N.Z. Jet Boats Fired On

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30809, 22 July 1965, Page 18

N.Z. Jet Boats Fired On

New Zealand jet boats when making training runs up the Mekong river were occasionally fired on as they passed through areas that were either unstable, said Mr G. politically or militarily Mannering in Christchurch last evening. ' No-one was injured and no harm was done to the boats, he said. Mr Mannering has been instructing students at a school for jet boat operators at Pakse, in southern Laos, for the last five months, and he said the project had been a success. “It will be possible with these boats to undertake studies in waters previously unnavigable,” he said. “The Mekong river development scheme began about 10 vears ago and will continue for a long time. Control of this river is essential to the future development of the entire area." During his five months in Pakse Mr Mannering was responsible for training eight men—two each from Laos Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam—in the operation of the four jet boats given by the New Zealand Government under the Colombo Plan. Mr Mannering said difficulty of communication was a drawback in his work of instruction. “The Thais spoke little English, the Laos halting French while the Vietnamese and

Cambodians spoke a fluent local French that was beyond my comprehension.” “The language problem overcome, you then discover that people in these newlydeveloping countries have had no childhood background of pottering about with machinery. Consequently trying to teach them to use such sophisticated equipment as a jet

boat engine can be very difficult,” he said. Under such conditions it took Mr Mannering two months to train a man in the operation of a boat and its components. ‘This would have been done in about two days in New Zealand," he said. Although Laos under the 1954 Geneva Agreement was a neutral country it was one which was highly divided. "Only the major cities were held by what could be described as the right wing. The rest was virtually under the control of the Pathet Lao. Alternatively, local brigands were in charge,” he said. The most interesting aspect of his time in Laos, said Mr Mannering, was to see the response from students of four countries, basically unfriendly to one another, who realised the need to work together in developing the resources of the potentially rich Mekong area. “What happens in Southeast Asia in the immediate future could vitally affect New Zealand. Already the whole of the area, involving some 30m persons, has been injected or infected by com munist ideals and personnel,” he said.