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SECTION TRAINING
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NINE
This phase saw training increasingly move out of the immediate precincts of the SAFTI
training area to other parts of Singapore. Resettlement was going on from the market
gardening plots of Pasir Laba that would eventually be Areas A, B, C, D and E and also
the area around Tuas, to Lim Chu Kang, Neo Tiew Road and Upper Jurong Road, east of
the Jalan Bahar/Boon Lay Road junction, with some of the farmers moving as far afield as
Marsiling and Punggol (short-lived as their prospects of remaining farmers would prove
as Singapore’s development plans caught up with them). Section training exercises were
conducted in the then undeveloped rural areas of Changi, Seletar, Bedok, the Mandai forest
reserve, Bukit Timah, Marsiling (Spot Height 110) and even sectors off Upper Jurong Road
that had been slated for resettlement from the SAFTI/Tuas area. In the SAFTI training area,
unofficial names had taken hold for various reference points such as Four Track Junction,
Mangosteen Junction, Flag Pole Junction, Mast Hill, Snake Hill, Red House Hill, Bunker Hill,
Elephant Hill, Zailanni Patch, Cowdung Hill, Sawmill Area, Good Morning Hill and Python
Hill (south of Tuas). Tracks with official designations such as Track 11, Track 41, Track 48,
etc., and features identified by spot height in the topographical maps remained as such, with
trainees and instructors becoming increasingly familiar with these locations in their mental
maps.
They were also becoming familiar with the distinguishing characteristics of many features:
the steepness of the slopes, the thickness of the vegetation, the hardness of the soil for
digging and how marshy the re-entrants were. One bothersome story also began to make the
rounds. There was a narrow creek running across the western flank of the Choa Chu Kang
cemetery area, which was rumoured to be the burial ground of unclaimed bodies from hospital
morgues, presumably with cheap coffins and done by indifferent undertakers employed as
casual labour. It was claimed by several trainees that after they stepped into the creek, they
experienced sores and rashes. If trainees developed such symptoms, the explanations were
probably more straightforward than that, but the idea gripped the imagination, especially in
a seriously superstitious community.
In the immediate vicinity of SAFTI, the locals had readily grasped the economic potential
of large numbers of soldiers training in their midst. Enterprising villagers quickly identified
strategic rendezvous or dispersal points and began to offer soft drinks in bottles or plastic
bags, cigarettes, sweets, and even packaged meals like nasi lemak. They soon established
what items moved fast, but it remained a mystery how they managed to zero in on the
location and timing of gathering troops. The presence of country belles as salesgirls was
not accidental either. Some form of ‘jungle telegraph’ was at work and possibly also some
kind of protection racket to guarantee stakeout rights. A few dollars of profit a day was a
big thing to the farming communities in the 1960s who had diffculties making ends meet.
As SAFTI training became ubiquitous, the ‘F’ (food) echelon became so familiar with
training programmes that these itinerant stall operators on bicycles not only became adept
at predicting the arrival of the training troops, but were sometimes more reliable than the
ration delivery. They probably prayed that troop transport after exercises would be delayed
because it could mean a sell-out, even with a re-supply from the sources.