The Jungle is Neutral

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A remarkable man - tough, resourceful, intelligent, determined. But also often vulnerable - physically frail in the face of jungle illness and infection, and especially clearly nourished spiritually by friendships, art and reading. The engines are hard to kill and they just keep going forever if you service them at the correct interval. Gearboxes have the highest potential to give mechanical problems on a Perentie Land Rover, but once again, if you service them at the correct interval, you can avoid most problems. The suspension is a bit hard and they do benefit from the adition of long-travel suspension for improved handling on rough terrain. The most unusual lines of the book have to be these: "At this meal there was a meat dish about which there seemed to be some mystery. I found it very good, being less rank then monkey though not so good as jungle pig. After the meal I was told that I had been eating Jap. Though I would not knowingly have become a cannibal I was quite interested to have sampled human flesh".

This was written by a Colonel in the British Army who was first posted here to help conduct training in guerrilla warfare. The British actually didn’t expect to fall to the Japanese because they thought they had good defences set up in Singapore but they did and Colonel Chapman ended up training a lot of Communist guerrillas in the jungle to fight the Japanese. His 3 1/2 years spent in the Malayan jungle was one of unforeseen hardships and sufferings due to the harsh conditions in the jungle as well as to various diseases. Many of his fellow officers lost their lives succumbing to various diseases or were beheaded by the Japanese. In the 2009 financial crisis, there were investors who made a lot during the crisis (think those who shorted subprime), some who lost it all (those heavily invested in Lehman/Bear Stearns or who bailed at the bottom), and many investors somewhere between those two extremes. While the exercise, which also included personnel from The Highlanders, 4th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Household Cavalry Regiment, and the Royal Lancers, had a simulated ‘enemy’, the biggest adversary proved to be the jungle itself. There will be further posts to this series where I’ll showcase my modified Perentie FFR (Fitted For Radio) and Perentie RFSV (Regional Force Surveillance Vehicle) as well as post a bit about my adventures through Northern Australia in the Lizard. After the fall of Malaysia to the Japanese, the unflappable F. Spencer Chapman survived for years in the jungle as a guerilla fighter. The Jungle is Neutral is his amazing tale of survival and valor against all odds.However, not all soldiers capitulated. Some soldiers viewed the jungle opportunistically, with supplies and cover available for all:

Commissioned into the Seaforth Highlanders as a lieutenant on 6 June 1939, [11] Chapman was chosen for a mission in Australia to train Australian and New Zealand forces in guerrilla warfare and eventually to join what was then Special Training School 101 (STS 101) in Singapore. One of the main objects of this school was the organisation of parties to stay behind in areas the Japanese might overrun. In August 1941, a plan for stay-behind parties that would include local Indians, Chinese and Malays was proposed, but this was rejected by the British colonial governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, as extravagant and defeatist. Had permission been granted, Chapman speculated that the effect of the trained guerrilla forces would have delayed the Japanese invasion long enough for British reinforcements to arrive in Singapore, and Singapore might not have fallen. [12] In his book, The Jungle is Neutral, Freddy Spencer Chapman describes his experience as a World War II British soldier fighting in the Malaysian jungles. The fighting was intense, but the effect on the soldiers’ mindset was even more unsettling:Gino Watkins moulded an extraordinary esprit de corps in his expeditions, and the expedition members were a mixture of hard nuts, and rather fey Cambridge misfits. [ citation needed] Many of the members would go on to do extraordinary things in the war. These members included Martin Lindsay, Augustine Courtauld and Chapman himself. Barker, Ralph (1975). One Man's Jungle: A Biography of F.Spencer Chapman, D.S.O., Chatto and Windus, pp.268–292 Normally based in Yorkshire, the jungle warfare training that these soldiers undertook in the South American country during November and December must have seemed a world away from the norm. Trekking deep behind enemy lines into the jungle, this veteran explorer turned special forces operative unleashed a one-man commando campaign of such destructive power and lethal ferocity that the Japanese deployed a Regiment of four thousand men in a desperate effort to hunt him down.

In any events, however seemingly dire, there is nothing to prevent us from searching for its hidden opportunity. It is a failure of the imagination not to do so. But to seek out the opportunity in situations requires a great deal of courage, for most people around you will persist in interpreting events in the grossest terms: success or failure, good or bad, right or wrong. These simplistic, polarized categories obscure more creative and useful interpretation of events that are far more advantageous and interesting.6

Partnered with the British during the exercise was the Belize Defence Force (BDF), whose personnel were vital in the smooth running of training. Despite the interesting stories told in the book, it's quite difficult reading it especially of the author's descriptions of his surrounding conditions, landscapes, and terrains. I find it hard to imagine what he described probably due to my not being familiar with the terrains of the jungles.