumpur. It will ask Driver Lee his story of the circumstances surrounding the crash. The Army and Air Force were continuing their search for a “million-tc-one chance” survivor when the patrol today found Driver Lee, in spite of an official announcement that the nine aboard the plane were “missing, believed killed.”

This is the story of the rescue as told today from Army and Air Force sources:—

The Bristol crashed into a 4000 ft mountain. Much of it was burned but other wreckage was strewn over a wide area. A search party from the 4th Malay Regiment and the British 22nd Special Air Service Regiment commanded by Captain J. Lygo, intelligence officer of the Malay Battalion, found the wreckage and built a landing zone nearby. From traces of Driver Lee’s progress through the jungle it was now clear that he must have passed the landing zone after his second day’s walk. Eut the jungle was so thick that he was not aware that help was so close. He is thought to have filled his pockets with uncooked rice which his aircraft had carried. Driver Lee followed the main Sekaju river. When he was picked up he had another four miles to go before reaching the main road, eight miles west of the crash. Resting Places The Malay Regiment patrol found signs of the resting places between the scene of the crash and the site of the landing zone. It was estimated that both had been occupied six days before.

The patrol picked up grains of rice at the first resting place and noticed trampled leaves. In the second spot, apart from more rice, jungle banana tree leaves had been bent over to give shade to someone.

The banana stalk had Driver Lee’s teeth marks at the junction of the leaves and tree. With this news, Arm;

officers decided to spread the search wider.

The resting places could have been those of Communist terrorists, but this Army officers considered unlikely, as no efforts were made to cover the tracks or use camouflage. Native trackers used to the jungle, with a couple of tracking dogs, joined the search. On Thursday, the third resting place was found and the imprint of a jungle boot was seen.

On Friday, an aircraft with a loud speaker was sent over the area and sounded instructions for the possible survivor to keep beside the main river; to try to make smoke; and how to distinguish the troops and hide his trail from Communist terrorists.

The Malaya Regiment patrol heard the message. Another patrol was sent into the jungle from the Cameron Highlands road and worked eastwards. Late on Friday, three more resting places were found by the first patrol. The distances between each shelter had reduced each time. The track was very plain.

Patrols Meet This morning, at 8.30 a.m., the two patrols met. They broke into smaller search parties. An hour and a hall afterwards one of them found a tired, but grinning Tom Lee.

The troops cleared a landing zone for a helicopter which landed in Kuala Lumpur in torrential rain an hour later.

As an indication of the type of country he had struggled through, a Special Air Service team had at one stage taken three days to cover two and a half miles.

Lee’s mother, in Atherton, was told today that her son was alive and safe.

A few days ago she had received a telegram which told her that her son had crashed and was “missing, believed killed.”

An R.A.F. spokesman confirmed that so far the identity of only two of the bodies found in the crash had been established.

They were Mr Louis Paul, the assistant cameraman of the Malayan Film Unit, and Driver Morris Wakefield. of Granthom. Lincolnshire.

The British Armv announced today that it w*s abandoning its jungle -search for further survivors.