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February 29, 2020 by Ted Chitham

The Australian – Malaya vets campaign on ‘war service’

The Australian – Malaya vets campaign on ‘war service’

The 9,000 men of Rifle Company Butterworth (RCB) are fighting to have their deployment and its risks recognised as warlike service.

EXCLUSIVE – PAUL MALEY 28th February 2020

 ‘We were put into harm’s way’: Ray Fulcher served in the Second Malayan Emergency

‘We were put into harm’s way’: Ray Fulcher served in the Second Malayan Emergency

The year is 1972 and Gough Whitlam is fulfilling an election pledge to bring home Australian troops from Vietnam, formally ending years of armed conflict with communist insurgents across Southeast Asia.

In northern Malaysia at the Butterworth Air Base, a small contingent of Australian servicemen still carry live rounds and patrol for communist guerillas they occasionally spy peering from jungles nearby.

“There was a Rifle Company Butterworth patrol that encountered a group of communist terrorists,’’ Ray Fulcher, chairman of the RCB review group, tells The Australian. “They went to ground but there was no shots fired.’’

Nearly 50 years on and the men of Rifle Company Butterworth are fighting to have their deployment and its risks recognised as a warlike service.

It has been a long, friendless fight. Official reviews have declined to upgrade their service, a move that would entitle them to a richer array of veterans’ benefits, including a much-prized Gold Card entitling them to a range of public and private healthcare services. It would also clear the way for RCB veterans to get the Australian Active Service Medal, the badge of honour bestowed upon all Australian personnel who served in “warlike’’ theatres.

Now they are passing the hat around to fund a Federal Court challenge they hope will see their status formally changed. To Mr Fulcher, as well as to other members of the RCB veterans’ community, it is a question of fairness.

“We were put into harm’s way to counter a threat in Malaysia and support them in their operations against communist terrorists,’’ Mr Fulcher said.

“They cannot renege now on their responsibilities, which is what they’re trying to do.’’

In nearly 20 years of service, RCB members never fired a shot in anger or had one fired at them. They suffered no combat casualties. The RAAF base they were sent to guard was never attacked. The base itself was a hangover from World War II.

So it is not hard to see why the Australian Defence Force has consistently refused to recognise deployment to Butterworth as warlike.

Yet the official designation of peacetime service doesn’t quite fit either. Soldiers on training deployments — notionally the reason the RCB was sent to Malaya — don’t pack live rounds. Nor was any training done.

“The government’s big thing is that we were training with the Malaysians,’’ Mr Fulcher said. “There were one or two who did, but that was later.

“There was no way we could train with the Malaysians — they were busy with their war.’’ That “war’’ was the decades-long conflict waged between the officially recognised government of Malaysia and the Malaysian Communist Party.

It was a simmering insurgency identical in type, if not in scale, to conflicts fought in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Fifteen Australians died fighting in the First Malayan Emergency and 24 more were killed on active service.

By 1968, the communists had regrouped and launched a fresh offensive. The base at Butterworth, which had been transferred by the British to Australia in 1957, became a strategic outpost, a means by which Australia could project force into an increasingly unstable region.

Butterworth was the only airbase outside Australia where the RAAF maintained a permanent offensive presence.

Even now, Australian troops still rotate regularly through it. During the takeover by Islamic State of Marawi in the southern Philippines, the RAAF used Butterworth to send P-3 Orion spy planes to surveil the group.

In 2018, the government announced it would upgrade Butterworth to accommodate the new fleet of F-35 fighter planes.

During the 1960s, it served as a deterrent and a backstop to the Malaysian government. For this reason, Mr Fulcher thinks the 9000-odd servicemen who rotated through Butterworth from 1970-89 deserve recognition: “If the government sends people into harm’s way, that’s warlike service. If you send them somewhere where there’s a possibility they’ll be shot at, you owe them.’’

Mr Fulcher was there in 1979 when it was a fully fledged operating base, and a staging post for air combat missions flown by Malaysians against the communists.

RCBRG Comment

We thank Paul Maley for his article. In preparing the article we supplied relevant data months ago and he spoke with three of our Group separately in telephone conversations two days before its publication. We highlighted the two dominant issues that we were contesting:
Firstly, that the decision that RCB service was peacetime service similar to garrison duty in Australia and that the criteria for warlike service was met namely: a specific military objective; a specific area of operations; an enemy threat existed; there was an expectation of casualties; live ammunition was carried and that there were lethal rules of engagement.

Secondly, that the Government’s due process in handling our grievance was not applied in a fair manner. 14 years of effort by the RCB Group to exercise its right to the truth and its right to challenge the decision have been met with a Government process that is blatantly unfair.

The article fails to consider the strategic context of security threats from communist expansion (The Domino Theory) in SEA and our strategic Alliance under the Five Power Defence Arrangement with the vital role that the RAAF, deployed at Air Base Butterworth (ABB), had in providing a deterrent to further Communist aggression in South East Asia beyond the 1960s he writes of “During the 1960s, it served as a deterrent and a backstop to the Malaysian government.” Our Alliance continued through the Malaysian Emergency War 1968 -1989 and still exists today.

It does not report that the genesis of the RCB deployment was the outbreak of Malaysia’s Insurgency War in 1968 against a resurgent communist terrorists and the Australian Government’s decision Defence Committee Minute (Secret) 2/73 to protect the RAAF Assets at ABB against the threat. In that Minute it records: “This (deployment) could be presented publicly as being for training purposes”. Herewith is the deception of the true RCB’s warlike service that meets the criteria.

The article does not report our request for an independent of government judicial enquiry.

However a positive from Paul Marley’s article is that it does expose the matter to the Australian people. Our challenge is to build on that entry with our own troops and supporters in direct action campaign in the field.

It is a pity that Paul did not check his “facts” with us before publishing.

Filed Under: Defence, Goverment, Home, Malaysian Conflict, Media, Operations, RCB, RCB, Service Recognition

February 29, 2020 by Ted Chitham

Update 1/2020 – News Flash

Update 1/2020 – News Flash

NEWS FLASH

The Australian will publish a news article re our claim for RCB Service Recognition in tomorrow newspaper Friday 28th February.(1)

Over the last two days we have been in discussions with their reporter Paul Maley and provided relevant material. We are not privy to the content of his news report.

As you all know, our endeavours have sought our Right to the Truth and our Right to Challenge the Government’s decision. Working within the Government’s grievance process with evidence from the Governments’ own documents (ex-secret and top secret in over 130 cases) we have been denied due process to engage in meetings with the Minister’s advisors let alone third party mediation.

Our requests for an independent of government judicial enquiry have been ignored

We have long sought the media’s interest to expose The Deception to the Australian public to influence the Government to appoint an independent of Government judicial enquiry. Hopefully, this Australian news report will.

We ask you to re-read our last RCB Update 5/2019: From Deception to Exposure – 2020 Action because it will form the basis for our follow up campaign to the Australian newspaper article with our own personal engagements with all MPS and Senators.

Thanks for your past patience and support. Stand ready for Campaign action.
Be a Supporter – stand up to stand ready – Register Now – Join an Action Group: Scroll down to the bottom right of the home page www.recognitionofrcbservice.com

Sign up – Saddle Up

Ray Fulcher
RCB Service 1979
Chairman RCB Review Group
Date: 27 February 2020 

Note: (1) If you are a digital subscriber to The Australian Newspaper you will have the opportunity to COMMENT on it below the Article

Filed Under: Defence, Goverment, History, Home, Independent Inquiry, Malaysian Conflict, Media, Operations, RAR, RCB, RCB, Service Recognition

December 3, 2019 by Ted Chitham

Opinion: RCB – Ripping Off Our Diggers – What a Low Act

Opinion: RCB – Ripping Off Our Diggers – What a Low Act

This article by Peter Kelly, an RCB veteran, has been printed in The Pickering Post

“If you asked any soldier, sailor or airman who is even remotely involved in warfighting if they thought about the “administrative tail” of their efforts, most wouldn’t give it a second thought.

In my day, it took something like 100 people to put one combat soldier in the field and support them.  So, the warfighter had a long administrative and logistic tail.

Be under no illusion.  In Australia, our military is second to none when it comes to the troops in the field and those who support them…… until it gets to the civilians who populate our Department of Defence, Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the Australian Public Service in general. 

That’s when the wheels well and truly fall off.  And the further away from the fighting you go, the more ready the players are to lie, obfuscate and avoid their moral responsibility.

Case in point – in 1968 the Second Malayan Emergency (sometimes called the Counter-Insurgency War) kicked off in Malaysia. 

The first Emergency had ended in 1960, but the Communist Terrorists were not done attempting to wrest power from the government from their bases in Southern Thailand and sprinkled amongst Malay society.

We had a huge airbase at Butterworth with the majority of Australia’s fighter aircraft stationed there and it needed to be protected.  This was a strategic base to combat communist aggression in keeping with the domino theory. 

The strapped Malays couldn’t afford the troops to do that.  They were too busy fighting the insurgency.  So, Australia started rotating troops from Singapore until they were returned to Australia. 

RAAF Mirage fighters at butterworth in Malaysia. Australian Army diggers were ripped off for defending this assett
RAAF Mirages on the tarmac at Butterworth protected by diggers who would soon be short changed by Whitlam

After that – from 1970 – Australia started sending troops on rotation direct from Australia.  Mostly Infantry and armed for war.  In fact, they were put through all the pre-deployment training and preparation as if they were going to Vietnam. 

Why?  Because the deployment met the criteria for warlike service.

But there was a problem.  Firstly, the Malays were sensitive in their newly-independent condition of having foreign military within their borders and fighting their war for them.  Add to that, the 1972 election campaign of Gough Whitlam who wanted to change our military posture from “forward defence” to “fortress Australia”. 

In other words, he wanted to bring all the troops home to where it was cheaper so he could strip the military to fund his social welfare programs. 

After he was elected, Gough was appraised of the obligations to protect Butterworth and to contribute to the Five Power Defence Agreement that replaced the South East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO).

What to do? 

If it were known that combat troops were being deployed to Butterworth, it would appear that he had broken an election promise.  The solution was to portray the deployment as “training” and thus the deception was born.

If one were to deal only in raw data and other facts, the deployments to Butterworth were commitments to war service. 

The host country was experiencing an insurgency, the Australian assets had to be protected and the host country didn’t have the resources to protect them (as determined by the RAAF whose recommendation via Australia’s Malaysia High Commissioner was accepted by our Government). 

Into that breach steps the Australian Army, ready as ever to do the heavy lifting and to be the instrument of Australia’s foreign policy, including their foreign policy stuff-ups.

Let’s step aside at this point and consider the RAAF commitment to Ubon in Thailand.  Thailand was at peace, but it had an airbase occupied by foreign military within its borders. 

The Vietnam war was raging and Ubon played a part in it, just as Butterworth did.  Ubon had RAAF Airfield Defence Guards (ADGs) protecting the airbase, just as the Army did at Butterworth. 

But herein lies the rub – the ADGs at Ubon were recognised as being on war service whereas the troops protecting the air base at Butterworth were not.

From 1970 – 1989 when the peace treaty between the government of Malaysia and the Communist terrorists was signed, Malaysia was at war. 

It was a civil war, or an insurgency.  Call it what you will.  I’m sure the families of the 150+ Malay soldiers and police who were killed in combat believe they were at war.  In the period that the ADGs protected Ubon, Thailand was at peace. 

From a comparative perspective why would the guys deployed to Ubon be considered on war service and those deployed to Butterworth not?

If you print out the raw primary data on A4 pages and stack them on the floor, the pile stands over a metre high.  The secondary data and anecdotal evidence each stand at a similar height. 

It contains 123 formerly SECRET documents and one TOP SECRET document.  Yet, in the face of all that irrefutable evidence, the Australian Department of Defence, DVA, government and public service deny that the Second Malayan Emergency ever took place.

They say that what the 9,000 soldiers did was akin to anything they would have done in Australia. 

Why?

Well might you ask.  Well, the answer is as simple as it is disgraceful.  There was a decision-making process to determine if the 9,000 soldiers who served protecting Butterworth should be granted recognition for warlike service.

During this process, the Department of Veterans Affairs (which should not have been involved in the process) made a submission that they didn’t have the budget to pay the repatriation benefits involved.  And the Department of Defence went along with it.

This morally bankrupt, low act effectively put dollars before diggers.  Let’s be clear…. of the 9,000 who served, the more senior ones would have already earned their entitlements from deployments to Vietnam, Malaya, Borneo etc.

The younger ones would have gone on to serve in East Timor, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and so on, thereby earning their repatriation benefits and other entitlements. 

The nett figure of those “between the wars” diggers who have been “dudded” by the federal government is probably less than 2,000 and a lot of them have passed away.

Successive governments and the public service have perpetuated the deception that the deployment was only for training purposes to deny our diggers their just entitlements. 

They continue to this day.  On 2 December 2019 it will be 30 years since the signing of the peace treaty.  Lest we forget.

THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO THIS STORY.  “

By Peter Kelly -December 2, 2019 Peter served for over 20 years in the Infantry and Intelligence Corps. He is fluent in Chinese and speaks several other languages. He has also had a highly successful and varied business career.

RCB REVIEW GROUP’S COMMENT

We will be producing a podcast series that in short episodes will trace our claim for warlike service that proves from the Government’s own documents a deception and a procedural process that is unjust and in breach of Ministerial standards and public service codes of ethics and conduct.

We note and support the National Media’s “Right to Know Campaign in which our two traditional rights feature: The Right to the Truth and The Right to Contest.

Be prepared for action.

Filed Under: Defence, Goverment, History, Home, Malaysian Conflict, Media, Operations, RAR, RCB, RCB, Service Recognition, Uncategorized

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