Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” - Prof. Joel Hayward's ...

Chapter 4
for nearly 700 fatalities. Yet, considering that FEAF bomber <strong>and</strong> fighter aircraft flew nearly
4,000 strike missions <strong>and</strong> dropped over 70 million lbs of bombs 124 , this works out at a
particularly laboured ordnance-to-kill ratio of 100,000 lbs of bombs per insurgent killed.
By FEAF’s own admission <strong>the</strong>re was “very little evidence of direct success in air attack
against <strong>the</strong> C.T (communist terrorist).” 125 Although <strong>the</strong> accuracy of <strong>the</strong> bombs was high,
<strong>the</strong>ir lethality was relatively low, largely due to incomplete or outdated intelligence
leading, for example, to an ab<strong>and</strong>oned insurgent camp being targeted. Despite this lack
of insurgent “kills,” direct air power did have an acknowledged impact on insurgent
morale. The potency of an offensive aerial presence was noted, for instance, in a 1955
FEAF memo which observed that MRLA insurgents were “learning to make greater use
of camouflage as a protection against air attack.” 126 Aerial reconnaissance was <strong>the</strong>refore
able to deduce that guerrilla camps that could be seen from <strong>the</strong> air were ei<strong>the</strong>r vacated or
dilapidated, requiring up-to-date intelligence from <strong>the</strong> ground in order to pin-point camps
underneath <strong>the</strong> thick jungle foliage. Insurgent counter-measures <strong>and</strong> patchy intelligence
undermined <strong>the</strong> material damage able to be inflicted from <strong>the</strong> air, However, by-products
of <strong>the</strong> offensive aerial presence were tangible. In one case, <strong>the</strong> sonic boom created by a
low-flying Sabre fighter aircraft of <strong>the</strong> RAAF flushed out a harassed unit of insurgents
from a known jungle hamlet into <strong>the</strong> path of a waiting security force ambush. 127
Unintended, yet ultimately positive, consequences of an offensive aerial presence in
Malaya did actually appease a frustrated political community. This was particularly
apparent during <strong>the</strong> early 1950s as <strong>the</strong> effects of <strong>the</strong> comprehensive civil-military strategy
known as <strong>the</strong> Briggs Plan slowly came into fruition. At a meeting of <strong>the</strong> Cabinet Malaya
Committee in <strong>the</strong> summer of 1950, <strong>the</strong> Secretary of War, John Strachey, stated that prior
to a visit to Malaya he had been “somewhat sceptical about <strong>the</strong> effectiveness of air strikes
in <strong>the</strong> jungle,” but had been convinced firsth<strong>and</strong> that aerial attack “had a genuine effect on
<strong>the</strong> morale of <strong>the</strong> b<strong>and</strong>its.” 128 These comments highlight an interesting interplay between
politicians <strong>and</strong> air power in counter-insurgency conflict, in as much as that air power
seemed to provide a quick <strong>and</strong> visible fix for <strong>the</strong> political community frustrated by <strong>the</strong>
inevitably gradual progress made by troops on <strong>the</strong> ground <strong>and</strong> enabled <strong>the</strong> politicians in
London to appease local politicians <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> media. This is a trend that seems still to exist.
Strachey also encapsulated <strong>the</strong> fundamentally ancillary role direct air power could play in
Malaya. It was never, <strong>and</strong> never could have been, a central plank of <strong>the</strong> offensive counterinsurgency
military strategy. The civil-military imperative, as enshrined in <strong>the</strong> thinking
of <strong>the</strong> combined Director of Operations <strong>and</strong> Governor, General Sir Gerald Templer, after
1952, of winning civilian “hearts <strong>and</strong> minds,” ensured that an aggressive <strong>and</strong> highly visible
aerial presence was not viable. Combined with <strong>the</strong> uncompromising Malayan topography
<strong>and</strong> meteorology 129 , air power was largely unnecessary in a direct offensive capacity. The
<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror” 71