LANDING COLLAPSES

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30586, 31 October 1964, Page 15

LANDING COLLAPSES

’ P A.-Reuter —Copyright; MERLIMAU (South Malaya), Oct. 30.

The swift collapse of the third Indonesian armed landing in South Malaya continued this morning, Australian troops taking the surrender of 25 bedraggled and mudsoaked men armed with jammed and rusty weapons.

Fifty of the estimated 60strong Indonesian force which landed in the Kesang river, five miles south of Merlimu early yesterday have now been accounted for.

Two Malaysian field policemen are missing, but are believed safe, according to Malaysian military sources. They say Indonesian prisoners reported seeing the two men withdrawing into swamp country yesterday morning.

The Indonesians assaulted the Australian lines with small arms and mortar fire. No casualties were reported on either side.

At dawn this morning aircraft Hew over the deep

marshes in which the action had taken place, with Malaysian police officers with loudhailers appealing to the Indonesians to come out.

Twenty-five had already been captured by Malaysian field police yesterday. Within hours of this morning’s appeal, another 25 came out of the swamps with arms aloft, and capitulated to the Australians.

Last night’s action had taken place in chest-high mud, and both the Australians and the Indonesians were soaked and plastered with clay nearly to the neck. Old Weapons The Indonesians' arms were mainly of an older type, consisting largely of World War II models of the Australianmade Owen machine-gun with a few Lee Enfield rifles.

Yesterday, some modern German-made sub - machine-

guns were taken from the invading force. Twenty-five of the invading force gave up almost immediately, discarding their uniforms and throwing away their weapons. In the afternoon a company of the 3rd Royal Australian Regiment came into the fight from the Terendak Commonwealth camp, 20 miles away. They were supported by the 4th Royal Tank Regiment. To the south, the Ist Battalion, Royal New Zealand Regiment, was brought up from the scene of earlier fighting round Pontian, 60 miles away, and this morning a Gurkha battalion also joined in the operation. ’ An announcement in Kuala Lumpur said most of the landing force was believed to have been drawn from Indonesian Air Force paratroop battalions.

As in earlier landings, the Indonesians carried large sums of Malaysian currency.