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Returning comrades stir memory of forgotten jungle war

 

20 MF-Soldiersreturn2-824New Zealand’s recent repatriation of 28 Kiwi soldiers from Malaysia has brought memories back for one Mangawhai man who served in a war that has faded from today’s world, and where he left several friends behind buried in foreign soil. 

Locals for 25 years, former Private Leonard Mann and wife Jan travelled to South Auckland on August 21 to welcome fallen comrades, Private Bobby Breitmeyer and Lance Corporal Percy Brown Iwihora, back to their homeland. The three men all served in the Malayan Emergency together from 1957–1959. The funerals were part of the New Zealand Defence Force Te Auraki (The Return) project to bring home service personnel buried overseas which the government announced in 2017. 

While leaving fallen comrades behind is a part of a soldier’s life, one which they have no control of and cannot dwell on, ‘it is still a great sadness’ Len says and he was looking forward to seeing his ‘mates’ come home. However after months of anticipation, Len and Jan, who were pen-pals during the Malayan War and married for nearly 60 years, say the return however was sadly anti-climactic. 

“The caskets of three soldiers were brought in, flags were folded and one was given to family members who were there… there was no Last Post and no speeches,” Jan says. “There weren’t many friends and family who attended either… so quite disappointing.”

Unfortunately the couple were unable to attend Percy Brown’s service, which was to take place at Taupiri Mountain in the Waikato the following day, due to Jan’s sudden ill health. 

Culture shock
Approximately 1300 Kiwi servicemen served in the Malayan Emergency between 1948 and 1964, a guerrilla war which arose after the Malayan Communist Party attempted to override the British colonial administration of Malaya. Fifteen Kiwi soldiers lost their lives while in service. 

Len was only 21 when, seeking adventure, he volunteered to join the Malayan force, traveling to the exotic country as part of NZ Regiments 1st battalion, ‘A’ company. He says after the army training in Waiouru through mid-winter, Malaya’s hot and humid climate was quite a cultural shock.
“Day would turn to night in just a couple of minutes with total blackout… fireflies in jars was our light. We were always covered in sweat so washing was very important to avoid boils, jungle sores and other tropical maladies… we were encouraged to grow beards for camouflage so the enemy couldn’t see our white cheekbones,” he says. “There was no military rubbish, I had long red hair and a matching beard, everyone called me ‘Red Mann’, used to scare the local children though as red hair in Malaya meant ‘devil man’.”

20 MF-Soldiers return1-383Tragic death
While based at a camp with 750 other soldiers, Len says he felt reasonably safe, however nighttime in the jungle was a different story. 

“At night the insects would be active, there was constant noise, but when that all of a sudden stopped, you knew that someone or something had disturbed them,” he says. “The sound of silence was the scariest thing.”

Carrying packs weighing 50–70 pounds plus 28 pound Bren guns, platoons would spend up to 90 days at a time sleeping rough and patrolling the tropical jungles, the maximum time a soldier could be expected to survive the ‘ravages of the jungle’. Their mission was to track the elusive and adept communist terrorists (CTs) flushing them out to areas where they would be confronted and ambushed by other commonwealth battalions, including the sniper who killed ‘one of the most respected soldiers of A company’, 26-year-old Percy Brown.

Three days before Brown’s death, Private Bobby Breitmeyer was killed in a tragic accident while travelling in Brown’s car with an unknown driver. The vehicle collided with the back-tray of a parked army truck which was concealed from view by the all-consuming darkness of night.

“We got news of that by wireless… it was uncanny as the night before Bobby bought me a beer and said he was going to ‘put the wind up me’. He said he had dreamt of seeing two bullets pass by him with my name ‘Red Mann’ on them, and he joked I wouldn’t be going home.”

Jungle dangers
Besides the fear of ambush from enemy forces, soldiers also had to contend with Malaya’s unfamiliar vegetation, including the ‘wait-a-while’ plant, a thorny, clingy vine which took time and patience to be free from as ‘one scratch and your skin would fester’, as well as the countries dangerous wildlife. 

“A friend we named ‘Tweet Tweet’ had a lucky escape from a hungry tiger after it dragged him away by his head while we were all sleeping,” Len says. “Weirdly it walked past a whole lot of us before choosing him. Funny enough the day before, we were passing through a village and an old woman threw sticks and stones at ‘Tweet’ too, but only him, no one else…”

Another incident he says had more of a comical side. Private Barry McCoskery who ended up being Len’s best man, was chased through the jungle by a rogue elephant but got caught up in the dangling vines, ‘his feet were going like hell but he wasn’t going anywhere’. Luckily the elephant was scared off by warning shots. 

Life after war
Only 15 when she started writing to Len, Jan says his letters were ‘beautiful and descriptive, you felt like you were there in the jungle’ and their friendship endured the two years before Len finally landed back on Kiwi soil. New Zealand however was largely unaffected by the Malayan war and on return, recognition of the soldiers efforts were minimal despite the significant contribution of Kiwi servicemen to defeat the communist insurgency over the 12 year war. 

Depleted and suffering with bad acne, results of being too long in the tropics, Len stayed in the army for another three years before transitioning to civilian life, a change that proved difficult. Feeling restless, he drifted from one job to another and the couple moved regularly, ‘25 shifts altogether’ Jan says. 

“Sometimes I hadn’t even unpacked and we’ll be off again! A lot of the guys were like that… there was no help to adjust. They just wanted to be around each other, understandable really after what they went through. Their friendships have lasted longer than most of the marriages.”

Further testament to the strong ties between the veterans, Len says even now, six decades later, he is still in contact with some of the men who he fought and walked with, in the tropical Malayan jungle. 

“Sixty years later we’re still meeting up with jokers from back then… shows the comradery and bond among old soldiers.” 

War-time pen-friends turned to 60 years of ‘sharing, caring and chaos’: Len and Jan Mann with their four-generation family. 

Len Mann aka ‘Red Mann’ with a 50-plus pound pack soldiers would carry through the heat of the Malayan jungle. 


“At night the insects would be active, there was constant noise, but when that all of a sudden stopped, you knew that someone or something had disturbed them. The sound of silence was the scariest thing.”

 
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