118 - Jungle Warfare Doctrine Development in the Australian Army

We return to the fetid jungles of New Guinea and our Kokoda Campaign Podcast series, looking at the 53rd Battalion and it's combat performance at Isurava.

This episode is the start of a series looking at Jungle Warfare Doctrine Development, with Dr Adrian Threlfall, an expert in how the Australian Army learned to learn about combat in the jungles of Malaya, Singapore, Papua, New Guinea, and many other islands to the north of Australia.

Check out the  show notes for the podcast for all of the information that we cover in this episode as well as the images and other details that didn't make it into the podcast.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How did the Australian Army,Learn to Learn? We look at

(00:03):
jungle warfare doctrinedevelopment in the Second World
War.
Ladies
and gentlemen, welcome toepisode 118 of the principles of

(00:24):
war podcast, jungle warfaredoctrine development in the
Australian Army.
Today. I'm very excited to haveDr Adrian throw fall on the
podcast. His PhD was thedevelopment of Australian Army
jungle warfare doctrine andtraining 1941 to 1945
He has a wealth of knowledgeabout how the Australian Army

(00:45):
learnt to learn jungle warfareduring the Second World War, and
he is the author of the bookjungle warriors. This interview
is going to be important for anumber of reasons. The ability
to anticipate likely tasks iscritical to setting the troops
up for success in combat at thestrategical level. Australia has

(01:06):
many countries to the north withlarge amounts of jungle terrain,
and yet the requirements tofight in Malaya, Singapore,
Papua, New Guinea, the DutchEast Indies and many of the
island nations to our northseems to have gone completely
under the radar, even though theJapanese were the main threat
during the interwar period.Learning to learn the lessons of

(01:28):
Modern Combat is a criticalskill. Last episode, we
discussed innovation andadaptation in Ukraine with UAS
combat. Today, we are looking atinnovation and adaptation for
jungle warfare. This isimportant looking forward for
the Australian Army, because itcould be possibly faced with
combat in very similar jungleterrain. Not only that, but the

(01:49):
army will also need to adapt tofighting on the modern
battlefield, with advances inelectronic warfare, UAS,
artificial intelligence, and arange of other technologies, the
speed with which army adaptswill be critical to success on
the modern battlefield. So let'sget into the interview with Dr

(02:10):
Adrian. Threlfall. Adrian,welcome to the podcast. Do you
want to start off by telling usa little bit about jungle
warriors and why you wrote it?
Certainly I'd always beenfascinated with the Australian
Army in the Second World War,and I'd read went broadly, and a
lot of the books that I'd readtalked about how the Australians

(02:31):
had made a remarkably rapidtransition to the jungle, so
those sixth, seventh and ninthdivisions, second AIF that had
So in your book, you've got aquote from Michael Howard. This
fought in the Middle East, inNorth Africa, in Greece and
Crete and Syria. How those thosecombat hardened troops, had come
back and made I can't rememberexactly who it was, but might
have been Lex McCawley. Mighthave been Peter Brune had

(02:53):
written a book in the 1990s andregularly talked about the fact
that it was a remarkably rapidand almost seamless transition
to jungle conditions, and thatby the end of the war,
Australians were theacknowledged jungle aficionados
or jungle fightersextraordinaire. I didn't
necessarily disbelieve this, butI've always been more interested

(03:16):
in how things happen, I guess,rather than just the what and
the when and the where. Ithought, all right, if maybe
this is true, maybe the factthat they were combat hardened
soldiers meant that they couldtransition to fighting in a
completely different environmentagainst a completely different
enemy. Maybe, maybe that wastrue. But I wanted to find the

(03:37):
proof. I wanted to go, get tothe sources, have a look at the
evidence and see what theevidence of both those people
who had served so the men whoserved in these units, what they
said and also what the officialrecord said about this
transition. That was really thedrive, as I said, wasn't to
wasn't really to disprove. Iwasn't trying to be negative. I

(03:59):
didn't want to say you're all abunch of lies, and you've been
you've been suck it in, oryou've been had the wool pulled
over your eyes. But I justwanted to find out, all right,
if it was true, then how did ithappen? Because any organization
needs to train and prepare fornew situations, whether it's a
footy team or atelecommunications company or an
army, and I wanted to followthat, that process, I guess, of

(04:22):
of transition from the desert tothe jungle, that was at the
heart of my thoughts.
is an aspect of military sciencewhich needs to be studied above
all others. In the armed forces,the capacity to adapt oneself to
the utterly unpredictable, theutterly unknown, and really the
Australian army's transitionfrom fighting in the desert and

(04:45):
its preparation for fighting thewars that it would thought it
would fight in the interwarperiod, that transition to
jungle warfare, was really quitetortuous, as we've seen from the
experience of the militiabattalions. And so.
14th and second 16th during theKokoda campaign. So what is it
that makes jungle so different?

(05:07):
I think probably at the simplestlevel, it's the lack of
observation. So command,control, communications, are all
so much more difficult in thejungle, and therefore, when
commanders have to rely to agreater extent, I think, than
any other terrain andenvironment. They have to rely
on their junior commanders.There's arguments that people

(05:31):
talking about that junglewarfare is a is a platoon
leaders? War, some people sayingit's actually at the section
level. It's a section commanderswar, and I think that that's the
basic issue, is this, obviously,as a commander, you hope to be
able to, obviously, ideally,you've got observation over your
forces, so you can actually,literally see what they are
doing, either with your own eyesand your binoculars, or you can

(05:54):
do it on screens to see wherethey're where they're moving.
But if you can't do that, youneed to have communications with
them. But in the jungle, as theAustralians found out very, very
quickly, no observation at all.So you can't have visual command
of your Battlefield, of yourforce, whether a company or a
platoon or a battalion orbrigade. Obviously, then right,
you're likely you fall back oncommunications. But it doesn't

(06:14):
work in the jungle. Radio setswith high humidity and rain and
really thick jungle, the radiosets of the day, communication
systems don't really work. Andonce you've lost those two
things for many of the I guessthe commanders of this period,
they're not sure what to fallback on. And even those that

(06:35):
have served in the Middle East,I don't know, there's complaints
by units that serve in Syria. Sothe mountains in Syria and the
mountains in Greece. And there'sa nice quote from a sergeant who
was in, I think, the secondfifth or the second sixth
infantry battalion. So Victorianinfantry battalion that fights
in North Africa then fights inGreece, comes back, and some of

(06:56):
them serve in Syria as well. Andas Blake said, "I thought that
half the mountains of the worldwere in Syria and the other half
were in Greece. But when I gotback to New Guinea, I realized
that I knew nothing at all aboutmountains." And there's
complaints the 108 sets thatthey're using in the mountains
of Syrian and Greece don'tperform. They work when there's
line of sight, basically. And ifthere isn't line of sight, and

(07:17):
you're in you're in a valley,and you've got another unit on
the other on the next valley,you can't talk to them, even
though it might only be akilometer away. And those are
those main issues, the command,control, communications, lack of
observation. Everything stemsfrom that.
The first Australians to fightin the jungle were the two
brigades of the eighth division.How were they prepared to fight

(07:40):
in the jungle and how well didthey do?
They have a long time to traineighth division. Obviously, they
think they're going to jointheir comrades. Obviously,
before this go back, beforeDecember the 7th, 1941 so they
assume, as their, as their theircomrades, have been six div and
then seven div and then ninediv, that they're doing the same
thing. There's trains rollinginto Sydney in late 40 and early

(08:04):
41 from different places, andthey've got chalked on the sides
Berlin or bust Adolf here wecome. So, yeah, they're thinking
they're going to go to theMiddle East and to North Africa.
They've trained, they're trainedinfantry, and obviously this
Infantry Division, but I wouldargue that a lot of their
training is based on two falsepremises. One, that they think

(08:25):
they go to the Middle East andNorth Africa, and two, that
their training is not fit forpurpose. It's really based on
the understanding of people likeGeneral Bennett that is a
reflection of their experiencesof the First World War. The
training in the inter war periodhasn't been great for many

(08:46):
Australian officers. No realopportunities to go to sort of
equivalent of a Command andStaff College, whether in the
United Kingdom, say, Sandhurstor Quetta in what's now
Pakistan, in India. And sothey're digging trench lines,
and they're doing the basictraining. They can march an
awfully long way, route marches,fitness, rifle firing on using

(09:06):
their .303s on ranges. And so,yeah, your basic training
really. When they get to Malaya,obviously, very quickly they
realize, all right, we've got todo things differently. And so
the Brigade Major they're goingto Bennett, who's rather busy
fighting his own battles at thathigher level, and so people like

(09:27):
brigade majors and battalioncommanders, as was be
understandable, go out andapproach other British and
Indian units that are alreadyserving in Malaya, and basically
try to find out from them, whatare they doing? How are they
getting ready to fight? Theyfind out pretty quickly that
only one unit is actually goingout into the jungles, second
battalion of the Argyle andSutherland Highlanders is is

(09:50):
doing that. And they veryquickly start to make
connections with that unit. Andthat proves useful. The other
thing they get.
The way of soldiers being ratbags. Sometimes. One Australian
soldier from he's outside ofSydney. They go into the hold of
the Queen Mary, which is thebig, huge liner that's carrying

(10:11):
them to Malaya. Because for avery long time they don't
realize where they're going.They sail away from Sydney down
to Melbourne. Sail across thebite dock in Fremantle, heading
across the Indian Ocean. So theyis still assuming that they're
going to the Middle East. Andsuddenly the boat turns north.
The convoy turns north, and sothey're heading up straight
through the Dutch East Indiesand up to Singapore. And some of

(10:34):
these young soldiers get downinto the hold, for some reason,
I don't know what they're doingdown there, but they get down
into the hold and they find acrate that says, AIF Malaya.
They break open this crate, andinside they find little
booklets, 29 page booklet, andit says notes for Malaya. And
they're interested in this. Ithink they get hustled out of

(10:55):
there pretty quickly, but oncethe units are in Malaya, this
manual, this little book, thislittle document. It's only
pamphlet size, sort of bookletsize, so not not a four or
foolscap or anything like that.It's only this kind of size, so
tiny little booklet, 29 pages,that it does contain some really
useful notes about serving intropical areas. It's created by

(11:16):
the War Office in Britain, butbased, I gather, created by
officers in the British IndianArmy, so to prepare their troops
when they go across to Malaya.And this little military
training pamphlet is the basisof training programs that the
Australian so that eighthdivision uses throughout their
time in Malaya. It's a goodlittle booklet. It's, it's, it

(11:38):
doesn't sugar coat things. Itreally talks about how tough the
Japanese, and that's that's theassumption, obviously, that it's
going to be the Japanese, howtough the Japanese are. It says
things like, they don't takeprisoners. They will not
surrender. They don't need agreat big logistical tale. They
will fight to the death. Theywill get through any obstacles.
Then their men are battlehardened. They've served for

(12:00):
years in China. So it is. Itreally cuts to the chase. As I
said. It's only short, but itreally it sort of dispels those
myths that I don't know, thingslike the Japanese can't fly at
night time. They've all gotgreat, big Coke bottle, thick
glasses. They've got buck teeth.They've been defeated or haven't
been able to beat the Chinesefor years and years of combat in

(12:21):
China. They're not an army thatis worthy of fear this, this
little booklet basically saysrubbish. These are going to be
these people, if this army, ifwe have to fight them, is going
to be a lot harder than we hadthought with this training
pamphlet, they then, basicallythe units are sent out into the
jungle. The Australians aretold, just go and work out. What

(12:41):
do you do in the jungle? How doyou move in the jungle? Because
for many of them, I guess it'sthe first problem is not
fighting in jungle, it's movingand living and surviving and
navigating in the jungle, I meanin Malaya. And also, obviously,
when to get to the islands ofthe Pacific, maps are either non
existent or they're inaccurate,so you can't see anything. It

(13:04):
doesn't matter if you're up on aridge line, maybe if you're in a
ridge line in Greece or in Creteor in Syria, you can see what's
happening around you. But aridge line in Malaya or in New
Guinea is irrelevant becauseit's still covered in in Triple
Canopy jungle, you still can'tsee anything. So the infantry,
and in particular, the theartillery. The artillery are
tearing their hair out whenthey're in Malaya. They just,

(13:26):
they said their maps areuseless. They spend all their
time doing survey work andtrying to create gridded maps.
But again, there's no comms. Ifyou you don't have big enough
areas to put a whole fieldregiment, so you have to break
them up into batteries, or breakthem up into into sort of two,
25 pounders, if you even got 25pounders, and many of these
units don't at the start, a lotof them have captured Italian

(13:49):
artillery pieces that wereshipped over, shipped over from
the Middle East, from NorthAfrica. And even if they've got
our artillery pieces withammunition, it's the comms. you
can't talk to the infantrybattalions that you're supposed
to be supporting, to provide, toprovide fire support, everybody
falls back on signal signalcables, and is what you have to

(14:11):
use. And units find that insteadof the sort of eight to 10 miles
worth of signal cable they'vebeen allocated by the end of the
campaigns, they've sort ofscrounged 50, 6080, miles worth
of cables, but that needs anawful lot of transport to cart
it around. That's bloody heavy.That's an incredible point that

(14:31):
highlights the important ofgetting comms in the jungle, the
fact that they would go to thelogistics effort of getting so
many so much cable. Yeah, theybasically, yes, begged, borrowed
or stole it. I mean, admittedlyin North Africa, units,
particularly, I guess defendingin Tobruk and other places,
distances between your variouscompany positions are a lot more

(14:53):
spread out. Obviously you don'tclump together in the desert
because one artillery shell cancan wipe out a plateau.
In. So you are more spread out.So they do have to have, they do
spread out and use cable aswell, but you've got other means
of communication. Whereas, as Isaid, in the jungles, you have
to just rely on signal cable,because nothing else works. And
even the, I mean, the fallbackslike heliographs and Lucas,

(15:16):
lamps and things like that, noneof them work because they all
rely on on line of sight as welland observation. So the only
thing that works is singlecable. And as I'm sure you'd be
well aware, if you've got cableslying between all your
positions, back to CHQ and thenback to BHQ, and then obviously
back again to brigade HQ. Thelikelihood that they're going to
be broken either inadvertently,trucks driving over them, tanks

(15:40):
driving over them and anyartillery landing on them in
Malaya, the my funniest one Ifound was when the Australians
strung up cables up in treesinstead of down on the ground,
because they're getting brokenall the time, baboons would
swing off them and break thecables. Now how do you plan for
baboons?
That's not kind of the thingthat you would think about in

(16:01):
your military appreciation?
No, definitely not.
Was the 8th Division able toadapt to jungle fighting, given
the the limited amount of timethat they had between their
initial contacts, given thatbecause they were a fair way
down in the south of the MalayanPeninsula, were they able to
adapt in the time between thatand the final defeat in

(16:22):
Singapore?
This is one of the problems. Iwould argue that eighth div
should have been one of thefirst units to see action, to
give themselves time to do thatadaptation. Most of the
Australian units don't seeaction. Most of the Australian
battalions don't see actionuntil between the seventh and
the 11th of January. So it's amonth 42 so it's a month after,

(16:44):
obviously the seventh and eighthof December, 41 so a month after
the Japanese have invaded beforethose Australian units see
action. Australian battalioncommanders and the brigade
commanders in particular, areheading north, going up and
talking to their comrades whoare desperately fighting further
north up the peninsula and tryand bring those lessons and
learnings back, but it is apretty chaotic and disorganized

(17:08):
retreat at times, and yeah, manyof those British units are not
prepared, as I said, except whenyou'd argue for the Argyle and
Sutherland Highlanders. So theydo bring back some lessons, but
it's hard to really see muchchanges occur, or any changes
occurring in any anypreparations or training that
Australians are doing in sort ofearly January, early to mid

(17:29):
January, and thence, bunchaction is joined. There is
really no chance at all. Andunits are moving. Dispositions
are changing. I'd argue thattimes Bennett's dispositions of
his forces are not there's areally good article in which
what year it is, I think it's a2009
Australian Army journal thatlooks at it's called "Outwitted,
out-generalled, out-fought", andit looks at Bennett and

(17:54):
Percival. And it's a really goodarticle that basically looks at
how not to command in a tacticalwithdrawal. It's almost a it's
almost an object lesson in hownot to do a tactical withdrawal.
So I don't think there's a lotof learning happening in that
retreat, in that tacticalwithdrawal, by by all those
British forces, and not muchbeing passed on to the

(18:16):
Australians. And again, once,once you get to December 7, 41,
obviously, before then, as is apractice, every battalion, every
brigade, should be sendingcopies of its War diary and
training guides up untilDecember 7, headquarters, LHQ,
in Melbourne. And that ishappening before December 7.
That's certainly happening, andthere's lots of interesting

(18:37):
lessons being discussed and andsuggestions for other units. But
obviously, I guess from 22ndbrigade arrives in Malaya in
February, 27 brigade arrives inAugust. This is 1941 and I guess
in the same period, six, sevenand nine division are serving in
the Middle East, and I imaginethat they have no interest in

(19:00):
what's happening in Malayatraining that another unit is
doing, or another division isdoing in the backwater like
Malaya before the war starts. Imean the Pacific. And I imagine
those reports are just probablyjust gathering dust in at our HQ
in this period. So no, I wouldhave said, apart from, as I
said, that's that littledocument that's created or
created before that. So it's notnice, it's stamp date of 1940

(19:23):
can't work out exactly when in1940 that that little tactical
notes for Malaya. That's theonly real lessons that is, is as
of use. So there's little,little tactical innovation
happening in that period. It'sjust a bit of like a warning
that this is what the Jack willdo. They all hit you for a hard
from the front, and then theywill outflank your and try to

(19:44):
they won't care that it's, it'sswamps or jungles or mangroves.
They will head out into the intothe swamps and the mud and
circle around in and hit yourline of communication, 5, 6, 8,
kilometers further south. Andthat then, instead.
of units basically going into asort of an all round defense
that precipitates withdrawal.And that happens over and over

(20:07):
again. As soon as, as soon asthe commander, whether a
battalion commander, a companycommander, learns that he has
enemy formations in his rear.It's almost a disorganized rout
or retreat, and this is theIndian forces and British
forces. Not as much forAustralian forces, but
certainly, yeah, once, oncethey're outflanked, the panic

(20:28):
does set in. So the lessons thatwere learned, you know,
particularly, even if it wasjust about the Japanese way of
war. How did those lessons comeback to Australia? What was it
that was learnt from thedisaster that befell the eighth
division. Well, I'd have saidthat the two things happen.
British command is criticized alot for what it does and doesn't

(20:50):
do in the Malayan campaign, butthe one thing I would give them
credit for is realizing that thewriting was on the wall as it
moves into mid January. And sowhat they do is they send, I
guess it's kind of like a leftout of battle party that what
they do is they send out abrigade commander, a battalion
commander, a company commander,a platoon commander, a section

(21:13):
leader. They send them out ofbattle so that they can write up
their reflections from theirpoint of view, and from the
experience they have had toprovide that to others who are
coming after them. Australia'sdoesn't doesn't do that that
should have happened. We allknow that Bennett manages to
make his escape causes,obviously great controversy, and

(21:34):
a handful of others do as well.So when Bennett gets back to
Australia, he basically put in aroom for several weeks with
these other escapades, and theywrite up their experiences.
There is a company command, butall of these men, from what I
gather from only one battalion,from the second 19th, so there's
a company commander, there's, Ithink, in the two IC, or the IC

(21:58):
of the transport platoon, thereis a sergeant and there's
another lieutenant, so there's ahandful of men, and they do
write up what they felt or whatthey saw, what they did in when
they were in Malaya. It ends upas a 49 page report. I don't
find it of much use at all.There's one and a half pages

(22:18):
that is devoted to jungletraining or preparing troops to
serve in the jungle. And most ofthe lessons are really, I guess,
if we're going to defendAustralia from an invasion, they
might have been, might have beensome useful suggestions there,
but there's very little aboutactually preparing to fight in
the jungle. So it's, I don'tthink it's a great document of

(22:39):
those British officers who, as Isaid, are sent out, and other
men who are sent out, ColonelStewart, who've been in charge
of the Argylls, he writes up adocument, and the most
interesting one to me is ColonelFrancis brink, whose US Army is
an observer. He's been sent overthere by the American Americans.
And he before the before the warbreaks out, and he serves for

(23:03):
several months in Malaya anddown into Singapore, and then
he's evacuated before the fallof Singapore. He also writes up
a really interesting document.It's about 30 pages also, and
those two documents, really,Stewart's document and Brinks
document are far more useful inin providing an overview on an
understanding of what hadhappened in the Malayan campaign

(23:26):
and brink actually,interestingly, incorporates, I'm
not I'd have to go to thearchives in the United States to
find this out. But in heincorporates lessons that from
the Philippines and also fromthe Dutch East Indies. It's
trying to be a more holisticoverview. It's not just a one
theater or, sorry, one campaignoverview. He's actually able to

(23:48):
access, as I said, I'm notexactly sure how, but access
documentation and reports fromthose other two battle fronts
where, obviously, other forcesare opposing. The Japanese.
That's sort of February, March,April, 1942 that they're doing
this admittedly, the same timeBennett is writing his report.
But as far as I'm concerned,it's a bit harsh, but it's

(24:09):
really a waste of time. It'sStuart and Brinks reports that
are far more useful, and thatyou can prove that, I think, by
the distribution of thosereports and who writes about
them. People do receive Bennettsupport. It is translated into
what's called MTPs - militarytraining pamphlets. They're only
short, sort of 10 to 12 pages ononly eight and they come out

(24:31):
every month. So they're comingout in December, 41 and then
January, February, March, April,and continuing the ones for
March, April, May basically athree volume or sort of
serialized version of Bennett'sBennett's document, but you read
reports later on in the readcounts of battalion commanders
and company commanders, andthey're basically saying this is

(24:53):
not much use, whereas theirreports are saying that Stuart's
report and Brinks report is whatthey.
Use. And this is proven by6thDiv on Ceylon. And when the
other units get back to six and70 get back to Australia in sort
of the middle of 42 in thosereports as well, which we can
touch on also, the next battleswere really the bird forces,

(25:17):
which were horribly outnumberedand ill prepared. So there
wasn't a lot that could havebeen learnt from them, really,
or was there. It's interesting.You're right. They are. They're
overwhelmed within two to threedays, basically, sometimes even
less than that. But in theirtraining periods, couple of
their commanders, particularlyJeffrey York, Lieutenant Colonel

(25:38):
Jeffrey York, he writes back,and he's quite insistent about
the changes that he thinks arenecessary. One of the first
things that he says is we needuniforms. We need camouflage
uniforms. He's serving alongsidethe Dutch. So seeing what the
Dutch in Timor are wearing, andsays we need things like this.
We need a jungle green sort of auniform, or a camouflage

(25:58):
uniform. Can we just acquiresome from the Dutch if we can't
get our own, that doesn'thappen. Obviously, one of the
other changes, or one of theother suggestions, and 8th Div
makes this too. There areactually some really good board
diary reports from the middleperiod of 1941 so the training
period for suggestions, back toAustralia, about camouflage

(26:19):
uniforms, about what today, Iguess we both say, sort of call
immediate action drills. Soinstead of the prone, standing
and kneeling at 100 204 100yards, immediate action, they
often call it snap shooting, orbasically, and stalker courses
is everything they call it. Sosort of what, yeah, walking
through the jungle with yourwith your primary weapon and

(26:41):
have targets popping up fromfive meters away, 10 meters
away, 20 meters away, and makingquick, quick snap shots on those
targets. Eighth is suggestingthat we do that, or that this is
very useful. And as I said,reports from those units that
are sent to Timor Ambon and newBitton, yeah, are making
suggestions that and helmets,they all say, get rid of

(27:02):
helmets. You're walking throughthe jungle the helmet on your
head. In in the tropics, oneyou're getting heat stroke
because you've got this metallid on your head that you're
sweating unbelievably under it.And in the jungle, kind of
almost counter intuitive travel.Sound travels so metal twigs
whacking on your helmet, on ametal tin rim of a helmet
travels a long way. So they'remaking suggestions that you get

(27:25):
rid of the helmets. We don'tneed helmets in the jungle. We
need camouflage uniforms. Weneed firearms that are shorter.
They're arguing that data thethree or three is just too long,
particularly if you've got abayonetto attached to it. It's
nearly a meter and a half long.It's think somebody soldiers
wrote, we found it too tangly inthe jungle, and you can see what

(27:45):
he means, sort of in vines andtwigs and things hanging down.
You're probably knocking againstand brushing against things all
the time with your rifle andautomatic weapons. That comes up
over and over again, we need agreater preponderance of
automatic weapons for that thatthose those contacts that happen
so quickly and out of nowhere,even if the scout gets hit first

(28:07):
and drops, the rest of us thenneed to be able to just lay down
suppressive fire to keep thejacks heads down, so that we can
then your commander can make anmake a quick assessment. Do you
assault? Do you pull back yourflank, left, right. What do you
do? So these suggestions arebeing made, as I said, by those
units on the bird forces, butalso had been made in Malaya as

(28:29):
well. So their reports arecoming back to lhQ in Melbourne
about suggestions for changes tobe made.
We'll leave the interview thereand continue on next week with
our interview with Dr Adrianthrottle. He really does have an
encyclopedic knowledge aboutthis topic, and I think it's
really fascinating to hear howthose lessons are slowly

(28:50):
assimilated and put togetherinto a cohesive doctrine that
then troops can be trained inand to become competent and then
expert in jungle warfare.
The principles of war podcast isbrought to you by James Eling.
The show notes for theprinciples of war podcast are
available at www dot theprinciples of war.com for maps,

(29:13):
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