Saturday, 31 January 2015

Attention

I read today that the British Army is to create a cyber-warfare unit. Apparently following the lead of the US and Israelis we are to engage in non-lethal cyber warfare. The Israeli defence force is apparently active on over thirty platforms in six different languages. I assume that the Soviets and Chinese are also active. I am making an assumption here that this is different from hacking systems of enemy states and disrupting them, which is something I believe that the Israelis/US did to the Iranian nuclear programme, destabilising their nuclear centrifuges. Again I am not absolutely clear, is this really just another form of propaganda?

This however was not the thing that took my attention with the announcement; it was that this group is to be designated the 77th Brigade. Without further research this probably means nothing to my readers. Well in World War Two the 77th Brigade were known as the Chindits who conducted long range raids behind the Japanese lines in Burma. A charismatic man named Orde Wingate led them. He was an archetypal British eccentric who on active service used to wander around naked quoting Latin texts. Now this force were extraordinarily effective striking the Japanese where they least expected, helped not least by the ability of the force to live off the land and ally themselves with native tribesmen. They were largely supplied from the air, and this is where I have a personal interest, as my father was a navigator in the planes undertaking this resupply.


Now when I heard that this new cyber regiment is to carry the badge of the Chindits, I wondered what my father would have said. Would he have thought this disrespectful? Or would he have made some pithy comment probably along the lines of “what they need is some square bashing not be liked on Facebook”. So although my initial reaction was that this was disrespectful to the memory of some very brave men, on consideration and thinking about my father I think that this is actually a way of preserving their memory for future generations.

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