Gurkhas arrive for exercise DPR/TV/945

British Army Gurkha troops have begun arriving at Rockhampton in Central Queensland for the land phase of Exercise "Coral Sands". More than 5-hundred of the Singapore-based troops will be engaged in the Exercise. The Gurkhas will take the part of an "enemy" force which has invaded Australia. The Gurkhas arrived by air direct from Singapore in RAF Hercules transports and immediately left for the "battle-zone" fifty miles north of Rockhampton. The Gurkhas are "diggin-in" in preparation for the assault landing against them at Shoalwater Bay next Sunday (AM, October 6). They will face an amphibious landing by 2-thousand British Royal Marines, now aboard a fleet of warships approaching from the Coral Sea. In the past, men of the Gurkha Rifles have exercised with Australian and British troops in Malaysia.