RAAF men return for medals

09 Jun 2006
By S. Arulldas

BUTTERWORTH: It was a nostalgic trip for a group of Royal Australian Air Force veterans who returned here after 40 years.

The 42 RAAF servicemen and their spouses were here to receive the Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM) award in recognition of their services defending the country during the Emergency and the Indonesian Confrontation.

Robert Arthur Son, 63, who was attached to the Butterworth air base with an anti-aircraft unit, recalled capturing four Indonesian soldiers who entered Malaysian waters during the Confrontation in 1963.



"I was based at the southern tip of Penang island when our radar control room on Penang Hill detected a boat. We captured the boat and handed over four Indonesian soldiers to the Malaysian police," he said.

Son said he was based here from June 1964 until June 1966 before returning to Australia and was later posted to the Commonwealth Brigade in Terendak, Malacca, where he served until 1969.

Armed Forces chief Admiral Tan Sri Mohd Anwar Mohd Nor presented medals to the 42 servicemen at a ceremony at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base here yesterday.

Major (R) Ronald Glew, 61, who was with the 111st Royal Australian Artillery Regiment and served here for two years between 1964 and 1966 said he was posted at the Malaysia-Thai border near Grik.

"We were deployed to fight the communists along the border and to cut off their food supply," he said.

Search Effort For Missing RMAF Pilot Continues

BUTTERWORTH, June 8 (Bernama) -- The search operations to locate the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) Hawk 208 fighter aircraft and its pilot Mejar Muhammad Rohaizan Abdul Rahman that entered its ninth day found no further clues.

Armed Forces chief Admiral Tan Sri Mohd Anwar Mohd Nor said up to now they had no further clues other than the last location on the radar and some of the aircraft's parts found in the sea.

Mohd Anwar said this to reporters after presenting the Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM) to 42 former members of the Royal Australian Regiment who served in Malaya during the Emergency.

A day after the crash, the search party found the wing segments of the plane and two days later they found an oil slick believed to be the aircrafts' fuel.

He said the search would continue until the Air Force chief decides otherwise.

On using foreign expertise to locate the aircraft, Mohd Anwar said it was not decided yet but the search team would utilise all available resources at its disposal, including equipment that could detect the components of the aircraft wreckage.

"The equipment we have can be used to locate the pilot and the aircraft," he added.

In the May 31 incident, the single-seater aircraft went missing from RMAF's control tower radar in Kuantan at 4.37pm while flying through bad weather over Kuala Rompin waters.

Up to now there is no sign of the aircraft or the pilot's fate.

Brown: Remembrance Sunday should become 'British Day'

Chancellor advocates annual celebration to emulate Fourth of July

Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Saturday January 14, 2006
The Guardian


Flying the flag for tolerance: Gordon Brown says the union flag should be reclaimed from the right. Photograph: Getty Images
 

Gordon Brown will propose today that Remembrance Sunday should be developed into a national day of patriotism to celebrate British history, achievements and culture. The chancellor envisages a "British Day", equivalent to the Fourth of July independence celebrations in the United States.

Mr Brown's remarks at a Fabian Society conference sponsored by the Guardian represent his clearest attempt yet to flesh out his personal political programme.

In his speech Mr Brown will embrace the patriotism of the US, saying: "In any survey our most popular institutions range from the monarchy to the army to the NHS. But think: what is our Fourth of July? What is our Independence Day? Where is our declaration of rights? What is our equivalent of a flag in every garden? Perhaps Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday are the nearest we have come to a British day - unifying, commemorative, dignified and an expression of British ideas of standing firm for the world in the name of liberty."

Mr Brown recognises that adding an element of celebration to Remembrance Day - traditionally for mourning Britain's war dead - could be controversial so he is also looking at a new day for Britishness modelled on the celebrations of VE Day.

Either way, he believes the British flag needs to be recaptured from the far right. "The union flag should be a British symbol of unity around our values ... and we should assert that the union flag is for tolerance and inclusion."

Mr Brown will also give the first clues about his thinking in other areas of policy. He will suggest that:

· The government should withdraw further from the appointment of judiciary and clergy, even the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This follows hints that he accepts the need for a check on the government's right to declare war without parliamentary sanction.

· Some of the political intensity could be taken from the tuition fees dispute by proposing that students be given extra grants if they agree to serve the community in their gap year before university.

· A new constitutional settlement should be considered, including handing power to local neighbourhoods and councils.

The chancellor's aides believe that a renewed patriotism, celebrating all the elements of modern Britain, is an agenda that the Conservatives cannot readily follow because in their hands it would look backward-looking and even chauvinistic.

He will say the centre and the left have failed to understand that the values on which Britishness is based - fairness, liberty and responsibility - owe more to progressive ideas than to rightwing ones.

Mr Brown also appears to accept that an elected Lords is not on Mr Blair's third-term agenda: he will say that Lords reform is an issue to which the party must return in a fourth term.

Aware that David Cameron has proposed a form of national volunteering service, Mr Brown will seek to reclaim the issue, pointing to his plans in the 2004 budget to encourage youth volunteering first set out in the Russell commission.

The English language, he will say, should be made an essential element of citizenship, through mandatory language courses for jobseekers found wanting.

Veterans' groups backed the idea of celebrating Britishness, but opposed confusing that with Remembrance Day. John Hawthornthwaite, national chairman of the Royal British Legion, said: "Anything that would dilute what Remembrance Sunday and November 11 stand for would not be welcome. They have been instituted to remember the sacrifices of those who died for our freedom."

HOME