N.Z. SOLDIERS COMB SWAMPS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30542, 10 September 1964, Page 17

N.Z. SOLDIERS COMB SWAMPS

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

PONTIAN KECHIL (South-west Malaya) , September 9. Troops of the first battalion, Royal New Zealand Regiment, are now combing 120 miles of mangrove swampland and jungle to flush out about 40 Indonesian guerrillas believed to be in hiding.

The guerrillas are remnants of about 100 armed Indonesian infiltrators who landed from small boats near this south Malayan coastal village on August 17. Security forces have killed 14 guerrillas and captured “several” others in moppingup operations during the last three weeks. Major lan Burrows, of Christchurch, who is directing operations from the police station at Ayer Baled, a small fishing village seven miles north of Pontian Kechil, said there had been no contact with the guerrillas since the New Zealand battalion began jungle operations four days ago. Major Burrows said that the main difficulty was “identification,” as some of the infiltrators had come out of the jungle in civilian clothes and mingled with the local population. Some of the captured guerrillas are former residents of Pontian who defected to Indonesia after Indonesia launched her confrontation against Malaysia last year. Tough little British Gurkha troops are set for a long-haul operation in flushing out the Indonesian parachutists. An official spokesman said it is now estimated that “more than 50” paratroopers made the jump from an Indonesian transport plane onto the open countryside of Labis, in Johore State. Earlier Government estimates put the figure at 30. • About' 500 men from the

British Army on the Rhine were airborne last night in six Royal Air Force Britannias on their way to Singapore, according to a message from London. Then men, who will reinforce British forces in Malaysia, belonged to the Twenty-second Light Air Defence Regiment, stationed at Dusseldorf. The operation was- ordered suddenly by the British Defence Ministry late on Sunday. They were described by a British Army spokesman as

flying to Singapore for “emergency operational duties in the Far East.” The spokesman said this was a “precautionary measure in view of the present situation in Malaysia.” The troops were flown out in tropical kit and took only their personal arms. A State Department spokesman said today in Washington that the United States had been holding consultations with Australia and New Zealand on the IndonesianMalaysian “confrontation.” The spokesman, added, however, that he was not aware of any specified discussion about the A.N.Z.U.S. Treaty, which links the three countries in a mutual defence alliance in the Pacific.