The withdrawal of British Forces from South East Asia in the early 1970s left the recently independent nations of Malaysia and Singapore vulnerable to external aggression. Neither had a navy and their air forces were in their infancy.
Under the recently agreed to Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA) Australia agreed to station two Mirage fighter squadrons at Butterworth Air Base in North West Malaysia as the backbone of an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) for both nations. When the IADS commenced operations in 1971 Malaysia and Singapore were unable to fill all staffing positions allocated to them.
Following their defeat in 1960 the Malayan Communist Party took refuge in Southern Thailand from where they recruited new members and rebuilt.In July 1968 they relaunched their armed struggle against Malaysia and Singapore with an ambush of Malaysian Security Forces in the Malaysian Thailand border area. Seventeen Malaysian Security Force members were killed.
Over the next few years the Communists gradually and skilfully re-infiltrated Peninsular Malaysia, seeking to re-establish their former bases, rebuild their former networks and recruit new members to their cause. A split in their ranks in 1973 saw an increase in communist activity and increased violence as the factions sought to outdo each other in an attempt to attract recruits. Violence peaked in 1975 but the intensity of the campaign was maintained into the 1980s by which time the Malaysian Army had developed to such a level as to effectively deal with the threat.
Butterworth Air Base was the closest military air base in the country to the established terrorist areas and used by the Royal Malaysian Air Force in counter insurgency operations. It was a potential target.
From early 1972 an infantry company was permanently deployed to Butterworth, 'ostensibly for training, flag-showing and change of scene' to 'provide the Commander with a ready-reaction force which he can use inter alia to supplement the elements available to him under the joint Malaysian-RAAF plan, but short of an actual overt breach of security he cannot use these troops for guard or other security duties' (Sir Arthur Tangey, Secretary, Department of Defence, 2 March 1972). The company, which rotated through Butterworth regularly, was provided by the ANZUK forces based in Singapore. The cause of the secrecy was Malaysian sensitivity.
Following the withdrawal of the Australian Battalion from Singapore in 1973 a rifle company was rotated from Australian on a three monthly basis for security purposes. Minutes of Australia's peak Defence body, the Defence Committee, classified SECRET at the time, show the training ruse continued to be used to hide the deployment's real purpose - the Defence Committee being Australia's peak Defence body.
Documents held by the National Archives of Australia and other places, including books and academic papers, reveal the history that has been hidden for, in some instances, over 40 years. While Australian forces at Butterworth were not directly involved in the war they did incur danger from the hostile forces of the enemy. The Communists and their sympathisers were active in the Butterworth area and at times authorities at Butterworth considered the threat of attack imminent.
These documents also reveal that this was more than a military operation. The RAAF presence at Butterworth was of real strategic importance to Australian foreign policy which sought to build relationships with the nations of South East Asia and in particular Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. The political fallout of any attack on the Base would have had serious ramifications for the Australian Government both at home and in the region. Documents also reveal the real concern that Australia could get drawn into Malaysia's internal security situation if the threat grew out of hand when it was not in a position to do so.
The purpose of this blog is to tell the story of RAAF Base Butterworth and the deployment of an Australian Rifle Company, know as the Rifle Company Butterworth (RCB) against the background of the Malaysian Insurgency War and the struggle for proper recognition of Army and RAAF Butterworth veterans. To this day the Department of Defence maintain the main reason for the RCB deployment was training and that service at Butterworth is properly classified as peacetime. In order to maintain this position they selectively use evidence, at times presenting it completely out of context, and fail to acknowledge high level documents, both in terms of origin and security classification, that show the true situation on the ground.
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