THE COVENANTER
covered in primary and secondary jungle
The guide is edited by James and Kathleen adjoined mainly with mature rubber and
Rattray. The website that they run for some palm oil plantations interspersed with
‘Explore Highland Perthshire’ is: http:// areas of mixed cultivation and paddy fields.
www.explore-highland-perthshire.com/ Being in support of a civil power our remit
and the guide is at: ranged widely from security patrolling of
enclosed settlements (“New Villages”) to
http://www.explore-highland-perthshire. deep jungle penetration patrols. At that
com/images/guides/Highland_Perthshire_ time maps of remoter parts were remarkably
Guide_2008-9.pdf lacking in any detail and, when in jungle
areas, I clearly recall numerous occasions
Clan Rattray is an ancient Perthshire clan. when finding out our precise location
James drew my attention to the family’s would have much benefited from satellite
renowned Indian Army associations – see: navigation systems!
http://www.clanrattray.org/sikhregiment.
html By 1953 the policy of settling all the
landless rubber tappers and estate workers
James and Kathleen’s address is: in the New Villages was beginning to pay
off and the civil police together with the
Explore Scotland Ltd armed forces had gained the initiative in
The Coach House, eradicating the terrorist factions throughout
Druimuan, Malaya. The armed forces in particular had
Killiecrankie, played a vital role in paving-the-way from
Scotland its being a British protectorate to what
PH16 5LG eventually became the fully independent
Tel: 01796 473 335 and democratic Federation of Malaysia
james@explorescotland.net in 1957 and, in their two tours of duty,
Yours etc, the Cameronians had played a significant
Mike Sixsmith part in this transition. With regard to its
contribution in the Malayan Emergency, the
Sir, Regiment could hardly have received a better
As I also happened to be serving with “C” complement than that from Field-Marshal
Company in 1952/3, Ronald Henderson’s Sir Gerald Templer when he remarked that “I
graphic description of life at Awat Camp, had the privilege of having them under my
Jahore in the 2007 issue of The Covenanter command in Malaya in 1952 and 1953 and
certainly brought back a flood of memories a better battalion would have been difficult
and prompted me to go through my to find. Good not only in the jungle, but
miscellany of photographs taken while in also in their civil relationships”.
Malaya around that time. I have selected the Yours etc.,
accompanying pictures partly to illustrate John Weir
a number of points he made but also to
identify some of the personalities serving
with the Company at the time.
The assigned operational zone for the
Battalion, roughly the area of one of our
medium sized counties, was in upper Jahore
State with Bn HQ situated roughly centrally
and its northernmost detachment based at
Awat Camp approximately 25 miles to the
NW, close to neighbouring Malacca. Located
remotely on a rubber estate and largely
housed in tents and purpose-designed huts
clad in corrugated metal sheet panels, Awat
was essentially a self contained outpost. Our
operational terrain was generally hilly and
interspersed by fast flowing streams subject
2/Lt Douglas
to flash flooding in the Monsoon season: as
Robertson
Ronald Henderson noted, predominantly
about to depart
on patrol
101
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