ARMY OFFICERS STUDY LIBERATION PROBLEMS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29246, 2 July 1960, Page 12

ARMY OFFICERS STUDY LIBERATION PROBLEMS

Problems of restoring civil government to a South-east Asian province disrupted by insurgent operations were posed by intelligence arid planning staff to 125 senior Regular and Territorial officers at Burnham Military Camp yesterday, when the annual Army exercise began

The simulated action they debated Was worked on a scale model representing 4000 square miles of battlefield covering jungle, paddy and limestone outcrops—a territory of the theatre in which the Dominion has defence commitments.

Their principal general problem was based on a general situation in which up to 800 insurgents only, mingling in an area populated by many thousands of innocent civilians, drew’ the attention of five battle groups numbering about 14.000 men. This was the New Zealand Division flanked by Australian and British forces in a joint United Nations Command.

The necessity of extinguishing insurgent operations without damaging civilian property or hurting the civilian population was described as equivalent to fighting with one hand tied behind the back.

Airlifting of troops of a new New Zealand Division—a paper copy of the Australian-modified American pentropic formation with certain qualifications—was a feature of operations. Officers were told that a medium squadron of tour fixed wing and four helicopter aircraft could place two battle groups (about 5600 battle groups) in position in a day

Great reliance for vital t—ks was placed on shock troops—paratroop commandos of the Special Air Service Squadron—to precede infantry, take and hold key points and to reconnoitre. Reconnaissance Theory At one stage during open discission the concept of reconnaissance by armoured car regiment was questioned; leading military thought preferred unsuspected observation of a potential enemy “across the border’’ by way of highly-efficient communications carried by SAS troopers squatting unobserved in the bush. “Where people start fighting for information, folk disappear and you can't get anything. The best information producer is the chap no-one knows is there or some scientific device,” was the summing up given by the Chief of the General Staff. Major General Sir Stephen Weir. General Weir emphasised the significance of intervention by a United Nations force in order to restore the previous civil government disrupted by insurgency incited beyond a border north. Nothing would be achieved If in gaining military contf'ol so much damage was caused that the* rehabilitation of civilian government became a long and difficult business, he said. Part of the difficulty lay in the fact that insurgents would not stand and give battle; their tactics were sabotage, ambush and intimidation of the local population. He cautioned his “budding divisional commanders” that they had to have a plan to accept battle if the provacateur across the border decided not tff accept the intervention and confronted a UN force with opposition. He impressed that the task of the New Zealand Division, apart from gaining military control, would be to engender confidence

and friendship of the local inhabitants. ( That would call for the highest degree of discipline from top to bottom and ' subordinates would have to be engendered with a sense of mission. In an operation of this type, another thing that had to be remembered was that the “old indigenous habit of the New Zealand Army abroad, scrounging” was “out.” The Exercise will continue today and end tomorrow.