27
NEWS FROMMEMBERS
From Field Marshal Sir John Chapple [1954 – 94]
Some Talk of Lalitbahadur and Some of Hercules
There were (are?) not many people who can claim to have shot down a
modern four-engined aircraft with small arms fire - and I am not one.
But I have been pretty close to making such a claim, or at least witness-
ing such an event.
At the time, we were in C Company Base at Ba Kelalan near the Sara-
wak border, a beautiful place in the mountains at about 3,000 feet. The
camp was on the side of a steep jungle-covered valley. The border ran
along the ridge above the camp, only a few hundred yards away. The
valley ran south up to a saddle from where the border curled away to
the west.
The nights were cool and there was often a heavy morning mist cling-
ing to the bottom of the valley, or masking the jungle-covered moun-
tains.
The situation on the enemy side of the border was rather confused.
There were many rumours of an enemy build-up in strength; of the
impending arrival of the ‘big gun’; of paratroops and commandos ex-
pected every day. The nearest enemy posts were fairly near the border
just below the saddle at the end of our valley. There was another val-
ley just across the border which ran back at right angles towards the
east down to a small mission airstrip at Long Bawan a few miles back.
We had an observation post hidden on the border ridge which could
see right down to this enemy airstrip. This post was always occupied
by a platoon. At the time of this story it was No 11 Platoon under
command of Lieutenant (QGO) Sukdeo Pun.
Although we saw occasional enemy aircraft coming over their own air-
strip, there was very little air activity. Our own fighters patrolled the
border at irregular intervals but we didn’t get any resupply aircraft at
the time because of the difficulty of air-dropping so near the border.
