CORRESPONDENCE.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

Sir, I am writing to express my concern about Dr Ron Smith's article `Defence policy and the death of Private Manning' (vol 26, no 3). While the article demonstrates a signal lack of depth in its historical analysis, more damaging are the several erroneous allegations made by Smith in relation to the death of Private Leonard Manning in East Timor on 24 July last year.

In his article Smith alleges that equipment and staffing shortages contributed to Manning's death, that the five-hour delay in securing the feature on which Manning was killed was unacceptable and that the New Zealand Defence Force may have lied about the circumstances of Manning's death. All of these allegations can be easily refuted, and if Smith had bothered to check his sources such baseless allegations would never have been raised.

During operations against the East Timorese militia prior to the contact on 24 July, all available intelligence assessments indicated that the militia were operating in small groups, had only very basic military training and were likely to `shoot and scoot' when contacted. None of this applied to the contact on the morning of 24 July. There, a group of six New Zealand soldiers following a trail they suspected had gone cold were contacted by a group of militia nearly double their size, which was prepared to act aggressively against them and which held the vital high ground of a very steep feature. Manning was hit and killed when the first shots were fired.

It was the local commander's decision not to rush back and take the feature immediately as some of his junior officers had wanted to do. His decision was fully supported by the battalion commander. To rush straight back would have placed even more New Zealand soldiers needlessly at risk.

Instead the commander of the rifle company conducted an immediate aerial reconnaissance and began moving his troops to cut off the path of retreat of the militia force. An infantry company moved to the north-west of the contact site and a reconnaissance platoon deployed by helicopter to establish blocking positions west and east of the feature. Next, a platoon from an additional rifle company was flown in to link up with the company on site and begin a thorough sweep of the feature. Smith might not realise this from the safe confines of his office in Hamilton, but such movement of troops and assets takes time in the rugged terrain of East Timor, and the contact site occurred on one of the most difficult...