Thursday, November 25, 2010

A Blast From The Past


A recent posting of a SR.N5 Hovercraft photograph deployed at Tawau during the Confrontation inspired me to dig a little into the operational details of the Hovercraft by the British in Malaya. In fact, the author of the article from which the photo was taken even hinted that it was possible the USN's own use of hovercrafts that has now evolved into the giant LCAC's started from the American's evaluation of the hovercraft operations in tropical Malaysia as not long after that they used the SR.N6 version in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam Conflict.

In Malaya my finding was that two units of the SR,N5, 002/XT492 and 003/XT493 were deployed mainly in Tawau as part of the British Joint-Service Hovercraft Unit (Far East). These hovercrafts were used mainly in the logistics role as part of an evaluation exercise and these old PDF pages tells the story under the title "Supply Run To Kalabakan". With never seen before photos in my lifetime at least, I hope you enjoy the article as much as I do.

A. Page 1.

B. Page 2.

C. Page 3.

D. Page 4.

E. Page 5

F. Page 6 and END.

1 comment:

Asrar said...

thank for the link/pictures an interesting subject for model diorama, by the way in enjoy your views/ info about local scene.
Again thanks for the hard work.