The SAS 'Deniables'

Special Forces Operations, denied by the Authorities, from Vietnam to the War on Terror

Tony May

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781399096317
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia militar y marítima

During the 10, 000-day Vietnam war Australia had agreed with the United States to have a team of Australian Army Special Air Services (SAS) soldiers conduct covert missions into Cambodia. The SAS soldiers would be bivouacked in Thailand. With their names changed for security and personal safety reasons, this is a dramatized story of events that actually happened involving a small band of Australian Special Air Service trained specialists involved in covert intelligence activities who were co-opted into the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) repertoire of Plausibly Deniable assets deployed worldwide into the shadows of political indulgence in locations where Australian forces should not be seen or heard. These Australian SAS Covert operations undertaken are incidents that have never before been exposed and include cross-sovereign-border infiltrations into Cambodia and the daily operations of the elimination of Viet Cong munition dumps. Also revealed are an unauthorized fatal attack by United States Army helicopters on SAS warriors; the rescue of French tourists kidnapped by Muslim terrorists in Mindanao, Philippines, and Operation Eye of the Storm into Northern Kuwait/Eastern Iraq evolving into Desert Storm. As revealed these covert operations included offshore intervention of East Timorese Fretilin Terrorists sabotaging Australian offshore Exploration and Oil Drilling activities in the Timor Sea; Back Door into Hell during the Somalia conflict, plus covert black ops elimination of Muslim Jihadist activities on homeland soil assisted by Israeli intelligence. This astounding exposé opens the closed door behind which governments operate to deal quietly with situations they prefer not to mention.

Chapter 1

Darwin Briefing – Pre-Mobilisation

Australia had agreed with the United States to have a team of Australian Army Special Air Services (SAS) soldiers conduct covert missions into Cambodia. The SAS soldiers would be bivouacked in Thailand.

On the day prior to their departure to Thailand, the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) handlers set up a briefing in the Darwin Barracks for all of the SAS platoon leaders led by Major Pete, nicknamed Spider for his prowess and martial arts abilities, to attend mandatorily. The DIO contact officer, code-named Mr Champion, and the Ministry of Defence representative, Commander Coen, were introduced and provided a very cut down briefing.

The location for the operations had been set up earlier by the DIO with co-operation from the CIA at the Sattahip Marine Base, which had a single north–south runway on the south-eastern seaboard of Thailand adjacent to the Gulf of Thailand coast.

The briefing then focused on a specific operation that laid out the plans for ingress into Cambodia via Thailand with the sole objective of interdicting shipments of weapons that were being smuggled up the Mekong Delta into Cambodia by Russian and Chinese crewed ships. They were then being taken across land into Vietnam, arriving behind the US and allied front lines for back door Viet Cong ambush attacks. The pre-mobilisation planning would commence immediately.

They were given five days to get their act in order and then mobilise to southern Thailand via air into Sattahip Marine Base, which is 280 odd miles west of the Cambodian border. Once they had completed a three-day run-through of the wetland, water, and air training and orientation they could cover in the three days available, all the squads were assembled in parade formation at the Darwin Barracks, then martialled into the parade hall and given an introduction to civilian-dressed members of the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) to whom they would be reporting directly on all future covert operations.

The basis would be plausible deniable under the Commonwealth Secrecy Act, which they all had to read and then sign in front of the DIO members (they had signed similar documents on joining the army). They never got the names of the civilians.

Spider thought for a moment after the signing and whispered quietly to himself ‘I think we’re fucked from today onwards’.

They were broadly advised that they would carry out special operations disguised as a civilian oil and gas contractor company in a neutral country (Thailand) while acting covertly in sovereign countries (Cambodia) that were not part of the Vietnam War. They would be inserting behind the enemy lines, over borders on land, sea and air as directed.

Chapter 2

Covert Intelligence Operations – Thailand Base

Major Spider and the Team

The Sattahip Marine Base shared a boundary with the U-Tapao airbase. The runway at U-Tapao was lengthened by the US military in the mid-1960s and became one of the airfields used in Southeast Asia by the United States Air force for their B-52 bombing raids over North Vietnam, including air support for the horrendous US Marine battle at Khe Sanh.

Initially kept secret by the Nixon administration, in 1969 U-Tapao was also used for B-52 bombing raids into Cambodia.

Their relationship with the Thai authorities was that they didn’t exist as Thailand was neutral and not involved in the Vietnam War. Major Spider was concerned about the security of his operations in someone else’s backyard and was informed by the DIO that so long as they never ventured outside of Sattahip marine base, Thailand could plead a plausibly deniable case stating that the activities on their base were strictly due to civilian contractors working for oil and gas operators in the region.

The initial SAS contingent mobilised comprising one platoon of twenty fully kitted out soldiers, adding the major himself as commanding officer, plus aircrew for the C-130 transport aircraft. Also, as Major Spider had trained with several of the lieutenants and sergeants in the early days in the CMF volunteer army through to the Puckapunual and Canungra training camps in more recent times, he selected the following personnel as his core inner team who would rotate back to back as needed for the entire period of this operation:

1.Head Pilot David (Dash) Jones with 3,400 flying hours in remote regions. Formerly worked for an Indonesian charter flight company, landing in Papua New Guinea and various small islands.

2.Pilot Officers Mike (Macka) McKey and Paul (Greek) Papas. Both of these pilots had more than 2,000 hours flying time logged with much of it in tropical airstrip locations like Papua New Guinea and Northern Australia.

3.Marine Coxswains Phil (Flipper) Fleckney and Ashley (Hook) Dale.

4.Explosives Specialist Corporal James (Rat) Aims, a mechanic handy with tools and maintenance. Supported the M60 gunner as loader.

5.Field Medic and Communications Specialist Lance Corporal Alex (Doc), McDonald, formally a Commando who had recently been transferred to the SAS. Excellent as an infield paramedic and expert in electronic warfare and communications equipment.

6.Heavy Weapons Specialist or Sniper Sergeant Tony (Brute) Maze, a big strong man and excellent platoon leader.

Threats to Health and Security

On day one in Thailand, Major Spider had the men wear contractor overalls with the same oil company logo printed on the back as the one that been hoisted up onto the aircraft hangar office front. Prior to them departing from Darwin, they had a sign writer paint the Hightower Drilling Contractor logo onto the tail of each aircraft and the designated civilian registration call-sign for radio communications, with civil aviation transponder and radios plus military satellite comms antennae installed.

When you have a bunch of young, strong, virile males and their testosterone kicks in, along with long periods away from home, the attraction that is available just outside the Sattahip base perimeter fence are little brown poverty-stricken Thai beauties, eager and willing to rent their bodies for a couple of local Baht. The never venture outside notion was similar to trying to restrain a bucking horse trying to get out of the stall; almost impossible!

Well, the answer to that, Spider thought, was the older guys. However, it turned out they were just as amorous for the physical pleasures outside the wire as the young bucks. Nevertheless, they had a real job on their hands keeping themselves and the younger studs focused by handling the rosters and work details. Spider figured that setting up a ninety-day rotation back to Darwin should do the trick, as there was far less likelihood of leaking intelligence information to the locals or being infected with sexually transferred diseases, malaria or any other tropical malaise.

Everyone returning to Darwin on R&R would receive a full health check on arrival and anyone caught with an STD would be in serious shit as they would be handed over to the DIO security people for a thorough debrief on whom with, when and how often. Their reports would come to Major Spider for disciplinary action. Obviously, they would never return under his command and possibly would be kicked out of the SAS. Being human and understanding the wants and needs of raging male hormones, Spider dropped the hint on many occasions: ‘Condoms!’ He did not want to lose any of his team on account of a little short-time pleasure.

Operations Begin

Additional information was provided on the locations of known official and unofficial Cambodian landing areas. The latter were possibly used by drugs or weapons smugglers, and also used from time to time by the CIA’s so-called Air America contractors involved in ferrying drugs, the profits of which the CIA utilised to finance their private war in the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos. Major Spider, along with the other pilots, were provided with current navigation charts and in-transit communications protocols for entry into official airports that were set up for Indonesia Kupang in West Timor, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore’s Changi, Butterworth in Penang, Malaysia, and finally Sattahip, Thailand, their ultimate base of operations for airborne and fast boat operations into Cambodia.

They had to airlift their two US fast boats up to Sattahip by C-130 for circuitously prowling up the Cambodian coast, harbours and the myriad of inland river deltas. The flat-bottom boats were the perfect platform for operating in shallow and muddy mangrove waters due to being water jet propelled and reasonably quiet.

They also had listed on the manifest for later delivery two Piper Cub aerial spotter planes that were of Second World War vintage, canvas covered, very slow but light and nimble at very low level. They would have to assemble the detached wings after delivery.

The DIO arranged the local purchase and delivery onto Sattahip base of a 20-ton tiltable flatbed truck with full canvas cover with company logo in case they needed to transport the jet boats, people, ordnance, Piper aircraft or other purposes in order to spread out their so-called oil and gas contracting business away from the base.

All site security was to be inconspicuous and no firearms or uniforms were to be visible. Most of the time on base they wore brown overalls or shorts and T-shirts with rubber sandles on their feet. Sattahip was an old established Thai military and marine base. The Thais did maintain a good security perimeter for their own purposes on the land and water sides. The Thai military were never officially involved at the outset of their arrival at the base, except for the occasional interfacing with them, ‘a contractor company hiring their warehouse-hangar space and use of their boat ramp out the back of the warehouse and ad hoc use of the single runway’.

Chapter 3

Transits to and from Darwin and Sattahip

Major Spider had made it a point that on arrival the Cubs, Caribou and C-130 remained in the hangar out of sight and mind of curious eyes. The C-130 flights only emerged at night with runway lights on long enough for take-off or touch-down. The Pipers mostly took off at first light before the control tower woke up and came back within a couple of hours due to limited fuel endurance and range. The Caribou flew in and out at ad hoc times, with all aircraft departures turning out over the waters of the Gulf of Thailand for noise abatement and to camouflage the intended direction once they reached cruising altitude.

More often than not, due to the notoriously bad weather in the tropics, their flights to and from Darwin were erratic and required diversion hops into Kupang West Timor, Balikpapan, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and the worst-case scenarios of Butterworth Air Force Base in Penang or Singapore’s Changi airport.

The only interface at these locations was for refuelling as they never disembarked personnel in order to avoid customs and immigration inspections of their people or cargoes. The Singaporeans and Indonesians were not very happy to allow them to land on a number of occasions, sensing that they were military and not civilian flights, and they had to make a call on the HF radio phone to the DIO for Government intervention, more than likely to pay off some government or military officials.

As Darwin was both an air force base and civilian domestic and international airport, their comings and goings were, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from general cargo flights except for where the aircraft was parked, which was well away from the civilian terminals and up against the air force hangar.

Having established their Sattahip base of operations, with aircraft stored and assembled, the hangar offices were turned into barracks and mess rooms. Everyone took turns in preparing meals, which occasionally wound up in food fights as some of the team had no fucking idea of how to prepare a meal. From time to time, they would have someone go into Sattahip village and bring back a load of Thai food, which burned going in and burned coming out. Finally, Brute found an old Thai guy in the village who spoke good English and had worked for the Americans cooking on an offshore oil drilling rig. After discussions with the team, they had the Australian Embassy in Bangkok check with Thai security into the old fart’s background. It was all clear, so he was hired. Mess hall problems solved.

It was essential for them to begin their operations role expeditiously with incursions into Cambodia. Ultimately, they were directed to communicate solely with the Vietnam Command HQ – Australian Desk (whatever that meant?) in Saigon.

Apparently, they had been handballed to unfamiliar recipients of their intelligence data and from whom they would receive orders. Having dealt with boffins before, Spider decided to be careful about what specific information he provided or requests he made of them as bureaucrats, as in or out of uniform they usually had a myriad of ways of avoiding a direct answer or would say ‘no’ until pestered to say ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’, which Spider felt impelled to avoid as this left him exposed.

Spider’s usual contact, Commander Coen, was a smart operator and he almost always kept them free from uncertainty by making specific, on-the-spot decisions, and then later informing his masters. Spider guessed that he would then face the flak from CIA and Ministry of Defence on their behalf.

The team sat for a week on their arses at the base with the idle jet boats in need of fuel and rations, which finally arrived from a local supplier.

The HF radio phone finally rang on the desk made out of empty crates in the belly of the C-130 where it and the major lived. He staggered over and grabbed it impatiently, then listened for the beep to sound indicating the code script was about to arrive on the screen. He returned by typing in his code on the keyboard and then the familiar voice of Commander Coen of DIO crackled through.

Coen had been posted to Saigon office and would be overseeing the interface with the US Intelligence desk. At last, Spider felt that they were at least plugged into the system again. A series of encrypted text messages followed that included what new encryption mode to respond with. All comms systems were now up and running.

Specific but not detailed mobilisation orders were issued regarding what they saw as key targets. Their job was to work out how to get to them, observe and report with observations (SITCOM) on civilian and combatant movements, the magnitude of stored ordnance, ship identification, photos and recommendations on how they could neutralise the target without being compromised (a nice way of saying don’t get caught).

They had not shared their revised charts with DIO and definitely not with the US/CIA. This information was their own security blanket against any leaks from any direction. Spider learned this trick for drawing new chart grids off one of his cadet college officers whose dad had been an officer in the Korean War. The enemy would not be able to interpret their chart location references without the master chart in front of them.

Missions on Wings and Water – Cambodia

Major Spider took up each of the Cub aircraft with the reassembled wings for some one-hour low-level test flights and accidentally on purpose flew southeast over the Gulf of Thailand along the coast of Cambodia, but short of the coastal city of Krong Koh Kong with its airport and harbour. Ra...