KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA : It was a walk down memory lane for British air despatcher Raymond Cyril Travis, one of four survivors of an air crash during the communist insurgency in 1957.

Together with a group of 13 retired servicemen who had served with the 55th Air Despatch Company, he visited the Sungai Besi airfield from where the ill-fated flight took off on Aug 27, 1957.

The crash -- just four days before Malaya secured independence from Britain-- in the jungles of Tanjung Malim, Perak, was frontpaged by the then The Straits Times the following day.

The crash killed four crew members, including the pilot and navigator.

Travis, who turned 71 last Sunday, remembered crawling out of the British Royal Air Force's Valleta wreckage, along with driver Alfie M. Downes.

Two other drivers, Ernie Roe and Leonard W. Moore, were immobilised due to serious injuries.

The dead were pilot Flight Lieutenant P.A. Clarke, quartermaster Flight Sergeant Robert Pound, Master Navigator J.J.A. Tucker and signaller Sergeant B.T. Boyatt.

Then a 20-year-old corporal, Travis said he and Downes went separate ways to look for help. It turned out to be an ordeal for both of them.

While a Sycamore search- and-rescue helicopter picked up Roe and Moore the next day, rescuers only reached him six days later as he had wandered over 4.5km from the crash site.

Downes had been rescued two days earlier.

"It was a great relief when a Special Air Service Regiment patrol found me.

"I was fatigued and disorientated."

Travis said he was part of a crew that despatched propaganda leaflets to villages in the interior of Malaya.

"We took off from the Sungai Besi airfield that day to drop leaflets at Cameron Highlands and were making our way through a valley to Tanjung Malim when the port engine suddenly failed.

"We were flying low, about 166m.

"The pilot lost control and the plane crashed into the jungle," said Travis.

The four survivors found it difficult to overcome the ordeal, forcing them to cut short their army stint and leaving the service in 1958.

Travis later married. He has two daughters and a son. His wife died in 1972.

The survivor, who was in town for a five-day visit recently, said Roe, Moore and Downes could not make the trip for various reasons.

The visit was at the invitation of Major (R) Abdul Razak Abdul Hamid, 67.