I am currently researching for a feature article on thhe Borneo Confrontation with Indonesia during the 1960's with an emphasis on the 'Claret Operations'. It is intended at this stage to be a collection of personal testamonies rather than a dry recount of operational details. To this end I would very much like to get in touch with anyone who participated in that campaign.
With regards
Pasha
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Borneo: Operation Claret
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harry hackedoff
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Op Claret
Dear Harry,
Well actually I am a photographer though I have written articles in the past for Geoographical and Legion magazines, really just as a method of getting my pictures published. Unfortunately publications today don't tend to run photo essay/features unless they are about celebraties or 'Life style', a sign of the times I'm afraid. This project is quite different The idea for a feature article was initially kicked around about two years ago while I was in Nepal working with the Brigade of Gurkhas. Until then my entire knowledge of the campaign had been minimal to say the least though I had been aware of certain details pertaining to Operation Claret including the fact the L/cpl Rambahadur Limbu's VC had actually been awarded for his actions on such an operation. Talking to a number of the old boys while interviewing pensioners at various Gurkha Welfare Centres I became fascinated with their stories; more of long ops in terrible conditions than actual combat stories, and invariably postscripted with a feeling of betrayal at the raw redundancy deal many of them suffered shortly after. It was the personal stories that hooked me rather than dry operational details and talking with several people back in the UK the idea of putting together a collection of such memories emerged. Well that was two years ago and so many things have happened since then... If this project is to progress to the next step toward publication (and right now we are still looking at magazine/newspaper supplement medium) then I need to put together what is termed as a backgrounder i.e. a mini bite of what is to follow, in this case perhaps two or three short interviews and a selection of several photographs. As to the final destination of the article, well that's as much a question mark to me as it is to you, this piece could end up in anything from the Observer to one (or more) of the many 'Lad Mags' . Truth be told the most positive interest shown to date has been from a German magazine called Der Spiegel. The format is actually best suited to a book, yet alas I am a lowly freelance and no-one seems to be throwing hefty commisions at me.
With regards!
Pash
Well actually I am a photographer though I have written articles in the past for Geoographical and Legion magazines, really just as a method of getting my pictures published. Unfortunately publications today don't tend to run photo essay/features unless they are about celebraties or 'Life style', a sign of the times I'm afraid. This project is quite different The idea for a feature article was initially kicked around about two years ago while I was in Nepal working with the Brigade of Gurkhas. Until then my entire knowledge of the campaign had been minimal to say the least though I had been aware of certain details pertaining to Operation Claret including the fact the L/cpl Rambahadur Limbu's VC had actually been awarded for his actions on such an operation. Talking to a number of the old boys while interviewing pensioners at various Gurkha Welfare Centres I became fascinated with their stories; more of long ops in terrible conditions than actual combat stories, and invariably postscripted with a feeling of betrayal at the raw redundancy deal many of them suffered shortly after. It was the personal stories that hooked me rather than dry operational details and talking with several people back in the UK the idea of putting together a collection of such memories emerged. Well that was two years ago and so many things have happened since then... If this project is to progress to the next step toward publication (and right now we are still looking at magazine/newspaper supplement medium) then I need to put together what is termed as a backgrounder i.e. a mini bite of what is to follow, in this case perhaps two or three short interviews and a selection of several photographs. As to the final destination of the article, well that's as much a question mark to me as it is to you, this piece could end up in anything from the Observer to one (or more) of the many 'Lad Mags' . Truth be told the most positive interest shown to date has been from a German magazine called Der Spiegel. The format is actually best suited to a book, yet alas I am a lowly freelance and no-one seems to be throwing hefty commisions at me.
With regards!
Pash
With thanks
Dear Huub,
Thank you for your reply and for providing that book referance, I look forward to reading it. Unfortunately I seem unable to access your website through the link that you provided, perhaps you could post the URL address?
With best regards!
Pasha
Thank you for your reply and for providing that book referance, I look forward to reading it. Unfortunately I seem unable to access your website through the link that you provided, perhaps you could post the URL address?
With best regards!
Pasha
Op Claret
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
As some of you are aware I have been researching material and testamonies for a feature article on the Borneo Confrontation and a number of you have been kind enough to point to a variety of sources, barryc in particular. One story I did want to highlight was of a certain Royal Marine called L/Cpl TJ Collins of L Company, 42 Commando. In the very last cross border (Op Claret) mission of that war whilst raiding an Indonesian camp at Sedjingan, Marine Collins was killed and his body remained unrecovered somewhere in Kalimantan. His mother had been convinced that he had survived and was being held a prisoner somewhere in Indonesia. Circa 1968 she was about to spend her life savings on going there to find him when Harold Wilson heard of her story and directed the MoD to assist her. While details of the raid could not be divulged, the officer accompaning her, Col. J P Cross, did manage to find the headman of the Kampong near where Marine Collins had fallen. The headman confirmed that he had witnessed Marine Collins dead body falling down a hill where it was unreachable. I interviewed J P Cross who stressed what a magnificent woman Mrs. Collins had been. Indeed she never gave up, finally managing to get her son's body found repatriated in 1994.
I mention all this because a while back a gentleman responded to my call for interviewees on another site. Not only, he claimed, had he served in Borneo with the SAS but had been attached to the Sedjingan raid as it's reconnaisance element. He went on to claim in further interviews that he had seen Marine Collins wounded and taken prisoner and executed by the Indonesians. He had been in a position to rescue Collins but ..."my Rupert held me back saying we had orders to hold back and that orders came before everything else."
As I have stated at length before I now precious little about special forces. I can smell a BS story though.
What bothers me is that this gentleman must surely have been aware that his story was easily dismissable by the most basic of research and yet he persisted. It appears that not only was he not in Borneo or even in the forces, but had in fact been only 14 years old in 1965! While I do feel annoyed at having been lied to and my time wasted, I am perplexed as to why he felt the need to do it. He wasn't going to get any money, nor fame (he insisted on anonymity) the only person that would 'know' of his SAS exploits would be me and I'm hardly worth impressing. So why? His story is beginning to make me wonder if this isn't a mental phenomena. Anyone else come across this?
With regards and sadness
Pasha
As some of you are aware I have been researching material and testamonies for a feature article on the Borneo Confrontation and a number of you have been kind enough to point to a variety of sources, barryc in particular. One story I did want to highlight was of a certain Royal Marine called L/Cpl TJ Collins of L Company, 42 Commando. In the very last cross border (Op Claret) mission of that war whilst raiding an Indonesian camp at Sedjingan, Marine Collins was killed and his body remained unrecovered somewhere in Kalimantan. His mother had been convinced that he had survived and was being held a prisoner somewhere in Indonesia. Circa 1968 she was about to spend her life savings on going there to find him when Harold Wilson heard of her story and directed the MoD to assist her. While details of the raid could not be divulged, the officer accompaning her, Col. J P Cross, did manage to find the headman of the Kampong near where Marine Collins had fallen. The headman confirmed that he had witnessed Marine Collins dead body falling down a hill where it was unreachable. I interviewed J P Cross who stressed what a magnificent woman Mrs. Collins had been. Indeed she never gave up, finally managing to get her son's body found repatriated in 1994.
I mention all this because a while back a gentleman responded to my call for interviewees on another site. Not only, he claimed, had he served in Borneo with the SAS but had been attached to the Sedjingan raid as it's reconnaisance element. He went on to claim in further interviews that he had seen Marine Collins wounded and taken prisoner and executed by the Indonesians. He had been in a position to rescue Collins but ..."my Rupert held me back saying we had orders to hold back and that orders came before everything else."
As I have stated at length before I now precious little about special forces. I can smell a BS story though.
What bothers me is that this gentleman must surely have been aware that his story was easily dismissable by the most basic of research and yet he persisted. It appears that not only was he not in Borneo or even in the forces, but had in fact been only 14 years old in 1965! While I do feel annoyed at having been lied to and my time wasted, I am perplexed as to why he felt the need to do it. He wasn't going to get any money, nor fame (he insisted on anonymity) the only person that would 'know' of his SAS exploits would be me and I'm hardly worth impressing. So why? His story is beginning to make me wonder if this isn't a mental phenomena. Anyone else come across this?
With regards and sadness
Pasha
Re: With thanks
No Problem m8:Pasha wrote:Dear Huub,
Thank you for your reply and for providing that book referance, I look forward to reading it. Unfortunately I seem unable to access your website through the link that you provided, perhaps you could post the URL address?
With best regards!
Pasha
http://home.hccnet.nl/22.sas/
Good luck
Cheers, Huub
[url=http://home.hccnet.nl/22.sas]Visit my SAS site[/url]
[img]http://home.hccnet.nl/22.sas/me150.jpg[/img]
[url=http://home.hccnet.nl/22.sas]Visit my SAS site[/url]
[img]http://home.hccnet.nl/22.sas/me150.jpg[/img]
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El T
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harry hackedoff
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Sadly, Pasha, we`ve had several examples on here.His story is beginning to make me wonder if this isn't a mental phenomena. Anyone else come across this?
How`s the research going?
Aye,
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Hello Harry,
I am afraid to report that the research has suffered badly from neglect in recent months as my day job as a photographer required my presence in northern Iraq for a few weeks. Since coming back though I have been having a bit of a reassessment of what exactly it is that I want to do. The last ten years have, if truth be told, taken a bit of a toll and I want to take things a bit easier. There is also the fact that I am now in a 'serious' relationship, and while the Memsahib has never qualified the assignments I go on, I feel that I want to take her into account.
Then of course there is the issue of money, I don't have any as this line of work (except for a few media stars) rarely blesses its practioners with financial security and I currently exist on the most thread-bare of shoestrings. I find also that I want to concentrate on my long overdue projects like my Borneo research, and perhaps make a book out of it. All in all Harry, I think the future sees me with plenty of time to potter around and do more digging. This has become a bit of a labour of love for me, and I am aware that I bore lay-folk rigid with my ramblings on all thing Claret, but having invested so much time and money I would hate for nothing more to come of this.
As regards "purveyors of high untruths and blatant falsehoods", I continue to be cursed with their acquaintance. I have just returned from a TA weekend to find my email inbox containing yet more easily disprovable "veterans". I should point out here Harry, that I always persue each contact despite any glaring irregularities on the assumption that it may be a genuine case of passage of time/fog of memory type of confusion. The ones you really have to watch for (and already I sound like the ilk of cynical old hack that I despise) are the sort of chaps that know absolutely everything about a battle or event, something that most veterans rarely do. Most claim to have been in SAS or SBS and never an ordinary infantry regiment or Corps unit so that is an easy 'red flag', though being a Royal Marine Commando is also popular. One very strange man even claimed to have been a Gurkha rifleman (as opposed to Brit Officer) despite his fairly unmistakable Anglo-Celtic features and inability to speak Gorkali. Attempts to ascertain if he actually meant that he had been attached, drew a reaffirmation of his original statement thus leaving me to conclude that the gentleman was either a charaltan of the most moronic order, or that he was suffering from a psychiatric form of cultural identity crisis. I remain to this day unsure of which.
Harry, thank you for your continued interest in this. It does mean a lot, especially on days of utter despondancy and despair, and for every time that I have spent precious petrol money driving half way across the country to end up listening to the rambling fantasies of a man whom, it transpires, spent the Boneo conflict as a lounge singer in Rochdale, there is the absolute treasure of a letter in the post, call on the phone and even surpise knock on the door from an old soldier sharing his memories and wanting nothing other than to help. I must must reflect here that if indeed nothing more comes from this, I will none-the-less have been immensely privileged to have met some wonderful people, who's generousity extended to not only giving me their time, memories, photographs and letters but also of haviong put up with my endless stream of numptey questions and journalistic hair splitting, all borne with infinite patience.
Enough, yet again I find myself blathering as man with no gainful employ....
Warmest regards!
Pash
I am afraid to report that the research has suffered badly from neglect in recent months as my day job as a photographer required my presence in northern Iraq for a few weeks. Since coming back though I have been having a bit of a reassessment of what exactly it is that I want to do. The last ten years have, if truth be told, taken a bit of a toll and I want to take things a bit easier. There is also the fact that I am now in a 'serious' relationship, and while the Memsahib has never qualified the assignments I go on, I feel that I want to take her into account.
Then of course there is the issue of money, I don't have any as this line of work (except for a few media stars) rarely blesses its practioners with financial security and I currently exist on the most thread-bare of shoestrings. I find also that I want to concentrate on my long overdue projects like my Borneo research, and perhaps make a book out of it. All in all Harry, I think the future sees me with plenty of time to potter around and do more digging. This has become a bit of a labour of love for me, and I am aware that I bore lay-folk rigid with my ramblings on all thing Claret, but having invested so much time and money I would hate for nothing more to come of this.
As regards "purveyors of high untruths and blatant falsehoods", I continue to be cursed with their acquaintance. I have just returned from a TA weekend to find my email inbox containing yet more easily disprovable "veterans". I should point out here Harry, that I always persue each contact despite any glaring irregularities on the assumption that it may be a genuine case of passage of time/fog of memory type of confusion. The ones you really have to watch for (and already I sound like the ilk of cynical old hack that I despise) are the sort of chaps that know absolutely everything about a battle or event, something that most veterans rarely do. Most claim to have been in SAS or SBS and never an ordinary infantry regiment or Corps unit so that is an easy 'red flag', though being a Royal Marine Commando is also popular. One very strange man even claimed to have been a Gurkha rifleman (as opposed to Brit Officer) despite his fairly unmistakable Anglo-Celtic features and inability to speak Gorkali. Attempts to ascertain if he actually meant that he had been attached, drew a reaffirmation of his original statement thus leaving me to conclude that the gentleman was either a charaltan of the most moronic order, or that he was suffering from a psychiatric form of cultural identity crisis. I remain to this day unsure of which.
Harry, thank you for your continued interest in this. It does mean a lot, especially on days of utter despondancy and despair, and for every time that I have spent precious petrol money driving half way across the country to end up listening to the rambling fantasies of a man whom, it transpires, spent the Boneo conflict as a lounge singer in Rochdale, there is the absolute treasure of a letter in the post, call on the phone and even surpise knock on the door from an old soldier sharing his memories and wanting nothing other than to help. I must must reflect here that if indeed nothing more comes from this, I will none-the-less have been immensely privileged to have met some wonderful people, who's generousity extended to not only giving me their time, memories, photographs and letters but also of haviong put up with my endless stream of numptey questions and journalistic hair splitting, all borne with infinite patience.
Enough, yet again I find myself blathering as man with no gainful employ....
Warmest regards!
Pash
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harry hackedoff
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Pasha, (I can’t call you Pash, as it has "implications" 
)
Keep plugging away mate, and keep us informed. I know you are a frequent visitor to these Forums, so you have probably noted the recent influx of new members. Perhaps there are some who are aware of/ took part in the Claret Opps, who may have a contribution. To any member with a genuine input, please contact Pasha by pm.
Aye, Harry,
)Keep plugging away mate, and keep us informed. I know you are a frequent visitor to these Forums, so you have probably noted the recent influx of new members. Perhaps there are some who are aware of/ took part in the Claret Opps, who may have a contribution. To any member with a genuine input, please contact Pasha by pm.
Aye, Harry,
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Hello Harry,
Yes I'm fond of you too, but you're right we shouldn't go there, LOL! ... I think I'll stick to signing off as Pasha now that you've mentioned it (and I wonder how many people got the wrong impression...).
Thank you for your campaigning efforts Harry, I owe you, as to be honest I was beginning to flag until your post got me jump started again.
Deepest regards to you and yours!
Pasha
Yes I'm fond of you too, but you're right we shouldn't go there, LOL! ... I think I'll stick to signing off as Pasha now that you've mentioned it (and I wonder how many people got the wrong impression...).
Thank you for your campaigning efforts Harry, I owe you, as to be honest I was beginning to flag until your post got me jump started again.
Deepest regards to you and yours!
Pasha
Hello Fire,
Thank you for your post. I believe Mr. Connor makes one of the very few public referances to a certain SAS Trooper Condon. Condon was captured, tortured and killed by a certain Indonesian NCO. The SAS, allegedly, obtained the NCO's photograph through their contacts among the Ibans who were also paid to to kill him.
That photo is actually featured on the Small Wars website, though is not described as such.
Best regards!
Pasha
Thank you for your post. I believe Mr. Connor makes one of the very few public referances to a certain SAS Trooper Condon. Condon was captured, tortured and killed by a certain Indonesian NCO. The SAS, allegedly, obtained the NCO's photograph through their contacts among the Ibans who were also paid to to kill him.
That photo is actually featured on the Small Wars website, though is not described as such.
Best regards!
Pasha
