ANZUK was a tripartite force formed byAustralia,New Zealand, and theUnited Kingdom to defend the Asian Pacific region after the United Kingdom withdrew forces from theeast of Suez in the early 1970s. The ANZUK force was formed inSingapore on 1 November 1971 under Rear AdmiralDavid Wells and disbanded on 31 January 1974.[1]
9 ANZUK Signal Regiment: Under command of theRoyal Australian Corps of Signals, 9th (ANZUK) Signal Regiment task was to support the ANZUK Force, which in 1970 had replaced the British Forces Headquarters and Installations in Singapore. this joint service, multi national regiment took over, as going concerns, the Royal Navy Transmitter Stations at Suara, and the Royal Navy Receiver Station Kranji. The regiment employed New Zealand and British Army, Navy and Air Force Personnel together with locally enlisted Singaporean, British, New Zealand and Australian civilian technicians and communication specialists. In addition there was operational control of a group of Malaysian Navy communicators, which were to interface the force with the Malaysian Navy.[2]
ANZUK Ordnance Depot:[20][21] To support the Land Army component of the ANZUK Force, the ANZUK Ordnance Depot was established from the existing Australian/New Zealand5 Advanced Ordnance Depot. Located in the premises vacated by the Royal Navy Victualling Depot on the dockside at Sembawang Naval Base. Ordnance support to ANZUK Force was based upon an integrated supply service manned by service personnel from the RAOC, RAAOC and RNZAOC with locally employed civilians (LEC) performing the basic clerical, warehousing and driving tasks. ANZUK Ordnance Depot was constituted of the following elements:
Contributing nations wore their individual national uniforms with the addition of the following identifying patches;
ANZUK Headquarters and Support elements:
28 ANZUK Brigade Units:28 ANZUK Brigade Patch
Sea and Air components did not wear any of the patches as they remained under national command and were only attached to NZUK command on an as required basis.
By 1973 the political climate in Australia and the United Kingdom had changed and it was deemed that ANZUK should be disbanded. Rear Admiral Wells,[22] the First ANZUK commander who established the Force, had the task of planning the run-down phase and handing over to his successor Air Vice MarshalRichard Gordon Wakeford,[23] to follow through.
Australia would be retaining a presence inButterworth in Malaysia[24] and the United Kingdom had decided to withdraw all its forceseast of Suez.[25][26] It was in New Zealand's interest to retain a force in southeast Asia, so on 30 January 1974New Zealand Force South East Asia was formed,[27] taking under its command all the New Zealand units formerly part of ANZUK.
Over the course of 1974 the integrated units which made up the ANZUK were gradually disbanded and replaced by national units. On 31 January 1974 ceased to exist, followed on 16 December 1974 with the disbanding of the Naval and Air Headquarters and their assets reverted to their respective national command and what remained of the United Kingdom's land component forces became the28th (UK) Infantry Brigade.
Taking several years for the Australian and United Kingdom units to draw down and withdraw, it was not until 1977 thatNZFORSEA was the sole remaining foreign presence in Singapore.
^Eaton, H. B. (1993).Something extra : 28 Commonwealth Brigade, 1951 to 1974. Edinburgh: Pentland.ISBN1-85821-049-6.OCLC29468672.
^Lord, Cliff; Lord, Chris; Watson, Graham (2014).Royal Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) and Its Antecedents. Helion & Company Limited. p. 383.ISBN978-1874622925.
^"112 S and T Coy RAASC – Singapore".RAASC Digest:95–96. 1971.
^Steer, Brigadier Frank (2005).To The Warrior His Arms: History of the RAOC. 1844153290. p. 211.
^"ANZUK ORDNANCE DEPOT 1971-1975"."To the Warrior His Arms" History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps and Its Predecessors. 26 June 2017. Retrieved5 September 2017.
^Radcliffe, Mathew (2015).Kampong Australia : the colonial reckonings of the Australian military community in Penang, 1955–1988. Australia Macquarie University.
