Outnumbered but willing to fight on against communists

THEY were outnumbered three to one and the enemy was coming at them with heavy fire.

It was quick thinking that saved the lives of 22-year-old Second Lt Panirchellvum Velai­tham (pic) and his five men during a confrontation with communist insurgents in 1976.

“It was dark and visibility in the jungle was poor. We only heard gunfire and the shuffling of leaves,” said Capt (rtd) Panirchellvum, 62, of the incident in Air Kala, Gerik.

Running out of options, the young officer was forced to use all five M36 hand grenades he had.

“I pulled the pin of my first grenade and counted to five. There was a big explosion. Then, I threw the remaining four. Out of all five grenades, only one did not explode.”

Outnumbered, they waited until 6am before advancing to where the enemies were, some 20m away.

“We saw one dead body and a lot of blood. We decided to get permission to follow the others,” he said.

A mile down the road, a communist insurgent stepped out of his hiding spot and trained his rifle at Panirchellvum.

But Panirchellvum had noticed a nervous glint in the man’s eye.

“I lowered my weapon and he did too. Then I tied him up,” he said.

The man was from Sitiawan, Perak, and spoke English well. His capture gave the army important intelligence to combat the insurgency in Gerik.

For his courage and valour, Panirchellvum was awarded with the Panglima Gagah Berani the following year.

After retiring from his military service in 1985, Panirchellvum joined the plantation sector and worked his way up to become a chief operating officer in one of the companies. He now owns a plantation business in Sabah.

“This is my message to the younger generation: nation-building was done by all races in Malaysia.

“Young ones today must re-read our history on how the previous generation fought to preserve peace and harmony,” he said.