Lieutenant-colonel Ian Hywel-jones
Officer who was awarded the Military Cross after taking part in an unusual ambush in Malaya
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL IAN HYWEL-JONES, who has died aged 85, was awarded an MC in Malaya in 1956; he subsequently worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
In 1955 Hywel-jones, serving with 1st Battalion The South Wales Borderers (1 SWB), was posted to Malaya during the Emergency as the battalion’s intelligence officer. In the operations room, he and his staff, surrounded by large maps and aerial photographs, logged every scrap of information about the communist terrorists in the area.
In December, 1 SWB moved to Kluang where Hywel-jones built up a thorough knowledge of the terrain and habits of the terrorists. Most of the fighting in the jungles was undertaken by small patrols. Taking only one or two men, usually at night, he brought back important information on which battalion plans could be based and sought every opportunity to join ambush and assault parties.
The terrorists, who had been living for years as hunted animals, had acquired an instinct for danger and lightning-fast reactions and Hywel-jones had to match them.
In June 1956 he was one of a party of eight who took part in a rather unusual ambush operation.
In the preparations, nothing could be left to chance. Every inch of exposed skin had to be smeared with black grease paint. Hair cream had to be washed off because the terrorists had a very keen sense of smell. Anything that could possibly rattle – rifle sling swivels or metal buckles – was secured with adhesive tape. Watches, which could glint in the sun, were kept hidden.
The problem was to arrive at the ambush position undetected. To go by truck was to risk word getting out that an operation was in progress. To walk, even by night, ran the danger that footprints would be spotted in the morning and the terrorists warned.
Shortly after midnight, the party concealed themselves in an armoured wagon that was used to run ahead of passenger trains to alert the driver of attempts to sabotage the railway. They rattled along the line in this trolley and, at a secluded spot, the driver slowed to allow the ambush party to jump out, slide down the embankment and wait in the shadows for the following passenger train to pass.
It was 3am when they set off in single file, the last man walking backwards and brushing away every trace of their footprints. Silent and motionless, they lay up in a thick clump of bushes close to the track.
The position had been selected by an informer who was to lead the terrorists into the trap and who was relying on a strip of cloth around his neck, almost indistinguishable from his skin, to avoid being shot himself.
At 9am four figures came down the track. They all wore khaki drill with a red star in their peaked caps. One was killed while another was wounded but escaped with a comrade.
The informer should have been in the lead but was out of position and was shot in the legs by mistake. Rather incongruously, he ended up in a hospital bed next to one of the ambush party who had also been wounded.
Hywel-jones was recommended for his Military Cross by Lieutenantcolonel Richard Miers, his CO, who paid tribute to the young officer’s outstanding initiative, skill and steady courage during 18 months of a most demanding campaign.
Robert Ian Hywel-jones was born on June 4 1932 at Colwyn Bay, North Wales. His father was a manager of the Midland Bank, Leominster. Young Ian attended Birkenhead School before being called up for National Service.
He completed his basic training with the Royal Welch Fusiliers at Wrexham and, after attending RMA Sandhurst, in 1952 he was commissioned into 1 SWB. Three years of regimental soldiering included an appointment as ADC to the Commandant of the British Sector in Berlin.
After operations in Malaya, Hywel-jones returned with the battalion to England and was posted to HQ 44th Parachute Brigade, based in the Duke of York’s Barracks, Chelsea. Following a three-month attachment to “D” Squadron 22nd SAS Regiment in Oman, he returned to 1 SWB at Minden, BAOR.
In 1964 he moved to the HQ Federal Regular Army in Aden. This operational tour was followed by two years in Cardiff as training major to the Welsh Volunteers. The posting coincided with the merger of the regular soldiers of SWB and the Welch Regiment to form The Royal Regiment of Wales (RRW).
In August 1969, when 1 RRW moved to Belfast on internal security duties, Hywel-jones was appointed the battalion’s community relations officer. This was only a two-month tour and, on their posting to Osnabrück, BAOR, he was sent to the Abu Dhabi Defence Force as training officer.
A spell as second-in-command of 1 RRW in BAOR was interrupted by tours in Northern Ireland in 1972 and 1973. During these he played an important role running the battalion’s operations control room. After a staff appointment at the MOD, Stanmore, he moved to Tehran as assistant defence attaché in the British Embassy.
In 1979 the Embassy was forced to close and Hywel-jones and his wife were evacuated. But he returned to the Middle East as defence attaché at the British Consulate in Jeddah. This was his final posting and he retired from the Army in September 1983.
Hywel-jones and his wife moved to Fulham, west London, and he took a civilian job with the Foreign Office. He was responsible for the welfare of British Army officers and their families posted to British embassies around the world. He retired for the second time in 1996 and the following year was appointed MBE.
Then, sponsored by the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, he embarked on the compilation of a register of biographical details of those awarded Britain’s two highest awards for gallantry. It was a considerable undertaking requiring meticulous accuracy and, after more than 12 years of work, The Victoria Cross and the George Cross, containing some 1,500 entries of recipients, was published in November 2013 in three volumes.
Music was always an important part of Hywel-jones’s life, and while at the FCO he joined the Treasury Singers, comprising members of the Treasury, Foreign Office and Cabinet Office.
Ian Hywel-jones married, in 1965, Merilyn Booker, whom he had met in Berlin. She predeceased him. There were no children.
Lt-col Ian Hywel-jones, born June 4 1932, died January 12 2018