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TRAINING THE TRAINERS
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FIVE
II. ‘RAW’ MATERIAL
Of all the elements at the creation of the SAF, the key one was the mindset and qualification
of the trainers. The pedigree of local SMF officers was mixed. There were Volunteers who
had been mobilised to staff 1 SIR when it was raised in 1957, (including some who had
served in WWII) and 2 SIR in 1963, (like the late COL (RET) Ronald Wee Soon Huat): two
graduates of the Officer Cadet School at Portsea, Australia (Brigadier General (Ret) Patrick
Sim Hak Kng and COL (RET) Peter Lim Poh Weng); graduates of the full two-year course
at the Federation Military College (FMC) at Sungei Besi, Malaysia (30); graduates of the six-
month Short Service Commission course also at the FMC (16);
1
graduates of a special six-
super-efficient training institution, so clear out the people in about one tenth of the total
land area of the country and build one; many trainers would be required, so strip the existing
military establishments of their best and brightest, mobilise and second others and train them
to be trainers. These decisions were not recorded elsewhere as historically significant, but
they were: the pieces fell into place with remarkable cohesion—might one say, with military
precision? The auguries must have been good as no major developments derailed the process
and also seemed to validate the soundness of several key principles of war: unity of command;
concentration of force; maintenance of the aim. The only problem might have been how all
these activities were to be funded and that was a secret between the doorpost and the Minister
for Interior and Defence, who had just vacated the job of Minister of Finance. But a budget
policy was put in place shortly after the SAF was launched that up to 6% of Singapore’s Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) would be reserved for defence expenditure each year and that the
details of such expenditure would not be debated openly in Parliament.
SAFTI’s temporary home called Jurong School in 1966.