Jungle Green (1964). Documentary following 40 Commando, Royal Marines in Borneo during the Konfrontasi.
Tag Archives: Indonesia
“Last Call” (1965) with HMS Bulwark and the Far East Fleet on Exercise Dark Night
Feature length documentary (61 minutes) demonstrating a Royal Navy and Royal Marines exercise in the Far East. Filmed during 1964/65 and based on Exercise ‘Dark Night.’
With 40 Commando, 42 Commando, and 845 NAS aboard the commando carrier HMS Bulwark (R08). The “Rusty B” was deployed East of Suez with the Royal Navy’s Far East Fleet throughout the 1960s and served during the Konfrontasi with Indonesia.
Also features strike carriers HMS Victorious (R38), HMS Eagle (R05), and the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne (R21). Aircraft include the De Havilland Sea Vixen and the Blackburn Buccaneer.
Also the (new for 1964/5) County-class guided missile destroyers HMS Kent (D12) and HMS London (D16). Additional escorts include Battle-class destroyers HMS Barrosa (D68) and HMS Corruna (D97), C-class destroyer HMS Caesar (D07), Type 61 aircraft direction frigate HMS Lincoln (F99), Australian destroyer escort HMAS Derwent (DE49), New Zealand frigate HMNZS Otago (F111), and Type 15 frigate HMS Zest (F102).
Ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary include the replenishment oilers RFA Tidepool (A76), RFA Tidesurge (A98), and RFA Bayleaf (A79).
Summary of Southeast Asia piracy events 2011-2015
Summary of Southeast Asia piracy events to 7/22/2015.
2011
Attacks, Boardings, Kidnappings: 155
Hijackings: 24
Total: 179
2012
Attacks, Boardings, Kidnappings: 123
Hijackings: 6
Total: 129
2013
Attacks, Boardings, Kidnappings: 176
Hijackings: 7
Total: 183
2014
Attacks, Boardings, Kidnappings: 184
Hijackings: 16
Total: 200
2015 (to 7/22)
Attacks, Boardings, Kidnappings: 126
Hijackings: 12
Total: 138
Source: Office of Naval Intelligence.
Piracy & Maritime Security Incidents to 8th January 2014
It appears to be quiet off the coast of East Africa at the beginning of 2014, but not so much in Indonesia nor the West African littoral.
On 2 January, five pirates boarded a drifting gas carrier 55-nm west of Corsico in the Gulf of Guinea. The crew raised the alarm and the pirates fled. The master reported that there were several small craft without AIS in the vicinity.
On 3 January, pirates boarded the general cargo vessel San Miguel and kidnapped 3 crew members 20-miles NW of Bata, Equatorial Guinea.
On 3 January, armed robbers boarded an anchored chemical tanker in Belawan Anchorage, Indonesia while it was conducting loading operations. They took hostage the duty crewman then broke into the forecastle store room and stole ship’s property and escaped.
On 4-5 January, the Ukrainian captain and Greek engineer who were kidnapped by Nigerian pirates from the tanker Althea on 16 December 2013 were released.
On 6 January, robbers boarded an anchored chemical tanker in Belawan Outer Anchorage, Indonesia. The crew spotted the robbers and raised the alarm, whereupon the robbers fled in their small craft without stealing anything. The master alerted other ships in the vicinity via bridge-to-bridge radio.
On 7 January, armed robbers boarded a berthed container ship off Doula Port, Cameroon. The duty crewman noticed suspicious movements at the forecastle & informed the duty officer who raised the alarm. Seeing the crew response, the robbers escaped in a small craft.
On 7 January, robbers boarded an anchored chemical tanker in Gresik Inner Anchorage, Indonesia. They threatened the duty watch keeper & stole ship’s stores. The robbers fled when other crew members raised the alarm.
On 8 January, robbers boarded a berthed general cargo ship at Monrovia Port, Liberia. After hearing some noise, the duty watchman noticed a robber throwing ship’s properties overboard. Upon seeing the crew response, the robber jumped overboard and escaped. The master informed local authorities who sent a port security patrol to investigate. Port security personnel helped recover some of the stolen ship’s property that was adrift near the stern of the ship.
Source: United States Navy, Office of Naval Intelligence.
Piracy Reports 31 October to 7 November 2013
INDIAN OCEAN: On 6 November, a merchant vessel reported a pirate attack near position 05:40 S – 046:59 E, approximately 450 nm east-southeast of Mombasa, Kenya. The ship reported being attacked by five heavily armed pirates in one skiff, with the pirates reportedly exchanging gunfire with the ship’s embarked security team. The alarm was raised as the attack started, and the ship increased speed, activated the fire pumps, and started evasive maneuvers. The pirates reportedly moved away from the ship after the embarked security team returned gunfire.
INDIAN OCEAN: On 5 November, FGS NIEDERSACHSEN interdicted a pirate attack off Somalia. The PAG reportedly consisted of one whaler and skiff. There
were ten suspected pirates sighted in the boats along with numerous large fuel barrels. Upon closer surveillance, personnel in the boats were reportedly seen throwing two long ladders overboard before heading back to the beach.
INDONESIA: On 4 November, an anchored chemical tanker experienced an attempted boarding near position 03:54 N – 098:46 E, Belawan Anchorage. Duty crew spotted one boat with robbers attempting to board the tanker via anchor chain but alert crew thwarted the boarding. A second boat was hidden near the propeller and the crew could not chase them away with fire hoses. The propeller was turned on resulting in the robbers moving away. The robbers were spotted with some stolen hull anodes in their boat. Port Control informed of the incident.
INDIA: On 2 November, an anchored container ship experienced a boarding near position 21:40 N – 088:01 E, Sagar Anchorage. 15 armed robbers boarded the ship and were spotted by ship’s duty officer, who raised the alarm. The robbers were stealing ship’s stores and jumped overboard when the alarm was raised.
Source: United States Navy, Office of Naval Intelligence.
Piracy reports 24-31 October, 2013
It appears to have been a quiet week in the Gulf of Aden and the Gulf of Guinea, but not so much in Asian waters.
On 30 October, an underway chemical tanker experienced a boarding approximately 2.5 nm southwest of Outer Tuna Bouy, Kandla Anchorage. During routine rounds, a duty crewman noticed intruders boarding the vessel near the amidships storeroom. He immediately informed the duty officer who raised the alarm and mustered the crew. Upon seeing the crew response, the intruders fled the scene with stolen ship’s stores. Kandla Port Trust relayed details of the incident to the local Coast Guard office.
On 30 October, an underway asphalt tanker experienced a boarding in position 01:21 N – 104:24 E near the Horsburgh Lighthouse, Straits of Singapore. Five robbers armed with guns and knives boarded the ship unnoticed. They took hostage the Officer of the Watch and duty crewman and tied their hands. The pirates stole personal belongings and cash from crew cabins before escaping.
On 28 October, an anchored container ship experienced a boarding at position 21:50 N – 091:38 E in the Chittagong Anchorage. A duty crewman noticed five to six intruders at the poop deck while conducting routine rounds. He immediately informed the bridge and the alarm was raised. Upon hearing the alarm, the boarders jumped overboard and escaped with ship’s stores in their unlit boat.
On 27 October, an anchored chemical tanker experienced a boarding near position 03:56 N – 098:45 E, Belawan Outer Anchorage, Indonesia. Three skiffs approached the ship from the stern, forward and amidships. From the aft skiff, three pirates boarded the vessel and stole ship’s property. The crew noticed the boarders and raised the alarm, resulting in the pirates escaping.
On 26 October, an underway chemical tanker experienced an attempted boarding near position 03:40 N – 103:55 E approximately 35 nm east-southeast of Kuantan Port, Malaysia. Two small craft approached the tanker and tried to come alongside while underway. The Duty Officer raised the alarm and mustered the crew. The Master activated the Ship Security Alert System (SSAS), switched on all the deck lights, and steered a course away from land. Seeing the crew response, the boats aborted the boarding and moved away.
The sneaky-beaky Cold War adventures of Australia’s Oberon-class submarines
Love, love, love those Oberon-class boats. First submarine I ever set foot on was HMS Opossum as a small awestruck lad. Loved them ever since. This troy about the RAN’s O boats is an absolute corker.
Cold War exploits of Australia’s secret submarines
The Oberon-class submarine HMAS Onslow at the Singapore Naval Base 1974. Picture: The Australian National Maritime Museum Source: Supplied
ON February 20, 1986, six senior naval officers came to the cabinet room in Canberra to brief prime minister Bob Hawke on Australia’s secret Cold War submarine operations in Asia.
Defence minister Kim Beazley had invited them to explain to Hawke what the navy’s ageing Oberon-class submarines were capable of, and what they’d achieved on dangerous, clandestine missions to Vietnam and China. Beazley wanted to lock in Hawke’s support for the costly and contentious plan to build six Collins-class subs in Australia.
The large and genial defence minister understood the strategic value of submarines as offensive and defensive weapons. When Hawke arrived, he looked like thunder and his crabbed body language signalled he wanted to be anywhere but hearing a presentation from the navy.
That was soon to change. Commander Kim Pitt began explaining he had been on patrol in HMAS Orion in the South China Sea from September 17 until November 9 the previous year; the focus of that patrol was Cam Ranh Bay on the east coast of Vietnam, then the largest Soviet naval base outside the USSR.
Pitt began a video that grabbed Hawke’s attention and immediately transformed his mood. The PM appeared transfixed as he watched dramatic and brilliantly clear footage taken by HMAS Orion as it slipped in behind and beneath a surfaced Soviet Charlie-class nuclear submarine heading into the Vietnamese port.
The video began with distant pictures of the Soviet submarine motoring towards the harbour, well outside the 12-nautical mile (22.2km) Vietnamese territorial limit. The video was shot through a camera in Orion’s periscope as the submarine loitered, barely submerged in the choppy sea.
Then Pitt took the Orion deep, ran in close behind the Soviet boat, and came up to periscope depth again. Now the video showed the Soviet submarine’s wake boiling and bubbling on the surface. Hawke watched, startled, as a clear image of the turning propeller appeared on the screen just above and ahead of Orion.
Pitt ran beneath the Soviet submarine, filming sonar and other fittings mounted along its hull. The remarkably clear pictures exposed the underwater secrets of Charlie-class technology. The only other way to get them would be for a western spy to penetrate dry-docks in the Soviet Union.
Pitt positioned Orion ahead of and beneath the Soviet submarine, slowed almost to a stop, and then allowed the Soviet boat to pass him while he filmed the other side of its hull.
Hawke grasped intuitively that this video intelligence would add immensely to Australia’s prestige in the US. It could be used to Australia’s advantage in negotiations with Washington and gave Australia a seat at the top table in the global Cold War intelligence collection game. For 45 minutes, Hawke asked questions about how the patrols were organised; their duration, their frequency, their success. He was told how the submarines recorded radio transmissions to deliver vital intelligence to the Western effort to track and identify the Soviet fleet.
The officers put up a photograph of a Soviet Kirov-class nuclear-powered cruiser, much admired by Western navies. US spy satellites had picked up the cruiser leaving its base in Murmansk and tracked it around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean.
The RAN sent the guided missile frigate HMAS Canberra to intercept the cruiser off Sri Lanka and follow it through the Strait of Malacca and up towards Cam Ranh Bay. The frigate took vital photographs and monitored the cruiser’s communications until it approached Vietnam.
Pitt, in HMAS Orion, was waiting, submerged outside Cam Ranh Bay with the submarine’s communications masts deployed to record the cruiser’s arrival. He recorded its procedures and protocols, which deepened Western understanding of Soviet naval communications and command and control systems, meaning the West might be able to jam them in the event of hostilities.
The cautious admiral Mike Hudson, chief of the naval staff, dismayed the submariners by telling Hawke that while the operation was professional and produced good intelligence, it was very hazardous. A submarine might be detected and possibly captured, with serious international consequences. “As we do more and more patrols, the likelihood of this happening will increase,” Hudson said.
Hawke rounded on him. “No, you are wrong,” he replied. “I’ve got a degree in statistics and I can tell you that the probability of detection does not increase as the number of patrols increase. They are discrete, one-off events and the probability of detection is constant.”
Beazley was delighted with the meeting. Hawke’s support for new submarines was locked in. The submarine officers were also triumphant. They had put together a show that had convinced Hawke, converting him from curmudgeon to champion.
They did not tell Hawke that Pitt had also video-taped a submerged conventional Soviet submarine going into Cam Ranh Bay. It was brilliant submarine seamanship, but some of his colleagues regarded it as dangerous and unnecessary and Pitt as “a bit of a pirate”. He later became director of submarine warfare.
The mystery boat operations were shrouded in secrecy as the submarines collected intelligence on the Soviet nuclear submarine and surface fleets and reinforced the US-Australia alliance. They also won Australian submariners their spurs in the Cold War’s global espionage game, as they showed uncommon bravery, dash and initiative on about 20 patrols between 1977 and 1992.
Their success ensured the Collins-class submarines were built and secured the future of Australia’s submarine service.
But the last patrol in the series proved a dangerous failure, with HMAS Orion at grave risk of detection and capture.
On October 22, 1992, she left Sydney Harbour and headed for Shanghai to gather intelligence on the Chinese navy, especially its new submarines. Orion’s CO was commander Rick Shalders, who later commanded Australia’s Collins-class submarine fleet.
The Americans wanted better intelligence on the Chinese navy, but US nuclear submarines were too big to be sent into the shallow waters of the East China Sea. Australia’s smaller O-boats were ideal for the task.
Shanghai was China’s biggest mainland harbour at the wide mouth of the Yangtse river; the water was shallow and murky, and busy with non-military shipping, including the local fishing fleet and ferries. The shoreline was heavily urbanised.
It would not be easy to stay unseen and undetected while barely submerged and trying to collect intelligence, and the consequences of detection could be grave for the submarine’s crew and for Australia-China relations.
Shalders’s trip to the area of operations was uneventful and the submariners were looking forward to getting their work done and getting back to the relatively safety of the open sea. Orion was equipped with the best photographic and electronic intelligence collection equipment; civilian language specialists were on board to translate Chinese navy transmissions.
But the patrol proved a nightmare, with the harbour crowded with fishing boats, many trailing long fishing lines and nets.
Shalders had to raise his periscope periodically to check the intelligence-collection aerials.
The fishermen constantly watched for signs of fish and could not miss minor disturbances made by Orion’s equipment and by the presence of the submarine not far below the surface.
They followed Orion around the harbour. Shalders could not surface and could not risk moving quickly away from the danger.
Things started to get desperate when Orion fouled the fishing lines and nets. One fishing boat started to sink by its bow as its net became entangled with the submarine. The fisherman saved himself by cutting away the net from the boat with an axe.
By now Shalders knew he was facing possible disaster. It was only a matter of time before the Peoples’ Liberation Navy became aware something was seriously amiss and investigated what was going on in the shallow water. Shalders and his crew faced the real prospect of detection, surrender, capture, imprisonment, trial and possible execution as spies. Relations between Australia and China would be in tatters. Shalders decided he had no choice but to abandon the operation.
Summoning all his skills, he took the submarine out of the harbour and into the relative safety of the East China Sea. The Australians returned home with nothing to show for their hair-raising experience.
The then chief of the naval staff, admiral Ian McDougall, a former submarine commander, told defence minister Robert Ray the O-boats were reaching the limits of their service lives and the patrols should be stopped because of the growing danger.
The submarine service was incandescent. It saw the patrols as invaluable for its reputation at home and abroad, and for continuing access to funding. The submariners wanted to preserve the skills they had developed.
The Defence Intelligence Organisation argued that despite the Soviet collapse there was an acute need to collect intelligence on the military activities of other countries, especially China, India and Indonesia, and that submarines were the most effective means. But Ray accepted McDougall’s advice and ordered an end to the patrols.
A senior submariner, commander John Dikkenberg, met Hawke’s successor as PM, Paul Keating, to argue for reinstatement of the patrols. Keating listened carefully, but would not over-rule his defence minister.
Four years later, when Ian McLachlan was appointed John Howard’s first defence minister, he asked to be briefed on the cancelled patrols. The navy urged their resumption and was given the OK for a carefully controlled and limited mission off Indonesia to re-establish intelligence-collecting skills.
Bronwyn Bishop, then minister for defence science and technology, also accepted that skills were being lost and gave her blessing to resumed patrols. Six more patrols were undertaken, mainly monitoring Indonesian military communications around Indonesia and East Timor. The Howard government wanted more information on Indonesian military activities in Timor, where Fretilin guerillas were still fighting for independence.
The new Abbott government is considering whether to acquire a fleet of 12 new submarines, which would represent Australia’s largest defence project. If it does, the proud Cold War history of the O-boats will have helped persuade decision-makers that submarines, despite their daunting cost, can be very good value indeed for taxpayers’ dollars.
Piracy reports 10-18 October 2013
Attempted Boarding by Somali Pirates
On 11 October at 0918 UTC, pirates in two skiffs fired upon the tanker Island Splendor and attempted a boarding approx. 237 nautical miles east of Hobyo, Somalia. The armed security team aboard the tanker fired flares and warning shots, whereupon the pirates returned fire with an automatic weapons. The security team engaged the pirates which resulted in the skiffs aborting the attack. BZ onboard security!
Hijack of Oil Tanker by Malay Pirates
On 10 October at 0530 local time, nine hijackers wearing masks and carrying weapons boarded the oil tanker Danai 4 while underway 20 nautical miles southeast of Pulau Aur, Malaysia. The hijackers took the crew hostage, destroyed all the communications equipment, and held the vessel until 15 October. They disembarked taking cargo (marine gas oil), cash and personal belongings. Thankfully no injuries reported.
Hijack of Bulk Carrier by Indonesian Pirates
On 10 October at 0315 local time, five hijackers boarded the bulk carrier Port Hainan at anchor at Muara Berau, Indonesia. The hijackers held one crew member hostage while they broke into storage and stole ship’s stores. The officer of the watch sounded the alarm and the crew mustered on the forecastle. After the hijackers saw the alerted crew, they left the ship and escaped. BZ to crew for swift action!
Source: US Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Marine OPINTEL Report
VIDEO: Jungle Green (1964)
Royal Navy Tribal-class frigates
HMS Ashanti (F117)
built: Yarrow & Co Ltd, Glasgow
laid down: 15 January 1958
launched: 9 March 1959
commissioned: 23 November 1961
fate: sunk as target 1988
HMS Nubian (F131)
built: HM Dockyard, Portsmouth
laid down: 7 September 1959
launched: 6 September 1960
commissioned: 9 October 1962
fate: sunk as target 1987
HMS Gurkha (F122)
built: JI Thornycroft & Co Ltd, Southampton
laid down: 3 November 1958
launched: 11 July 1960
commissioned: 13 February 1963
fate: sold to Indonesia as ‘Wilhelmus Zakarias Yohannes’ in 1984
HMS Eskimo (F119)
built: JS White & Co Ltd, Cowes, Isle of Wight
laid down: 22 October 1958
launched: 20 March 1960
commissioned: 21 February 1963
fate: sunk as target 1986
HMS Tartar (F133)
built: HM Dockyard, Devonport
laid down: 22 October 1959
launched: 19 September 1960
commissioned: 26 February 1962
fate: sold to Indonesia as ‘Hasanuddin’ 1984
HMS Mohawk (F125)
built: Vickers-Armstrongs (Shipbuilders) Ltd, Barrow-in-Furness
laid down: 23 December 1960
launched: 5 April 1962
commissioned: 29 December 1963
fate: sold for scrap 1982
HMS Zulu (F124)
built: Alex Stephen & Sons, Ltd, Linthouse, Glasgow
laid down: 13 December 1960
launched: 3 July 1962
commissioned: 17 April 1964
fate: sold to Indonesia as ‘Martha Khristina Tiyahahu’ 1984
Naval Matters 