Jungle Survival Course PULADA, Johore, Malaysia

[Nav Rad]

I attended the course at PULADA, Johore Bharu, in May 1974 and am trying to write up a few notes on my two week experience (14 May - 28 May). The reason is that there is the odd gap in my memory after all those years! Hence I wish to fill in the missing parts. Can anyone please help? Any guy who was either on my course (Fg Off Simon Bedford, RAF Wittering followed into the Red Arrows and BA, I believe, and Flt Lt Fry RAF Waddington who were two other RAF officers with me out of 23 which included two RAF SNCO's a Sgt Wood from RAF Kinloss and a Flt Sgt Burns RAF from Brize Norton plus British Army SNCO's and Malays.

You don't have to have been on my particular course but if you went on the course anytime then it seems reasonable to assume that the pattern would be the same. It consisted of a week instruction at PULADA followed by a week in the jungle. Here's hoping either you or a past Combat Survival Instructor from Mountbatten who would know the set up, as they organised the course, can now help or get in touch with someone who can

[sycamore]

Don`t forget the `Magnolia` man,on his ice-cream and fresh fruit bicycle,who appeared wherever and whenever anyone seemed to cross a road...

[Fareastdriver]

A bit before then was the Single Pin that airdropped a case of cold Tiger at the end of the course.

[Old-Duffer]

So the story goes that there are 15 types of poisonous snake in Malaya, of which five are dangerous to man: King Cobra, Malayan Cobra, Red Tailed Krait, Silver Krait and Banded Krait, this last named because it has yellow and black bands round its body.

The way to kill a snake is to grab it by the tail and smartly run you other hand up to its neck and with a quick tug, you break its neck. With a King Cobra frequently being a dozen feet long, it is unclear as to how this method of dispatch is to be safely achieved.

Part of the course involves a jungle trek and on this particular day one of the students returned with his clothes torn and covered in blood. “What happened to you, Bloggs?” enquires the instructor. “Well, Sir” comes the reply, “I got into a fight with a snake”. “What do you mean, you got in to a fight with a snake”.

“Well Sir, I was walking along this track, when I saw a snake lying across my path and I quickly identified it as a Banded Krait, Sir. So remembering what I was taught, I grabbed it by the tail and quickly ran my other hand up its body to break its neck. But have you ever tried to explain to a Tiger why you’ve got your thumb up its arse?”

Old Duffer

[Blacksheep]

We should think ourselves lucky to have got a course for free. ;)

For just under £1400 plus the airfare to Borneo, you can go still go off on a jungle survival experience (http://bushcraft.woodsmoke.uk.com/cgi-bin/trolleyed_public.cgi?action=showprod_BORNEO1) with proper native instructors. Its OK, they don't take heads anymore. (At least, they don't admit to it).

[Nav Rad]

No thanks. I've still got the marks of the many leech bites that I received on my legs today. I don't want to actually pay to get some more!

[goudie]

I never attended the course but I was told that part of the survival kit consisted of a packet of condoms. They were to be worn, not if the Headman offered you his wife, daughters etc. but when wading through a swamp, to prevent leeches crawling up inside your willy:eek:

[Blacksheep]

They're handy for keeping your matches dry and such. Leeches tend to grab hold of you wherever they land and then hang on tight.

[brakedwell]

Dinghy drill in Gan was tough enough for me - thankyou!

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c32/sedgwickjames/aviation/DinhyDrillGan.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c32/sedgwickjames/aviation/8mandinghyoffGan.jpg

[4Greens]

I posted a reply about a Navy course and it has vanished.

[Herod]

Four Greens, I don't know how you did it, but your post appears on the thread about a crash at Wittering Woods. It's confusing the hell out of people.;)

[Robert Cooper]

Don't know if it's the same chap sycamore saw, but when we performed an unannounced landing at Dungun, and the Magnolia ice cream chappie was there with his bicycle too. The Malaya jungle telegraph always seemed to know where we were going before we did!

Bob C

[wf2397]

I am assisting a friend who attended a course in 74. At Pulada.
He was RAF & he requested my assistance relating to an army Sgt that he met out there in the Ordnance Corps. He wished to confirm :- ( COPM ORD DEPOT ) As being correct for an Ordnance Unit out there.
Are the initials in brackets to your knowledge correct?
I am ex R. Sigs and cannot advise if the initials are correct.
My friend is probably compiling info for a book and obviously wants things to be correct.
Can you help.

Most grateful if you can.

Mr W. Fenwick

[Old-Duffer]

It may be COM (for Command) not COPM for heaven knows what.

[Nav Rad]

Thanks Old Duffer. Seems quite likely that you've got the answer. He was a British Army Sgt who was based in Hong Kong at the time. See my start of the thread ref PULADA.

[JW411]

Was it Snowy Robertson who used to teach that the most dangerous disease in the jungle was a panga bite?

Followed by; the most nutritious thing to be found in Arctic regions is a polar bear's liver.

First catch your polar bear.

[Nav Rad]

Actually you've got the word slightly wrong. It was a 'parang bite' or 'machete bite' from the long parang/machete that we carried. So too the Malays got the initials COPM in the wrong order that foxed me on another entry that I was asking about above your reply. They should have put COMP short for Composite. The army Sgt I was asking about, I now find, was from the Composite Ordnance Depot RAOC in Hong Kong.