Army's low point in Low's Gully

Few events contain all the right ingredients to cause the press to fly halfway around the world, set up camp and splash the story on front pages for nearly a month. Descent Into Chaos is an account of such an episode, one with all the elements of a Boy's Own adventure: unexplored wilderness, uncertainty over life and death, and heroic survival. In March 1994, seven British and three Hong Kong soldiers embarked on an adventure training exercise in Sabah, the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. Their aim was to be the first to conquer Low's Gully, a treacherous chasm cut into Southeast Asia's highest peak, Mount Kinabalu. Two older British army officers, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Neill and Major Ronald Foster, led a makeshift team on what was trumpeted as an exercise in leadership, training and morale. In fact it was an ill-planned, hastily-arranged and badly-prepared expedition which contained the hallmarks of disaster from the outset. Squabbles and differences led to the team splitting into two even before the descent began. The officers and the Chinese soldiers - the latter, by their own admission, were never up to the task - and equipment, rations and timing of the expedition were all open to criticism. One group escaped death by spending two weeks swimming through leech-infested pools, abseiling down waterfalls and hacking their way through sodden jungle. Meanwhile, the two officers and three Chinese soldiers were forced to wait for an agonising three weeks with virtually no food before being rescued. The result was a military board of inquiry, one which promised to review army adventure training procedures but pointed the blame for the fiasco firmly at the expedition leader, Colonel Neill. Former army officer Richard Connaughton's book outlines the episode, from its conception to the lessons learned by what he terms 'the notorious debacle of the Low's Gully expedition'. Written in a basic, matter-of-fact style, from interviews with most of, but not all, the main characters, it presents a surprisingly brief account of one of the British Army's more embarrassing episodes. After a short introduction on previous attempts to climb the mountain and descend the gully, the book traces what became an obsession for Colonel Neill, from his first expeditions in the area in the early 1980s to Expedition Gulley (sic) Heights. There is a blow-by-blow account of the planning, sanctioning, training and execution of the near-fatal expedition, one which, even without comment, would leave the reader startled, not only as to what did happen, but that it was allowed to. But, unfortunately, Connaughton cannot resist constantly gracing the reader with his opinions, despite promising a book 'where the facts speak for themselves'. The author captures none of the drama, the suspense or the overwhelming worldwide interest. The characters are briefly introduced and never developed. Some are not even included in the eight pages of photographs. The rescue attempt by British and Malaysian troops is not put into the context of the Pergau Dam affair which had severed relations between the two countries, and many omissions, such as the SAS involvement, are puzzling. Although Connaughton promises a balanced account, he constantly prods and pokes at the two British officers, something which begins as an irritation but results in exposing his motive. Connaughton's assertion that the two officers were to blame may be sound but there appears little doubt that this conclusion had been decided upon at the outset. The notes on the book's jacket say the author is a former army officer with the Brigade of Gurkhas. But nowhere in the book does he acknowledge his contacts with the board of inquiry, an obvious source of much of his information, and whose chairman was a colonel with the brigade. While it is one thing to attempt to set the record straight, it is another to try to do so with a project in which the British Army, at the very least, seems to have acquiesced. The two officers, quite rightly, were taken to task by the media and the army over the expedition, but too few questions have been asked about the army's role. Connaughton defends the practice of adventure training, but pays little attention to how the army could allow it to go so wrong. The focus of his concerns, and perhaps those of the army, are that Colonel Neill and Major Foster sold their story to the press, something the military frowned upon. There were greater concerns, but Connaughton's appear to be just to record those of the army, leaving his promise of a 'truly balanced account' unfulfilled. DESCENT INTO CHAOS Richard Connaughton Brassey, $185