British Army troops have faced a fierce challenge in the heat and humidity of a Far Eastern jungle.
Soldiers trying fruit and vegetables found in the jungle that are safe to consume.
Teams of soldiers from Brunei, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the United States of America start their preparation for the Brunei Jungle Warfare Skills Meet today.
Jungle warfare instructor from 1 Royal Gurkha Rifles, giving a jungle survival lesson.
Soldiers receive survival lessons using traps in the Brunei jungle from warfare instructors.
British soldiers in the Bruneian jungle orientating themselves before setting off on their team navigation lesson.
Soldiers receive survival lessons using traps in the Brunei jungle from warfare instructors.
Instructors drawn from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles, highlight where you can find sources of water.
According to Colonel Freddie Spencer Chapman, the legendary Second World War guerrilla leader who survived more than three years leading a diverse group of irregulars against Japanese occupation forces in the deep jungle of Malaya, “The jungle is neutral.”
What is certain is that the jungle is a place that requires a different approach to survival.
But if you can get over the sheer physical discomfort, a kind of peace descends. Not that it is quiet. The chirping of insects, countless different bird calls and the raucous chattering of monkeys make a significant racket.
It is more about accepting the jungle for what it is: an environment wholly different to anything those of us brought up in the temperate climate of northern Europe have ever encountered, as British Army participants in the Brunei Jungle Warfare Skills Meet (BJWSM) found out over 18 days last November.
The BJWSM was a joint endeavour by the Royal Bruneian Land Force (RBLF) and British Forces Brunei (BFB) which brought together teams from across the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF) and the British Army, alongside regional partners, including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and the United States.
For nine days these soldiers trained and worked together to learn how to survive and operate in the jungle, under the careful instruction of Royal Brunei Land Force and British Forces Brunei Jungle Warfare Instructors (JWI), before undertaking an exercise – a 72-hour patrolling competition – designed to put those skills to the test.
The first and most obvious hurdle to overcome was the heat and humidity, which are immediately debilitating to anyone who has not acclimatised.
Participants graduated through a series of early morning run-walks designed to get them accustomed to activity in heat and humidity. These started in sports kit carrying water bottles but built up into marches wearing boots, combat uniforms and webbing equipment, with a three-litre hydration system.
Major Danny Dewick, Officer Commanding Support Company, 1st Battalion, the Royal Gurkha Rifles (1 RGR), was the Senior Exercise Conducting Officer tasked with delivering the event for RBLF and BFB.
“We brought the Institute of Naval Medicine out to Brunei”, Major Dewick said, “and they ran physiological status monitoring tests on the UK participants which helped us understand how acclimatisation training programmes affect the ability to operate in the close country tropical environment.”
Alongside the acclimatisation came a series of practical lessons conducted in the jungle.
The first day featured jungle survival skills: how to prepare and cook game and other animals – ranging from goats and chickens to mealworms – which can be encountered in the jungle; building improvised shelters; finding safe sources of water and making fires and cooking.
Subsequent days saw participants learn the basics of jungle navigation: contact drills – returning fire and regrouping after an unexpected encounter with an enemy; casualty evacuation; how to conduct a tactical river crossing, and patrol routine.
Night movement in the jungle is rarely feasible. It is simply too dark under the dense canopy which blocks out almost all moonlight, while the jungle floor is a tangle of dead branches, secondary growth, and mud. Daylight in Brunei is consistently from six AM to six PM and night falls very quickly close to the Equator, which runs through the island of Borneo, where the Sultanate of Brunei is located.
So, as each day came to an end, soldiers patrolling the jungle were taught to conduct a ‘long halt’. An hour or so before last light, the patrol stopped so that the soldiers could set up shelters and hammocks where they would sleep, cook food - if the tactical situation allowed it - and change out of their daytime clothing, soaked through with sweat and rain.
The soldiers then put on carefully protected dry clothing for the night which allowed uninterrupted sleep. If the troops put up their shelters properly, they would not get wet, even in the torrential tropical downpours which are a feature of this part of the world. Morning routine reversed this process, with the added ordeal of changing back into the cold, wet clothing of the previous day, before carefully stowing the dry nighttime kit.
With training concluded, it was time for the Patrol Competition to begin. To prevent the training area becoming too congested, the start was staggered. Each day for four days, four teams started, with a minimum 90-minute gap between each team.
For the Bruneian and British Army team running the exercise, safety now became of paramount importance. The main concern was heat injury but the jungle environment, with its uneven surfaces, tangled undergrowth and the ever present danger of deadfall from trees presented its own physical hazards.
Safety was my number one priority and we called on resources from our primary medical care facility for a senior medical officer and four combat medical technicians
Major Dewick said:
“Safety was my number one priority and we called on resources from our primary medical care facility for a senior medical officer and four combat medical technicians.
“We had two winch medics in the 230 Squadron Royal Air Force Puma helicopters and each participating team was accompanied by an Infantry Battle School trained and accredited Jungle Warfare Instructor. Both the instructors and the teams were carrying a suite of communications equipment which allowed them to alert exercise control if anything went wrong.”
Patrolling in the jungle is a slow process. The entire exercise took place over a course which amounted to only about ten kilometres but it still left the soldiers exhausted and drained at the end of each day.
“Nobody had any difficulty sleeping!”, said a Corporal from the 4th Battalion of the Ranger Regiment who took part.
Self-care is important in the jungle. The same Ranger Corporal admitted to “horrendous blisters” despite carefully drying and powdering his feet every morning and evening.
It was also critical that the troops kept themselves properly hydrated. The exercise staff ensured that every soldier had access to sufficient water and each soldier was issued three full days’ rations, adding to the weight they carried.
Not surprisingly, ‘home advantage’ played a part, with both 3rd Battalion Royal Brunei Land Force and 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles (1 RGR) reaching Gold Medal standard. But, impressively, so did all the British Army infantry teams and no team performed badly.
As a bonus for the exercise coordinators – Major Dewick and Major Malek of the RBLF – there were no serious injuries.
“One broken ankle, one mild heat injury and a few bumps and bruises; realistically less than you would expect from an exercise in a harsh environment with the best part of 200 soldiers on the ground,” according to Major Dewick.
The Skills Meet concluded with an impressive demonstration of jungle hostage rescue tactics by the Royal Brunei Armed Forces in the presence of His Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Brunei and an awards ceremony.
Working with our colleagues in the Royal Brunei Land Force to jointly organise the Brunei Jungle Warfare Skills Meet has been a great opportunity to continue the close partnership and working relationship between the RBLF and British Forces Brunei
Lieutenant Colonel John Jeffcoats, Commander British Forces Brunei and Commanding Officer of 1 RGR, said:
“Working with our colleagues in the Royal Brunei Land Force to jointly organise the Brunei Jungle Warfare Skills Meet has been a great opportunity to continue the close partnership and working relationship between the RBLF and British Forces Brunei.
“We were very honoured that his Royal Highness The Crown Prince came to present the team awards.
“This was the first time that an event of this nature has been opened to participants from the wider region but the success we have enjoyed leads me to believe that it won’t be the last.”
Lieutenant Colonel Erwan Bin Haji Ibrahim, Chief of Staff of the Royal Brunei Land Force, added:
“The Regional Jungle Warfare Symposium and the Brunei Jungle Warfare Skills Meet were big events for us and demonstrate the long relationship that the Royal Brunei Land Force has with British Forces Brunei and the Royal Gurkha Rifles.”
The British Army has had a presence in Brunei since December 1962 when British units moved from Singapore to quell an externally fomented revolt against Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III.
Since Brunei became fully independent in 1984, British Forces Brunei, based on a Gurkha infantry battalion, has remained at the request of His Majesty the Sultan under a defence agreement that is renewed every five years.
It is the most significant enduring British military outpost in the Far East and demonstrates the UK’s determination to work with and support partners in the region.
Brigadier Jaishan Mahan, Deputy Commander (Reserves), 1st (United Kingdom) Division, observed part of the patrol competition and said after the closing ceremony:
“There is an old saying – and maybe a curse – ‘May you live in interesting times’. We do live in interesting times, but I hope that the friendships and alliances made in the harsh and unforgiving environment of the jungle during the Brunei Jungle Warfare Skills meet will endure.
“In the 1st Division we mean to be lethal, be ready and be the best, and it is events like this that ensure we match up to that.”
The Brunei jungle warfare skills competition demonstrated that, given the right training and a short period of acclimatisation, soldiers can deploy from the cold of a Northern European winter to operate successfully in the fever heat and humidity of the Equatorial rainforest, alongside our regional partners.
