2SIR Background

The 2nd Singapore Infantry Regiment aka 2SIR was created around 1962-1963 period as part of the “New Malaysia” army in preparation for the impending departure of the British Army that was responsible for the defense of the region during that period.  It originally consisted for “regular/career” soldiers from Malaysia and Singapore. This 2SIR unit participated in the “Indonesian Confrontation” in Kota Tinggi, Sabah in the early 60’s. When Singapore broke away from the Malaysian Federation in 1965, the 1SIR and 2 SIR became the first 2 infantry regiments of the new Singapore Defense Force. Singapore needed a defense forces urgently as she is an island nation of about 270 sq miles surrounded by neighboring giants like Indonesia and Malaysia who had better equipped and trained armed forces at that time. The Indonesian Confrontation in Kota Tinggi was a case of Indonesia trying to exert her influence in the region by sending saboteurs to Sabah.  They had also send a company of commando infiltrators to Johore around that time and 2SIR was also involved in that conflict. At that time, the 2SIR were based at Camp Temasek in the Ulu Pandan area and later housed the converted 2SIR battalion consisting of National Service (NSF/conscript) personnel. It actually consisted of two camps divided by a road and the smaller camp housed the Support Company consisting of Demolition, Reconnaissance, and other support platoons.

Here’s a link to the history of 2SIR  1WO Daniel Wee, The History of 2SIR by 1WO Daniel Wee

Here’s a link that talk about the Indonesian “KONFRONTASI”

We finally arrived at 2SIR camp. We disembarked from our transport and found ourselves by the edge of the battalion’s parade square.  Note about parade square. this is like the battalion’s “holy ground”.  You are not supposed to step foot on it or walk across it without a “business” reason.  Business reason would be marching drills, ceremonial assembly and parade, etc.  For us newly minted NCOs, we didn’t care much about that. Only thing on our minds were, “hey we can now enjoy the privileges that we saw those NCOs at boot camp and School of Infantry Section Leader enjoyed”. They were like kings in our opinion.  That notion didn’t last but a few minutes!

We are still the mouse

As it turned out,  the battalion Sergeant mess and quarters were right next to where we landed, overlooking the “Parade Square”. We heard an expletives filled command to “fall in” ie get into formation! We look around wondering who was that and where it was directed.  There stood a the battalion Sergeant Major (highest rank nco) surrounded by a few staff sergeants with their evil grins. It felt like we were back in the boot camp days and felt even more humiliated. Our pride were hurt as we quickly gathered our belongings and fall into formation. We were warned that we had better not be caught by them slacking around and not marching from point A to point B! Just like boot camp.  Here I thought, that did not apply to us anymore! Fortunately, our barrack was located in the other smaller camp which was isolated and we were able to avoid these tormentors for most of our stay there.  It was really embarrassing that we had to marched just to get to the mess hall while others need not! During our brief  stay here,  the current Support Company had just returned from the one month exercise Starlight in Taiwan and most of the personnel had already ROD leaving only a skeleton staff around, among them were a couple of Recce Scouts section commanders.

We made use of this opportunity to pick their brain on the in and outs of an operational battalion life and the demands and expectation of being a recce scout. We were elated when we found out that the scout platoon has it own jeeps and dirt bikes that were parked right outside our barrack and not in the battalion motor pool where all vehicles should be. Kind of felt special. We learned from the “Old Timers” about their overall experiences and especially their Exercise Starlight time in Taiwan.  However, they mentioned one thing about camp Ulu Pandan that spooked us during our stayed there.  Camp Ulu Pandan was built on hilly terrain and as mentioned earlier, split into 2 camps by a road.  The Support Company camp was situated on higher ground and the buildings were built to fit with the terrain. The sleeping quarters were smaller and tighter, the bathrooms were separate and connected by a series of steps. Camp Ulu Pandan was original occupied by the British armed forces when Singapore and Malaysia were part of the British Empire.  Old army barrack tends come with lots of stories and rumors. Camp Temasek is not exception.

We told by the “Old Timers” that during the Indonesian Confrontation, bodies of soldiers KIA were brought back to camp for cleansing before burial and the bathrooms where Support Company used were the site for this. This led to stories of voices, marching footsteps heard by on duty personnel late at night or during weekend when the camp was deserted. The Famous haunted camp- By Lam Chun See  is an interesting read.  Though none of us encountered any abnormal events, we were still spooked by what we heard and at least in my case, I avoided going to the bathroom alone in the middle of the night.

Honeymoon period

During our short honeymoon period, there wasn’t much to do, though we did have a life firing exercise with GPMG – General Purpose Machine Gun.  We went to the firing range behind SAFTI, setup our GPMGs on tripods and blasted away at targets at the base of the hill 1,000 feet or so away. It was fun seeing tracer rounds flying across the ravine, it was hard to see whether they hit any intended targets. However, the bad part came after, cleaning those carbon filled barrels of the machine guns late at night! Something I don’t look forward to.

The honeymoon finally came to an end a few weeks later as we were shipped off to the School of Driver Training! It was a 7 weeks course and in my opinion, felt like a vacation. For 7 weeks, all we did was master the art of driving a jeep in all conditions. There were the standard road driving where we need to pass our test for a military driving license and then the fun stuff like off road driving. There was one training where we had to drive up a man-made dirt 45 degree incline. This incline is about the wide of a one lane road, and its about 3 -4 story high at the top. Half way up the incline, we had to stop, pull up the hand brake and turn off the engine.  Now we had to jump start the engine, by putting it in gear with foot on the clutch and letting the jeep roll down the slope and releasing the clutch at the right moment to get the engine started. It was nerve wrecking in way, turning you head back looking down the slope and making sure the steering is straight.