RA will be celebrating its 300 years of excellence and of being King of the battlefield in 2016. I am proud of being a teeny weeny bit of being King of the battlefield. The Federation of Malaya is still in its infancy stage being one sixth of the era. With Merdeka in 1957 our own Federation Artillery was formed, raised and nurtured by the RA. The humble field Bty raised in Kajang soon expanded to two Regiments by mid 1964.
I joined 2 ARTY in December 1964. We had an HQ and four gun BTYs with four 105mm Pack Howitzers each. I was very comfortable with all the RA seconded officers in both the Regiments as I already had British legacy in me by default. All the senior officers in the Regiment were Mat Sallehs, including the Quartermaster. Fire discipline was in English. Standing Orders, Bty orders and training were in English too. The RSM and all ORs were Malaysian, mostly Malays. The Mat Salleh BC would give his orders in English and all in attendance would acknowledge “Yes Tuan”. Needless to say soon after the BC’s orders had finished, my BSM would come to the BK or Tuan Lai as I was fondly called, and asked what the Tuan BC had ordered. There would be a second translated O Gp held by the BK if needed.
Yes “Tuan" has always being in-bedded in our salutation to calling of names. Tuan was always prefixed for appointments for seconded officers and prefixed for Malaysian officer’s names as in “Tuan QM” or “Tuan Maniam”. It is interesting to note that RA legacy called Captains and above by the ranks and names , but Mr. for RA subalterns and I was called Mr Lai during my YO course in Larkhill. This legacy was not carried forward with us as we called our Sergeant Majors “Enciks”. As at today Mr Pan (Major (R) Pan Kong Leong) would still call me Mr Lai when we meet, and I would call him Mr Pan.
Some significant legacies derived from RA include:
The Stable belt, Shoulder titles, Bomb collar-doc, cap badge, red lanyard, which had served an attachment to firing the gun, and the blue beret.
Our vehicles had the red over blue tag signs and for each Bty, a corner of the square tag sign would be in red identifying the Bty.
We had Port or Mediera wine after the mess night dinner with cigars for smokers to boot.
Our morning calls by our batmen included tea with two bananas.
We had a night tray after bar hours.
We were officers and gentlemen always.
Oh how I miss the good old days.
One very strict RA convention / rule I had learnt was that during all fire missions, the GPO was not to be interrupted or disturbed until the end of mission. This made sense because the GPO should not be distracted nor harassed during a fire mission. On one exercise in Papa Position in Asahan, I was GPO in E Bty. My Tuan BC was Major John Lane. Scruffy looking always, but an excellent officer and gentlemen. He was outside the CP tent and I was busy with a fire mission. He interrupted me, Yes my Tuan BC interrupted me during a fire mission which was something “not on” in those days. I was not sure why he had interrupted me, but obviously I would have made a mistake in my fire orders. But still the GPO should not be harassed in the midst a fire mission, unless the the fire orders were unsafe, to which the order “Stop by Safety” would be ordered by the safety officer in attendance. My Tuan BC was taken aback when I told him not to interrupt me. He did not say another word and left the CP, red in the face. We could not always differentiate if our Mat Salleh officers had natural red faces or it was the perpetual effect of the previous day’s happy hours. He left the gun position.
I did not see my Tuan BC until evening after the day’s firing exercise. I had returned to the field officers mess set up in Mike Position. My Tuan BC was already in the mess bar ( I recalled that we had never seen our Mat Salleh officers anywhere else other than at the Mess bar). I saluted him and was in full anticipation of a full dressing down by him. No he did not do that, for it was “not on” again to admonish anybody in the presence of others.
I recalled that he had said “ Come in Allen, Larkhill must have done some good for you. We had a good day today. Have a drink” . All else were forgotten / forgiven?. Till today I never got to the bottom of it as to why he had interrupted me during my fire mission. It was so not RA. It was a lesson that I had kept with me until today. Let the GPO have his day in his CP. That was his heaven, his boundary and domain.
Another lesson I had learnt from RA legacy was to adhere strictly to Fire discipline no matter what. The only person who was allowed to interrupt a Fireplan was the authorising officer himself. Nobody else. I was BK and Tuan BC was Major Mustafa Saad, Lt Yusof Said was FOO and 2LT Azahar was possibly one of the GPOs.
E Bty was on its second roulement tour to Sabah in 1968 and we were stationed in Kota Belud. We were to conduct the “mother of all” Firepower Demo to Sabah’s Chief Minister Tun Mustafa. Our Tuan BC was all bent to impress his namesake. Musti was always impressive without even trying. He always wore his iconic red scarf muffler just as General Montgomery would wear two cap badges. We wore jungle green uniform then as we were not yet issued with the combat digital camouflaged uniforms. The UN steel helmet was then the in-gear to wear.
The Firepower Demo involved a infantry company attack with arty covering fire. The fireplan had a smoke screen and a main target on the company objective with several targets in depth at the rear of the objective We registered all the targets and we had several dry runs and rehearsals. The guns were firing tight as they had new barrels.
It was a beautiful D Day. We started with the Witness Point shoot to get our met data. The dignitaries came on time to the VIP Grandstand / OP area which had all the charms and smell of new hessian cloth and fresh camouflaged nets and all the other bullshits. We had set up the Command and the Bty Fire Orders nets for live broadcast at the VIP grand stand. Tuan BC was with Tun and I was chief waiter.
H minus. The guns opened fire and the infantry crossed the Start Line at H hour. (Now Line of Departure?). The fire plan was on schedule and on target. The smoke screen was at its best and lingered on longer before spiralling up. The infantry with an FOO moved towards the objective. The pace was faster than rehearsed and the HE shells kept falling tight and impressively.
The troops then were crawling towards the objective and the fall of shots were dangerously close to them. TOTs were precise, but the troops had advanced faster than scheduled. Whilst Tuan BC remained cool and composed, I panicked.
It became untenable and the infantry company commander was shouting to stop the fall of shots. Lt Yusof Said our FOO came loud and urgent over the BFO net to lift the fire to the rear targets. Tuan BC ordered to Dwell, as the FOO was not authorised to lift. Shrapnels were flying over the crawling troops. It was hell out there but the show must go on. The guns finally lifted to the next schedule on the fireplan. The rounds then felled 200 meters further back of the objectives and we witnessed the final assault by the infantry onto the objective.
Modifications to fireplans were fairly easy to do and nice on paper, but all hell breaks loose when actually done. Modifications can cause havocs and mayhems. The main lesson learnt was that a drum should have been used to enable a constant assault pace. That is why infantry battalions have the pipes and drums platoon in their organisation. The bugle call will summon all the courage for the final charge.
On a lasting RA legacy, we undoubtedly accept UBIQUE as our moto. One ever conscious CO even explained UBIQUE as “EVERYWHERE ON ON”
Once a Gunner always a Gunner
Allen Lai
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