RAN 16th Minesweeping Squadron

Book Link - Tiger Territory by Dr Ian Pfennigwerth

The Vietnam War dominates recollections of Australia’s part in the regional conflicts of the 1950s and
60s. The defeat of the USA and its allies and its ramification internationally and domestically still
reverberate. However, this book tells the story of a successful political and military campaign in
Southeast Asia conducted at much the same time as the Vietnam War, but with strikingly different
outcomes, and describes the role that the ships and men of the Royal Australian Navy played in it.

Dismissed in the official history of the Malayan Emergency as ‘inappropriate to the circumstances’, Tiger
Territory demonstrates for the first time how naval power was used in the Emergency to support the
fighting ashore, and how the lessons learned were used in Confrontation with Indonesia a few years
later. It also reveals the operations conducted by RAN ships and personnel to provide the intelligence
needed to defeat incursions and to prevent dangerous escalation of hostilities.

The book traces the role played by the Australian navy in converting the Royal Malayan Navy from a
sheltered workshop for passed-over personnel into a modern and dynamic force, which fought alongside
its Commonwealth partners with skill and determination against determined Indonesian incursions into
Malaysian territory. This was a partnership of lasting importance for both countries and for the region.

While naval warfare is often fought at arms length, Confrontation was very different. The opposing
forces were frequently in full view of each other, and fire fights with infiltrators were vicious close
quarters battles. Commonwealth ships never knew whether the next of dozens of vessels intercepted
and inspected would resist with deadly force, and the ships of the Australian 16th Minesweeping
Squadron were in the front line. The bigger guns of Australian frigates and destroyers backed them, and
fired on Indonesian land incursions, while Australian navy divers played their part in protecting the vital
fleet base of Singapore and in denying the insurgents access to caches of World War II ammunition and
explosives.

With Confrontation defeated it was Australia that took a leading role in the resolution of regional defence
arrangements, with an Australian Admiral taking command on the departure of the British. The Five
Power Defence Arrangements set up in 1972 still operate today.

Tiger Territory is based on many previously unaccessed official records as well as the recollections of
the veterans who served in the theatre. It concludes with an account of the campaign waged by naval
veterans for just recognition, and for the benefits denied them, although freely available to army and air
force veterans of the Malayan Emergency. This scandalous situation was not finally resolved until 2005!

Ian Pfennigwerth is well qualified to tell this story. In his 35 years in the Australian navy he served in sea,
staff and overseas postings, including two tours in Malaysia during Confrontation. Gaining his PhD in
2005, he has developed his interest in naval history, and is now the editor of the Journal of Australian
Naval History, and provides the naval commentary for the ABC TV broadcast of the Anzac Day march in
Sydney. Author and contributor to several journals, Tiger Territory is his third book.
His previous books were A Man of Intelligence: the Life of Captain Eric Nave Codebreaker Extraordinary
and THE AUSTRALIAN CRUISER PERTH 1939-1942

Dr Pfennigwerth is available for interviews and can be contacted on pfennigs1@bigpond.com
You can read the full press report here!

Phone: 02 9654 1502 Fax 02 9654 1338
email scilla@rosenbergpub.com.
www.rosenbergpub.com.au
ABN 88 085 426 811

UK distributors for the book are: Gazelle Book Services
Limited, White Cross
Mills, Hightown, Lancaster, Lancashire, LA1 4XS, UK,
sales@gazellebooks.co.uk, Ph: 44 (0)1524
68765.

Tiger Territory
Press Release comes to us
courtesy of
Rosenberg Publishing Pty
Ltd

anchor colour to base colour here

THE
ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY
16th MINESWEEPING SQUADRON