@ chippymick
Thanks for your informative reply, Mick. With the usual lack of resources, the RAF saw itself from WW2 onwards as obliged to concentrate on Bomber and Fighter Commands, followed by the Maritime and Transport efforts. Helocopters werrte definitely viewed as a "bad career choice" (in the '50s, I'm talking about) even though any Soviet moves on West Germany would have involved large numbers of rotorcraft and iit seemed to me that this aspect of aviation was being severely neglected by the Powers in Whitehall. ("You can't have everything, dear boy - in fact we can't have much of anything" sort of thing - a theme still being sung today).
What the helicopter people did in Borneo was, though, vital in keeping the Army's people mobile and supplied - even with such "odd" equipment as the poor Belvedere, whose dire background you'll be aware of. Not much, if any, shooting from them, though (? Not a mainstream activity ?). With excellent STOL aircraft like the ""up-tilted tail" version of the Andover and the Single and Twin Pins, plus the choppers, the job got done - and when Confrontation was over, the fixed and rotary wing aircraft were summarily disposed of: "Surplus to Requirements, old chap".
But the end result was that Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia were able to develop outside the Communist influence, which, although H.Wilson Esq reckoned the whole thing had been too expensive to be contemplated ever again, was the object of the exercise.
Reminds me of a Tom Holt character's "Blessed are the cheapskates, for they shall see their god and still have change from a 5-pound note".
Cheers,
JP