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APPENDIX II
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APPENDIX II
At the request of our government, the Israelis had arrived in November 1965 to study how they
could assist the SAF in its build-up. Their immediate task were to ascertain the competency and
standard of skills of Singapore’s military personnel. They began the assessment and selection
of the potential trainees before launching the Instructors’ Preparatory Course. 2LT Clarence
Tan who had just returned from the Malaysian Special Services Unit, was asked to perform
various physical tests that would be used as a basic standard for the selection. The selection
process included tactical tests. Officers like CPT James Chia and LTA Kesavan Soon were
tested on this with a sand model. They impressed the Israelis with their excellent performance
and responses. The Israelis might have felt differently when non-operational SVC officers and
NCOs were tested. Officers from 2 SIR and NCOs could not be tested as the unit was still on
operations in Sabah, Malaysia. They discovered that most of the senior officers at MID were
out of touch with the ground and lacked an understanding of current events. One top senior
officer misinformed them when he said that the SAF military personnel were poorly trained
and were only slightly above the level of boy scouts. They had had a brief discussion with one
SVC senior non-operational major who portrayed the volunteer military personnel as weekend
soldiers who joined SVC as a hobby. The team at this point knew that they had to be content
with personnel of various levels of military competency and backgrounds for the course. They
took the opportunity to formulate the syllabus with the genuine intention of bringing everyone
up to the same level in the Instructors’ Preparatory Course.
IX. WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN
We were informed of the new changes when we reported to Jurong Primary School in the
morning after a two-week break. The course managers and the Israelis had come up with a
revised programme for mature and trained personnel. We would no longer have to stay in but
to report for training at 0800 hrs when breakfast would be served. On Mondays and Tuesdays,
there would be technical and classroom training, with the latter part of each day spent on
5BX or games. From Wednesdays to Fridays, there would be night training. Half-day training
sessions would be held on Saturdays. Buddy-pairings of a Police trainee officer with an SIR
officer would be initiated to assist the police officers keep abreast with the developments of
the course. Under the new syllabus, new weapons and demolition, including live and training
grenades, would be introduced. These would be the new US AR-15 Rifle and the Israeli rocket
launcher. The Israeli bangalore torpedo for breaching and improvised jerry can petrol bombs
for vehicle ambush would be used for tactical exercises. All training would be done at Pasir
Laba and at the rifle ranges in the new SAFTI complex. Lessons on Fighting in Built Up
Areas (FIBUA) would be taught and would include night movement using overlays (map) on
tracing paper. Fire and movement and tactical exercises from section to platoon levels would
be executed at the Pasir Laba training areas. These would be followed by live firing exercises.
Some SIR trainee officers would be nominated to assist in the field training and would be
assigned to write instruction formats on the lessons they assisted in. The new training period
would last for about six and a half weeks. This new training syllabus appealed to us and we
were very keen to learn.