© The Author(s) 2019 151
A. O’Sullivan, The Baghdad Set,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15183-6_7
CHAPTER 7
Border Security and Boots on the Ground
The patience of Job, the tact of Jeeves, considerable physical stamina,
and the hide of a rhinoceros.
—Description of Sergeant Pluck, BEM, 401 FSS, i/c Tel Kotchek
Frontier ControlThe Field Security Sections (FSS) of the Intelligence Corps were highly
mobile, lightly armed units normally of platoon-to-company strength
commanded by a field security officer (FSO) assisted by a section sergeant
major (usually a WOII). There were no privates: like the military police,
all British and Indian FSS personnel were NCOs—lance-corporals (or
lance-naiks) and above—to give them the necessary degree of authority to
do their work. Most were corporals (or naiks) and sergeants (or havil-
dars). Each section was usually equipped with motorcycles and a three-ton
lorry to haul equipment and stores, though in some M/T-inaccessible
areas horses, mules, or even donkeys were used. The service pistol was the
preferred weapon. In the Middle East, the Field Security Wing (FSW) of
A.F. Judge, ‘The Field Security Sections of the Intelligence Corps, 1939 to
1960’, unpublished MS, Military Intelligence Museum and Archives, Chicksands,
Bedfordshire, 2, who writes: ‘This account is taken from the “History of Field
Security in PAIFORCE”, and although it does not name the NCO, I believe it to
have been Sergeant Pluck of 401 FSS.’