The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
The Vanguard of Army detachments to the RAAFs West Malaysian base at Butterworth - Charlie Company of The Royal Australian Regiment's Singapore-based first battalion - wound up its training in the country this week with a company defence exercise on nearby Penang Island. The exercise marked the close of training for the First Australian Infantry Company to be deployed to Butterworth. For Charlie Company it meant the rounding off of a rigorous five weeks intensive training schedule. From their quarters the soldiers, led by their company commander, Major Ken Mallinson of Hurstville Grove, Sydney, NSW, boarded trucks for the journey to neighbouring Penang, about two miles off the mainland. Their destination was the rugged, little inhabited north-west tip of the popular tourist port. After making the crossing by vehicle ferry, the convoy negotiated some of Malaysia's most mountainous landscape using the picturesque coast road. Dotted with sleepy fishing villages, the route took the three rifle platoons to an obscured beach area hidden in a cleft between dense jungle covered mountains for a taxing jungle training programme. The Minister for Defence, Mr Frase, announced Charlie Company's deployment to Butterworth last month. He said the companies sent to Malaysia would use the training areas and facilities of Butterworth and its environs to vary and enhance their own training and to develop further co-operation with the Malaysian forces and elements of the Royal Australian Air Force at Butterworth. The Prime Minister, Mr Gorton, first announced the decision to put an infantry company at Butterworth in his Defence statement to Parliament in February last year. Charlie Company Commander, Major Mallinson described his company's final exercise on Penang Island as educationally valuable, and his company's tour at Butterworth as a huge success. On its return to Singapore, Charlie Company will stand down for a month while its soldiers take their annual leave. Bravo Company will move to Butterworth early in the New Year. Australia's first infantry company to return to Malaysia under the new training programme winds up its training with an exercise on Penang Island. Also identified: Private Michael Crack of Onelia, WA.
A company of Australian infantry from Singapore has arrived at the RAAF base at Butterworth in Malaysia. The company, Charlie Company of 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, at present servin
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