The RAN became involved in the defence of the newly-formed Federation of Malaysia against attacks by the Indonesian armed forces and Indonesian-supported irregulars in 1964. The Indonesian Government had declared its intention to `confront' placecountry-regionMalaysia if the Federation was formed from the Federation of Malaya and the British colonies of Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah, but now it announced that it would `crush' Malaysia. The conflict is known as `Confrontation'. It was an odd little conflict in which only the Indonesian Army openly fought in the field, but it raged for more than two years along the borders between the two countries from Sebatik Island off the east coast of Sabah to Penang in the Malacca Strait. From Tanjong Datu at the western extremity of Sarawak to the Indian Ocean, this border was a delineated on the sea.

Although Malaysia was a sovereign state, it was only months old at the time the Indonesians launched their attacks by land sea and air. Since Britain, Australia and New Zealand had defence agreements with the new federation, and had established bases in both Malaya and Singapore, it was the British who provided the leadership and a significant proportion of the forces engaged in repelling the Indonesians. Australia also played its part, with the air base at RAAF Butterworth near Penang providing air defence and maritime surveillance and the Australian infantry battalion and SAS troop at Camp Terendak near Malacca eventually committed to the land fighting in Borneo. But from Day One it was the ships and men of the RAN who were in the front line. Our commitments included the destroyers and frigates assigned to the Far East Strategic Reserve, visits by the carrier HMAS Melbourne and HMAS Sydney on trooping voyages, but the major patrol and surveillance load fell on the small ships of the 16th Minesweeping Squadron.

The RAN also provided major assistance to the growing Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) which earned its spurs during Confrontation. RAN officers had been the Chief of the RAN since 1960 and had ordered the new ships which were to take their place alongside those of the other Commonwealth navies. RAN officers and senior sailors had trained RMN personnel, including the RMN diving team, and some Malaysian ships were commanded by RAN officers. RAN personnel were responsible for much of the RMN maintenance support and logistics, especially of the Ton Class minesweepers. Within the British headquarters RAN personnel were integrated into the planning and operations staffs, and RAN personnel worked alongside RN colleagues in communications and intelligence gathering tasks. And we also made our first deployment of a Diving Team...(2)

The combined headquarters for Confrontation were established in Singapore, and command was delegated for all forces to the British Commander-0in-Chief placeFar East, and RN vice admiral. All RN, RAN and RNZN ships and personnel were under the operational command of the Commander Far East Fleet (COMFEF), with his headquarters in the extensive naval base on the northern coast of Singapore Island, reached via the Johore Strait. At one point, COMFEF had more than 80 ships under his command, ranging from aircraft carriers to patrol boats and submarines.

The comparative ease with which Indonesian infiltrators could, potentially, enter Singapore across the narrow Singapore Strait from the Indonesian Riau Archipelago, together with the existence of active anti-British and anti-Malaysian elements in the city, meant that the threat of attack on ships in the Naval Base and those moored in Johore Strait was commensurately high. While the landward approaches were secured and the water boundaries patrolled, assault by underwater swimmer was always possible. Under these circumstances, Commonwealth ships took precautionary measures - Operation AWKWARD, and the RAN deployed for the first time its newly formed Mobile Clearance Diving Team to Singapore.

At that time, there were two categories of divers in the RAN. The first were ship's divers, who were members of a ship's company who had undergone some preliminary diving training. Their tasks were relatively simple - bottom searches to detect ordnance attached the ship's hull by enemy swimmers - but not their removal, the clearance of a ship's underwater engineering intakes, removing cables and nets which had become entangled in a ship's underwater fittings, and the recovery of items dropped over the side. Ship's divers performed their normal duties until called upon to perform diving duties. They were qualified to dive to sixty feet [eighteen metres], but only in company with another diver, using surface supply breathing apparatus - that is, their air supply was delivered by a hose tended on the surface from a compressor on a diving tender or from their ship.

Clearance Divers formed the other category. Qualified first as ship's divers, they undertook additional training in more complex diving operations and ordnance disposal, and in delivering attacks on enemy ships. Some were posted to ships, while others were formed into an independent team based at HMAS Rushcutter in Sydney, where they were employed on demanding general diving tasks. Their call to battle came abruptly. On 23 February 1965 the team was ordered to HMAS Melbourne which sailed for Southeast Asia two days later. It was only then that the divers were informed that they were bound for Singapore to join up with the RN's Far East Diving Team.

On arrival, the integration of the RAN team with the British was accomplished quickly and with little difficulty. There were no differences in tactics of techniques used by the two navies and, although the British had more advanced diving equipment, the Australians were fitter and seemed to have more endurance; it was a happy mix. Located in the Naval Base, the combined group formed two teams to operate as directed by COMFEF. Principally, they maintained the capability of responding to underwater incidents in the vicinity of the base which were beyond the capabilities and experience of ships' divers, such as the discovery of ordnance attached to hulls. One of the RAN divers described one such incident.

There were a couple of occasions when we went into a two-watch system, Red and Blue, with Red on watch and Blue on standby. That was just after one occasion there, when a leading hand, Bill Burrows, and I and some of the RN-ers were called out to one of the RN ships. We don't really know, but it looked like a home-made bomb made out of a coconut held on by magnets. It was obviously not something natural, and whether it was a joke or not we didn't know, but we treated it as live. We put a metal shim underneath it, tied it off, and towed it out on a long rope and put 1 pound charges on it and blew it up down in the Straits...(3)

The team was also called out to investigate sightings of bubbles alongside a ship, but these were almost always assessed as frivolous attempts by the ships' companies to dodge work. When the presence of a diver was suspected, the standard drill was for the ship to be secured at the highest state of watertight integrity and for the ship's company to muster on the wharf. Only when the CD team had given the all clear could they return onboard to resume work. But it was unpleasant task for the divers, as one of them described.

Ships alongside there used wooden fenders, about six metres long and two metres wide, as buffers between the ships and the wharves, with about six metres between them. To get in the water you dug a hole, literally, like digging in ice: it was twelve to eighteen inches thick, with rubbish, scum, slime, and that was your entry and exit out of the water if you had to get in the water between the ships and the wharf...(4)

There was, however, a more serious incident in the frigate HMAS Yarra on the night of 4 June 1965 - `the extraordinary affair of the missing diver', as the Report of Proceedings termed it. Briefly, bubbles were seen alongside the ship, which was berthed in the placePlaceNameStores PlaceTypeBasin at the Naval Base. Underwater lights were switched on and hand grenades and 1 pound [454g] scare charges dropped as the ship went to the highest state of watertight integrity. The diving guard ship was informed and a harbour patrol craft summoned. Twenty five minutes after the alert, Yarra's divers were in the water on a bottom search, but nothing was discovered. The following morning the ship's divers conducted a follow up search and a sweep of the sea bed under the ship.

At 0720 they surfaced and reported sighting the body of a diver dressed conventionally in a diving suit, face mask and underwater breathing apparatus. The body was resting on the bottom in a crouched-over position. No sign of life was evident. Divers then re-entered the water in an effort to re-locate the body...(5)

One of the divers thought there might have been a large charge in the vicinity of the body, which caused preparation for moving the ship, but on re-examination, nothing was found. The Fleet Diving Team then took over the task but their efforts were unsuccessful, despite three hours of searching. One reason for this might have been the actions of a tug sent to standby Yarra whose use of a `large amount of engine power' would have flushed anything under the ship out of the basin into the Johore Strait.

Meanwhile, both Yarra divers who had seen the body were closely questioned to confirm their report. As the ship's report noted, the less experienced diver `was extremely frightened by this experience and his evidence is clouded by this fright'. However, his buddy `after initial fright, investigated to the fullest extent with due regard to caution', even though he had lost his diving knife and was completely unarmed - a testament to the quality of the training he had received. His observations over ninety seconds at about a metre from the body included a full description of the foreign diver's dress and equipment, and he concluded with the statement that:

I am sure I saw a person with diving gear on; whether he was lying doggo or dead I'm not certain, but it was definitely a human being. I came to the conclusion that he was dead because there was absolutely no movement and no bubbles...(6)

Subsequent consideration of the incident concluded that there had been a diver under Yarra, vindicating the statements of the two RAN divers in the face of initial scepticism, although the identity of the body was never established.

The RN/RAN diving team was engaged on other tasks as well. One of the strangest was the recovery and disposal of World War Two ammunition dumped by both the British and Japanese in Johore Strait. Both nations had picked the same dumping ground, and this readily accessible cache of high explosive proved irresistible to those who had a use for it. The divers were told that the people who were diving down and retrieving the bombs and shells, and then `sweating' the explosive contents out, were Communists. The description is plausible but not confirmed, and this dangerous ordnance disposal task was described by one of the RAN divers.

One of the roles we had there with the RN-ers was diving down, picking up some of this stuff and walking into deeper water with it, and others were brought to the surface, put on the boat and examined, and then some were taken away to be destroyed. Others were just dumped into deeper water. They stopped bringing a lot of it up, because on a couple of occasions when we got it onto the deck it started bubbling. I don't know if it was just air escaping from the rusty casings of the bombs, or the ordnance; I don't know, but it deterred some of the Chiefs [team leaders] from bringing too much of it up onto the deck...(8)

The Chiefs were right - it was a hazardous practice, even if no attempt was made to disturb the explosives. But that is what the alleged Communists were doing, and it had tragic consequences, as recalled by one of the RAN team members.

There was an explosion in the Straits, and we drove out there at first light. I can remember there were over a dozen dead bodies caught in the trees - blown to bits. It was explained by the Chief that what they had been doing was cutting ordnance open and getting explosives. There must have been a group of them there; they had tripods made up for the bombs, and they were cutting them with hacksaws and one must have gone off. I remember there were at least twelve dead there.

I didn't go out for the second one, but about two weeks afterwards there was another explosion and there were a couple dead, I think they said. But what they'd done was moved away from where they were, although not far away, set up and they had buckets of water in the trees with wicks out of them dripping water. They must have thought it was the heat of the hacksaw blades that had set the bomb off, not realising that it was just old ordnance and friction which had set it off. After that there were no more incidents...(9)

One of the teams was dispatched to Borneo in April where it was engaged in attempts to recover two Royal Navy `Wessex' helicopters which had crashed in the water. The Wessex was designed to operate over the sea and had flotation arrangements to keep it afloat long enough for the crew to escape, but it usually toppled over shortly after. Salvage attempts were unsuccessful, as was the attempt to raise another Wessex which had crashed from an aircraft carrier off Penang in March.

Other team duties included exercise underwater attacks on the ships of the Far East Fleet, recovery of exercise mines laid by submarines, the surveying of a submarine bottoming area off the east coast of West Malaysia, training the Ghurkha engineers in explosives demolition, and diving on the wrecks of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse north of Pulau Tioman, which involved training and practice in deep diving. But by 23 June, the Australian team was back in Rushcutter, following its passage home in Melbourne. It had had an interesting four months, and one which confirmed the training and equipment readiness of the RAN divers to undertake deployed operations.

While the Mobile Clearance Diving Team had been engaged in its specialised duties, the procedures for defence of their ships against underwater swimmers kept the other divers of the Fleet busy, particularly at berths in Johore Strait. Outside the ambit of the naval base boat patrols and with pristine jungle to the north - which might conceal underwater saboteurs armed with those explosives salvaged from the Strait - diving bottom lines and underwater lights were rigged, upper deck sentries were armed and placed and boat patrols started. The aircraft carrier Melbourne experienced two incidents of possible underwater attack while in a Johore Strait berth.

Shortly before 2200 on 27 April 1965 underwater lights were reported off the port beam of the ship. A higher damage control status was ordered and within fifteen minutes the ship's diving team was in the water searching the hull. The search continued until 0200 the following morning, without result, although the boat patrols were continued. Then at 0040 on the morning of 30 April, knocking on the hull was reported under the starboard side forward. Shortly afterwards bubbles were sighted emanating from the same section of the hull. Again, divers were sent to investigate, and one described his reactions.

I was ordered into the water to follow a line of bubbles towards the source where the knocking came from. On my way down in pitch black darkness underneath a 20,000 ton aircraft carrier looking out for maybe an underwater saboteur armed to the teeth with an unexploded limpet mine or spear gun or whatever, was an extremely scary situation, for all I was armed with was the standard issue anti-magnetic knife. Fortunately, all I found was trapped air bubbles under the bilge keel seeping their way to the surface...(10)

On a similar dive, also in Melbourne, one young ship's diver nearly lost his life. He had been sent over the side to carry out a bottom search with a buddy diver, making his way down the ship's underwater hull on a swim line rigged for the purpose. A strong current was running and, during his descent, his air hose became entangled in the swim line. He was trapped in black turbid water, alone and nine metres below the surface. His tugs on the line to free himself were interpreted on the surface as demands for more hose, so he shortly found himself trapped and at the end of fifty-five metres of air hose. He tried to coil the excess hose around his arms while panic rose, but his training took over and he continued with his efforts. Shortly afterward his buddy diver arrived and, after he had cut the swim line, both divers went to the surface and were recovered by the diving boat. Then, as a tribute to of the high quality of training of both men, despite the close shave, they both then re-entered the water and completed their search...(11).

Ironically, this naval virtue - carrying on with the job - later became a compensation `sin'. According to the Veterans' Review Board, the diver had been stressed by his close shave, but not stressed enough because he had had the courage to return to duty...(12)

Diving in the Johore Strait was dirty work, but at least the water was flushed by the tides. A team of ship's divers in HMAS Ibis had the experience of being required to dive in the Kuching River in response to the sighting of bubbles coming from under the ship. Like all the Borneo rivers, the Kuching could best be described as `liquid mud', because of the heavy load of silt it carries from the interior to the sea. The ship was secured at the oil terminal at Biawak at the time, so swimmer attack was arguably possible, but the divers were working against the flow of the river, at night and in complete and muddy obscurity, using their `ten eyes - five on each hand' as they had been taught. They found no divers or devices attached to the hull, but as they groped around they did encounter plenty of sea snakes!...(13)

The success of the deployment of the Mobile Clearance Diving Team in 1965 led to the deployment of a second team, titled Clearance Diving Team 1, in March 1966. Taking passage in HMAS Melbourne, the six man team arrived in Singapore on 12 April. Once again, the Australian sailors were integrated with the RN's Far East diving organisation, and shared its duties. These included a survey of the Prince of Wales and Repulse wrecks at fifty five metres, and the recovery of the wreckage of an RAF fighter which had crashed off Changi. The recovery of exercise mines, general diving duties around the naval base and underwater maintenance and survey occupied the rest of the team's time.

Unconnected with Confrontation, but reinforcing the point about the growing involvement in Vietnam, half of the team joined HMAS Sydney at sea in late April and disembarked when that ship departed Vung Tau on 6 May, for discussions with the staff of US Naval Forces Vietnam and a short visit to the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal team based in Saigon. This was in preparation for a short attachment in early June, which laid the foundations for the permanent deployment of Clearance Diving team 3 to Vietnam in September 1967.

Confrontation operations validated the RAN's concepts for defence of ships against underwater swimmer attack and - with some reservations - the capability of its personnel to perform this task. They also provided valuable exposure of the RAN Clearance Diving Team to operational conditions and tasks, testing their training, techniques and equipment. This was not the first time RAN personnel had undertaken diving and explosive ordnance demolition tasks during operations - both had been performed with courage and distinction during World War 2, but Confrontation saw the first deployment of an RAN CD team and the first operational experience for Ship's Divers. Both acquitted themselves well.

1. Ian Pfennigwerth is a naval historian, who served 35 years in the RAN, including two tours during Confrontation. He was in Yarra at the time of the `dead diver' incident. Four of his books have been published and a fifth - on the RAN's role during the Pacific War, will be released later in 2009.

2. Detail of the RAN's role in the development of the RMN and involvement in Confrontation operations is contained in Ian Pfennigwerth, Tiger Territory, Sydney: Rosenberg Publishing, 2008, from which some of this article is extracted. See also the official history in Jeffrey Grey,Up Top, Sydney: Allen & Unwin,