Meeting the gurkhas, nt, 1967

[Peter Laidler]

My meeting with the Gurkhas
NT; Auustralia1967

I always enjoyed our Military Training week every few months because it took you away from the workshops and usually meant a day on the ranges – which was my enjoyable bread and butter. On that basis the Armourers always got good reviews. This wasn’t such a week…….

There was a good reason why the non-Infantry ‘Corps troops’ were required to undertake fairly regular Infantry or Military training. This week, one small part was that each bloke in the mixed section off odds and ends ‘corps-types’ was required to act as a section leader for a few hours or so while he was assessed and advised by our regular RAR training Sergeant from one of the Military Training Teams scattered across the Country.

One day our task was to venture several miles into ‘bandit country’ up and well into Arnhem Land, to meet up with another patrol of regular infantry who had operated there and were working deep inside – and were to pass on to us a downed airman and some observation intelligence that they’d gleaned. Of course he wasn’t ‘downed’ but that was part of the realistic scenario that our section of 8 men were operating to.

We set off early, camouflaged-up, and armed with rifles and an L2 heavy rifle - and blanks of course to travel across deep vegetated and covered bush country, keeping silent and travelling carefully using our maps and identifiable tracks until we crossed into bandit country to an identifiable track junction where we were, hopefully, going to meet our opposites.

We carefully hooched-up, hidden and had a bit of a conflab while one of the others watched on guard. After about an hour or so, he reported back that about 50 yards further up this bush track there was movement and what sounded like a shrill bird screech. We stood-to making sure that our backs were covered of course. Even though it was a training exercise, things were getting twitchy.

It soon became apparent that ‘the movement’ and ‘bird screech’ could well be trying to surreptitiously make contact…….. While our sentry made himself known, so did the other bloke, further up the track. Clearly seeing that we were there by arrangement, the other bloke ‘appeared’ and made his way slowly and VERY stealthy down the track, but well into the bushy outer edges of it . To be honest, when whatever it was came into semi-clear view, it looked like nothing on earth…….

If you can imagine one of those Himalayan yetti’s…… he was camouflaged like one of those. Streams of shredded hessian, ribbons of light and dark green and yellow cloth covered him from head to toe and greasy camouflage paste over his face and arms. How he survived the heat up in those tropics, while the sun was well-up, heaven only knows. His rifle was held in an semi aiming way. I don’t know what he did to the others, but he scared the crap out of me………

He was beckoned over and gave a signal to his mates as a warning…..

Shortly after contact was made, we suddenly realised that he was a British Army Gurkha, in Australia for training. Checking our credentials and that we were in fact the good guys they were supposed to meet, he have a signal for the remainder of his section to stand and slowly make their way over. That was another shock. As they stood up and moved over the 30 or so yards towards us, they were all camouflaged like jungle yettis. It became clear that while we saw the leading scout, the rest of the Gurkha patrol were holed up virtually surrounding us. No flies on these boys.....

A couple of us also noticed that some of them had bayonets on their rifle – so CLEARLY some of them weren’t armed with blanks!!!!! It was nice to see a real machine gun again too, as they had an L4 7.62 Bren against our heavy automatic rifle. While they didn’t say too much, we think that they were a deep penetration patrol, living off the land to boot – with rifles to catch their food.

I spoke to one of the reasonable English speakers and told him that I was also in the British Army, which he and his Gurkha mates found quite amusing.

Like us, they also had a Training whatever-he-was with them. He didn’t say much at all except a couple of words to our training Sergeant. He didn’t discuss what he said or indeed, who he was but we suspect he was British, Australian or New Zealand SAS observer or instruuctor.

But there was more………

While we were sat pretty-well hidden with these Gurkha yettie look-a-likes we shared a mug of their foul tasting tea (no tea bags, just leaves!) and an equally foul tasting tepid boney ‘stew’. Quite what sort of ‘stew’ it was, was never established but I suspect that they’d shot some sort of Australian animal and did whatever they do.

I asked one of the Gurkhas how long they’d been at the location. He told me that they’d done a previous reccy visit, cleared the area and settled in soon after sundown the previous day. So they’d been holed-up and prepared overnight and into the morning. They must have thought we were a bunch of bumbling amateurs. Fed and watered, we quietly parted, took the bundle of ‘intelligence’ docs. We did pass over to them any spare clean water and rations. No word was spoken to the ‘downed pilot’ for security reasons and took advice by keeping him tethered and hooded. Loosely I hasten to add to imitate a real scenario. I never understood why as we’d achieved our aim and he was clearly Australian and one of ours. But those were the rules dictated by our Training Sgt.

We were not allowed to see the departure drills the Gurkha patrol took for reasons best known to them. We never saw the Gurkhas again who had come down from Borneo to Canungra, then up North.

The remaining Military Training days were a bit run-of-the-mill after that. Lots of range days, jungle ambush trails and plenty of live ammunition. To be honest, for us corps troops and some of the Nasho’s, they could be a bit of a chore, especially if you were being run ragged but being fit I just made a point of enjoying it

My only meeting with the Gurkhas – and far from where you’d expect to see them!

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