There seems very little info about what when on….

Darren Be says:

“There seems very little info about what when on out there so these stories posted on here are priceless.”

Darren,

Soekarno wanted the entire island of Borneo, if the British were to give Sarawak and Sabah away, why wouldn’t they give it to him he asked. He already had Kalimantan and the states of Sarawak and Sabah would do very nicely but there was also oil rich Brunei which was “the jewel” that sparkled. Because Britain was leaving the Far East, he thought it might be a good idea to have Malaya too and his first act there was to drop paras into Johore.

Religion wise, Sarawak was not Moslem, it was more Pagan but the interior people of Sarawak lived a communal life, everything in the Longhouses was shared, a form of Communism if you like but without the political will to force it onto others. Each longhouse I visited had pictures on the wall of HRH and the Greek Prince. I did get asked quite a few times, “Why are you giving us to Malaya, we do not have cultural ties with Malaya ?” Sabah was different, there they were Moslem in the main and of course Brunei is Moslem. Of the three states, I personally consider Sarawak was the worst off and probably has had to change the most.

You only have to look on Google Earth to see what they have done to the rainforest, there are logging tracks everywhere on the ridgelines even in deepest 3rd Division. You can assess that Nanga Gaat became a centre for logging just by looking at the area today. I know what logging does to rainforest as I have seen it with my own peepers.

When Confrontation started there were no ground troops there and the Indons could walk over the border; Indon aircraft overflew Brunei dropping leaflets. It looked like Brunei would go, followed by Sarawak. South of Kuching was hot and in desperation, the British Government allowed the Ibans to head hunt again until they got some troops there. I can imagine the scene with the local District Officer saying, “I say, you Iban chappies…the big White Queen says that you chaps can take a few of those beastly Indon heads when they pop over the border…Now what do you say to that..Hmmm?” Big grins all round…….

I recall reading about a supposed “crack” Indonesian Army Division, the “Siliwangi Division”, that encroached over the border south of Kuching through a rubber plantation and were met by yellow-painted Ibans brandishing pangars (long knives) and the Siliwangis ran.

While I was on the SRT Course at Ternhill in Shropshire there were returned pilots who had gained experience and who were now back to train new pilots going out there. They had colour slides of the jungle, the bases, the people and some depicted smiling Ibans holding heads.

The strategy was one of quiet containment, just keep the Indons out and there will then be very little trouble. Get the people behind you with a hearts and minds campaign, intern troublemakers in fenced camps. Patrol the border with troops on the ground, gather intelligence from related people over the border, eliminate the Indons when they did come over, gain air superiority and they would eventually give up. Stop them at every turn but if there was a build-up over the border which would cause big trouble, then nip it in the bud and that is where the British SAS, Australian and New Zealand SAS entered the picture in order to “visit” these build-ups and cause maximum damage.

Other units of the British Army also “visited” the other side and I have here a book about the Durham Light Infantry, written by a member who was there and it tells of British losses around a border area the author calls “Gunang Gadja” which from my maps was “Red 19” and it was South-East of Pluman Mapu (Red 14) and South-West of Nibong (Red 04), for those that still have the maps.

The area to the South and South-East of Kuching was the hottest area and was mainly 103 Squadron territory with a forward Base at Simmangang, but 110 Squadron also operated from Kuching, I did a few detachments there. Helicopter LZ’s were coded Red, White and Blue and apportioned numbers depending on which area of operations you were in, 1st, 2nd or 3rd Division controlled from Kuching. 4th Division was controlled from Labuan. Commander British Forces Borneo (COMBRITBOR) had a beautiful house on a headland near Brunei town.

Throughout the conflict, the modus operandi was to drop troops into the border in strengths of about 30, they would patrol the border from Grid Ref to Grid Ref and be re-supplied after about two weeks, where rations (including live chickens) would be taken up to a known LZ for a rendezvous point and the patrol on the ground would show the colour of the day by a smoke grenade and the chopper would approach the pad but be ready to pull off if the unexpected happened. Sometimes the troops would not be there in which case you held off until they either appeared or you could locate them by the coloured smoke which would drift through the jungle and come out a mile or so from where the troops were. If they were late, you came back later. Travel is not easy through the jungle as I well know.

It was a bit hit and miss at times and as ‘Sycamore’ said earlier, your enemy was poor communications air to ground and ground to air.

After another two weeks the exhausted patrol would be picked up and this is where gallons of “underarm” would have come in handy ! The aroma of the jungle is also hard to get rid of, you can smell for days….. There would always be a party on at the Army camp after a patrol.

Biggest enemy to the troops (apart from the Indons) was the possibility of catching Leptospirosis which is a disease brought on by water contaminated by rats or other vermin. Drinking such water was one way but it was known that walking through water with a recent cut or abrasion would also do the trick. Lepto casualties were evacced to Singapore for treatment at the BMH. Lepto sends you yellow in colour, affects the kidneys and other organs and makes you comatose, it can kill.

“Full Precautions” roles happened occasionally if a Patrol was in trouble and had to be picked up in a hurry, the Whirlwind would have two GPMG’s mounted one at the door and one at the LHS window and two crewmen would be employed. The pilots had minimum armour plating protection as in “theory” you do not send soft-skinned vehicles into a combat zone.

Very rarely did we have to use the rescue mode and pick people up by the wire and strop but it did happen. Flying was usually about five or six days a week and it was from 6-6:30am till dusk at The Gaat, that would be typical during Confrontation. When it eased off in mid-1967, flying became less until by 1968 we were back in Singapore and then started detachments to HongKong.

Know your enemy: Any war…

RPM, Fuel Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

A Caribou belonging to the “Ten Terrors”…

A TUDM (Tentera Udara Di-Rajah Malaysia) [Royal Malaysian Air Force] DHC-4 Caribou FM-1102. The “Ten Terrors” was the nickname applied (obviously the “Tentera” lent itself splendidly….)

I think this was taken at Long Pa Sia and I always thought that Long Pa Sia was at the eastern end of Sarawak but I am told (and can only find) a Long Pa Sia in Sabah which comes up on Google Earth (if you enter the name).

When 110 Squadron moved to Labuan and Bario in 1967, Confrontation had officially ended but the presence was still required just in case it flared up again, particularly in Brunei.

Some Caribous were based in Labuan and supplied the strips, Long Pa Sia, Long Semado, Bario and the SRT’s (Whirlwinds) ferried the supplies to the border posts. The Malaysian Army was taking over (to have a second go at defending their own country) and they were using Alouette helicopters in support. Some Ghurkas remained.

The TUDM lost one of these Caribous after an engine failure on the way to Long Semado, the Captain turned back for Labuan but exhausted his fuel on the good side and crash landed at Meligan but off the grass strip and the Caribou was destroyed.

RPM, Fuel Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

Speaking of the floods at Nanga Gaat…

When one flood happened at The Gaat, I happened to be at Kapit which was downriver from The Gaat by 40 miles. That is not the straight line distance as normal policy and for safety reasons we generally followed the rivers.

Kapit had an airstrip which could take Single Pioneers (maybe Twins too but I never saw one there) and we used to get some supplies flown into there which we picked up by chopper and also did a buy in the town as well.

The flood at The Gaat had washed away the KOSB Army Officer’s Toilet basha and it floated gracefully down the Rajang with this big sign on it saying “Officers Only”. We had noticed it wending it’s way downstream when we flew down to Kapit….

There were four drunken “Jocks” at Kapit who had been out on the town (let loose !) and they had just boarded a hired longboat for the trip back to The Gaat and had moved off from the jetty at Kapit as the KOSB Officers Toilet basha “hove” into view. The Jocks in the longboat on seeing this “Officers Only” toilet, all stood up (swaying mind you !) and saluted the basha as it went past, whereupon, laughing hilariously, they all fell into the river…..

Another burst of humour from that time !

RPM, Fuel Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

110 Sqdn Base at Nanga Gaat….

Here is a picture of the forward base at Nanga Gaat, 3rd Division, Sarawak. This base was first opened up by 848 Squadron RN.

The river runs from right to left and is the River Rajang, the Sungei Gaat is at the left. “Nanga” in Iban means “junction”. The Gaat is at 1D 53’N, 113D 27’E for the Google Earth users. There were about 30 permanent staff there, mostly aircraft trades and they did a year there with 1 break. Ugh ! I think there was some interchange of personnel from the Gaat with Sibu and Kuching just to make life a bit easier. The HQ building is to the left of the Hangar and that and the Mess hall and main accomodation for the guys were the only properly constructed buildings. There were no hot showers there until a Sergeant Pilot built them from detail in an old Army manual. Good on yer Fred ! The Army camp is on the hill on the right. First time I went there it rained very heavily and the fuel dump at left went under water as the river rose about 35 feet. Empty drums were picked up and washed away.

RPM, Fuel Flow, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

Long Jawi aerial photo….

Hello Sycamore, still enjoy a glass of Claret ?

Picture is of Long Jawi which is at 2D 07 ‘N, 114D 11’E for those who like Google Earth…. This place is quite a distance from the Kalimantan border but in or about ’63 it got wiped out by the Indons who travelled overland to get there and the place was overrun. They didn’t get away with it though, they were trailed for days on end until they were all eliminated. There was a Malaysian Government White Paper issued on this grisly episode. I must have a look for it on the net…
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View is looking South-East over the main river and up the creek ! Army camp at the top left, longhouses bottom left. Not sure but I think the MSP or it may have been a 1 Ton platform went through the roof of the longhouse by the creek at the north end. The roofing attap looks a bit fresher up there ! These longhouses were quite large at Long Jawi. The topless ladies used to wash in the creek under the bridge. To the right of the Sungei are the chopper pads. You can see the DZ “A”, to the right of the pads. There is a Whirlwind parked up the hill middle right which means there was a drop on that day. I used to watch from further up the hill for extra safety !

RPM, FF, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com

Dayglo, Zobbits & Mapping….

Lauriebe, Pagen01 & WV-903….

We did not have dayglo on the Whirlwinds used in Borneo on either 103, 110 or 230 Squadrons. Yes it would be handy to see the chopper if you went down and even though the Army Scouts carried the big orange balloons that you could inflate by pouring water on chrystals, the R.A.F. never saw fit to place those on their choppers. I did a rescue of an Army Scout crew and a District Officer who had been counting Punan heads…. Punans had the dreaded lurgi and at that time they were dying out. The first thing I saw up on a large plateau while we were searching for this Scout was the orange balloon above the treetops. It stood out like a dogs hind leg.

Yes, Pagen01, you can’t lump them all together and I agree with what you say. The Groupies greeting at the 50th Anni at Seletar went down like a lead balloon , I can tell you. He wern’t very well liked that man. However, as regards the later drivers that arrived, we “Crewmen” got a bit twitchy towards the end of the two and a half year tour on choppers. You had to keep an eye on the fuel guage, tell them to open the filter when it was raining, make sure they didn’t shut down with the blade stops out and worst of all you had to keep an eye on the ASI for those beasts were limited to 85Kts at SL and it decreased as you got higher. My actual second helicopter flight in the interior of Borneo was a night pick-up from a place called Kapit, where I had been flown in by a Single Pioneer. The flight to Nanga Gaat was not pleasant as he oversped the machine and I had to tell him and believe me, he did not like it one bit. 103 Squadron had three attempts to curtail a driver who “breached airspeed” before the individual was posted to another place on ATC duties. Bad things like that did happen. I recall an argument when returning to Labuan one day, ahead was a very wide storm front and lashing rain….you could see it was bad before you got into it. The cloud cover was 8/8ths and we are talking about the “tropics”. The driver wanted to climb above this stuff (not knowing how high it went) and do a homing onto Labuan instead of my suggestion to land, shut-down and wait for it to pass, either that or follow the river to the coast. He had been there about 6 months. I ask you, fly above 8/8ths, above a storm, above total jungle with huge trees in a single engined helicopter with your No.1 enemy as power (“The Bristol Gnome”) and with very, very scratchy HF which often did not work. Would you want to do that ?

He stayed low level over the river after the bunfight but said he was going to report me…. The outcome of that was that when we got back to Labuan he went running to see the Flight Commander about me, blurted out what he had in his mind as I strolled leisurely in after him…. The Flight Commander (from Rhodesia) signalled me to stay out and as I shut the door, he smiled at me and said, “I’ll look after this…[and used my first name]”. He was definitely one of “the” good ones.

I can recall the PR Canberras coming into Labuan in late 1960 and early 1961 while I was detached there from Changi and them doing mapping runs over the interior of Borneo. As early as that, somebody must have known what the British Government policy was going to be with Sarawak and Sabah and the likelihood of subsequent events. Even so, most of our Operational topographical maps of the border areas in 2nd and 3rd Divisions had “white gaps” where topo information was missing. They tried “shadowing” the valleys in a darker green where there was topo info but it didn’t help much.

Know your enemy: “inadequate maps”……

RPM, FF, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com