Confrontation

The War with Indonesia, 1962–1966

Nicholas van der Bijl

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781781598702
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire moderne

For over four years in the Swinging Sixties the armed forces of the UK were engaged in a little publicized but crucial jungle war against communist aggressive on the vast island of Borneo.At any one time up to 50, 000 troops (half of the Armys strength today) were deployed along a 1, 000 mile front. Their enemy were the communist led Indonesians whose leaders were determined to seize the states of Sarawak, Sabah and the oil rich Brunei, all of whom for their part wished to maintain their Commonwealth links. The catalyst for the war was the 1962 uprising in Brunei which was quickly crushed by the bold intervention of British army units.The arrival of Major General Walter Walker, himself a controversial figure, gave the subsequent campaign a clear direction. Indonesian incursions were rigorously defended and ruthlessly pursued. Top Secret Claret operations took the fight to the enemy with cross border operations initially using Special Forces and later with Chindit-style long range patrols. The outcome was a text book military victory thus avoiding a British Vietnam debacle.

CHAPTER ONE

The Arena

The Indonesian archipelago spills across about 13,600 islands, almost half of which are inhabited and with many volcanic, stretching across some 3,200 miles of sea, covering an area of about 741,000 square miles. To the east is New Guinea and East Timor. The Equator cuts across the centre of Borneo and while it is hot day and night in the lowlands, nights are so cold in the highlands that thinly dressed men shiver.

The north-east ‘dry’ monsoon lasts from October to March with the heaviest rainfall between November and February. The humid ‘wet’ south-west monsoon runs from May to September with the daytime temperature usually climbing to 30 degrees centigrade. Humidity is high with average rainfall of about 145 inches. Extensive lowlands across Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan are rich in volcanic deposits, and ideal for small farms. Extensive forests, most concentrated in Kalimantan, Sumatra and eastern Indonesia, produce a wide variety of timber, including teak and rattan. Animal life abounds with the threatened orang-utan found only in Sumatra and Kalimantan, and the tiger in Sumatra and Java. Birds, reptiles and amphibians populate the land while the seas and rivers yield hundreds of varieties of fish. The indigenous people are mostly of mixed Malaysian origin, distinctive ethnic groups being the Javanese and the Sundanese on Java and Madura, the Balinese in Bali and the Iban and Dayak on Kalimantan. Minority groups include Chinese. More than 100 languages are spoken. Hindus and Buddhists have exerted a profound influence on the architecture of the country and Arabs have promoted Islam.

The island of Borneo, which is derived from the word ‘Brunei’, is the third largest island in the world, covering an area of 287,700 square miles, i.e. roughly five times greater than England and Wales. About two-thirds is bordered by mangrove swamps and covered in jungle and nipa palms. Jungle-covered hills and mountains are topped with coarse grass known as Lalang. Sometimes known as the ‘Dark Continent of South-East Asia’, during the 1960s, self-sufficient communities scattered along rivers survived on subsistence farming. The shortfall in fertile soil is made up by luxuriant jungle. As the Dutch extended their influence to Java during the eighteenth century and claimed Kalimantan, they clashed with the British East India Company. From about the mid-1760s, immigrant Chinese developed gold mining in the north and then, as their communities became permanent, they developed farming and business communities. Apart from a difficult Japanese occupation from 1942 until 1945, Allied air raids against the oil refineries and the fighting conducted by the Australians between May and August, British North Borneo was a haven of colonial tranquillity, and political and economic progress.

At just 3,700 square miles, Brunei is a small country and at its widest measures 105 miles. Jungle-covered hills reach to white sandy beaches and border the Sungei Belait and Tutong. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Brunei was the dominant power in the region and generally managed to deflect the colonial ambitions of Spain and Portugal, but the arrival of James Brooke, who later became known as the White Rajah of Sarawak, spelt the beginning of the end and, in 1888, Brunei became a British protectorate. Its territory was further reduced when Limbang was ceded to Sarawak, splitting Temburong District from Brunei. Just as the country was about to be swallowed up into Sarawak in 1929, oil was found on the coast near Seria. In 1962, the population of 220,000 lived around Brunei Town (now Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB)) and in Muara. About 60 per cent of the population were of Malay origin, 5 per cent were Iban, Dayak and Kelabit and about 12 per cent Chinese. The rest were migrant oilfield workers and Europeans. Brunei is an Islamic country, which is reflected in the magnificent Omar Ali Saifudden Mosque, built in 1958. By 1962, Brunei was a wealthy country, however politics were stagnant and commerce almost entirely controlled by the minority Chinese. The sultans had little interest in democratizing Brunei and in 1953 had seen off a nationalist rebellion. However, the lessons were not learnt and little was done to address public resentment over inefficient health, education, housing and political exclusion, compared to progress in Sarawak and North Borneo.

Sarawak covers an area of 48,150 square miles and in 1962 had a population of 776,990. The hills gradually rise to 8,000 feet and the 971-mile border is ill-defined. The 450-mile coastline is a mix of idyllic beaches and mangrove. The terrain leading into Indonesia had not changed markedly except that it was less populated and there were very few metalled tracks. The rivers were the roads. Using a system developed in Africa, and keen to transfer administrative authority and political power to local communities, the British had divided Sarawak into five divisions, each governed by a Colonial Service Resident reporting to the Governor. Each was broken down into districts and sub-districts administered by British and local Colonial Service officers. At the lowest level, Penghulus (Iban leaders) had immediate responsibility for longhouse communities, while Tuas Kampung (Head of a Malay/Bidayuh village) looked after the Malays, and the Kapitan China managed Chinese communities. By 1956, the constitution was the colonial model of an elected Council Negri (State) and an upper house of the Supreme Council, which was chaired by the Governor, who could override their decisions, but seldom did. By 1963, voting was universal and usually followed ethnic affiliations, which led to debates on local matters as opposed to national issues.

First Division is the most westerly and houses the capital, Kuching, which sits on the banks of the Sungei Sarawak, and is the Malay word for ‘cat’. In 1962, the town was the largest population centre of 60,000 and split about two-thirds Chinese and one-third Malay. It was the commercial centre of Sarawak and provided port facilities for the Second and Fourth Divisions. Seven miles south along a narrow and winding tarmac road was Kuching Airport at 7-Mile Bazaar. The Division consisted of five districts. The Governor lived in the Astana, which was formerly the White Rajah’s palace, across the river. When Sir Alexander Waddell lived there, he was also Commander-in-Chief, but during the war he was replaced by Sir Bernard Ferguson, whose wartime experiences included serving with the Chindits in Burma.

Lundu District was centred around a small town of the same name nestling beneath the impressive Gunong Gading (2,986 feet). The spectacular 12-mile Gunong Puteh range (4,877 feet at its highest) runs to the sea from the west of Sematan and is split by the border. The district has several beautiful beaches. To the south Gunong Raya (1,000 feet) runs east to west and is also split by the border. The terrain is mostly coastal swamp and primary jungle dispersed between shifting cultivation and consequent secondary jungle. To the north on the border are Cape Tanjong Datu and its lighthouse.

To the south, Bau District nestled among small rolling hills, with the town the administrative centre. Two comparatively low (800 feet) ridges running east to west in the middle of the District, namely the Gunong Jagoi and Gunong Brunei, divide the main plain into three subsidiary valleys, from north to south – Stass, Serikin and Gumbang. Apart from the main hills, small patches of primary jungle competed with shifting agricultural cultivation and secondary jungle. The mining around Bau and along the roads were almost entirely Chinese managed. The remainder of the District is inhabited by ‘Land’ Dayaks. A decent 22-mile tarmac road connected Bau with Kuching. Forty-two miles south-east of Kuching is Serian, which was the main town of Upper Sadong District and the main centre for Dayaks. It is midway between Kuching and Simanggang in the Second Division. In 1962, the area had been over-cultivated, although the scenery was spectacular with jungle-covered hills. The fifth district was Lower Sadong which bordered coastal areas and swamp along the Sungei Sadong, which had a strong tidal bore. Fertile, it was the most productive rice-growing area in Sarawak. The population was mainly Malay.

Second Division was the Iban stronghold and dominated by the 280-mile long, mighty and muddy Sungei Rajang, which is the main artery into the interior. Scattered along its banks, and those of its many tributaries, were kampongs and longhouses. The Tiang Laju and Bukit Besai mountain ranges dominate the District. Trade across the border was common. A tarmac road ran from Simanggang, the small divisional capital on the banks of the Batang Lupar, east to Third Division and west to Serian in First Division. The interior is mountainous with the table-topped Bukit Lesong sitting above the Lingga, whose source is in Indonesia. The Dayaks along the Skrang were some of the most advanced in Sarawak.

Of the three districts, Lubok Antu covers the upper reaches of the Batang Lupar, with the two main centres of Engkilili and Lubok Antu, not far from the Indonesian border. Saribas District was once famous for pirates and their spirited encounters with the Royal Navy. The ‘Sea’ Dayaks then embraced Christianity and, by 1962, were the most advanced community in Sarawak. The saddle-backed Gunong Sadok dominates. Batong is the capital and had an ironwood fort still used for government offices. The Saribas was tidal. Kalaka District covered the area drained by the Krian and Seblakmand and, although predominantly Dayak, had a substantial Malay population. Kabong at the mouth of the Krian was one of the largest kampongs in Sarawak. Although very fertile, the District was isolated because it lacked roads and a port. In 1962, work was under way to rectify this.

Third Division was the largest in Sarawak at 25,000 square miles, much of it covered by mountainous jungle and forest, and a population of 260,000, the Foochow Chinese living downriver and Dayaks, Kayans and Kenyahs living on the banks of the Rajang and Balui. With very few roads, travellers were confined to walking, boats and aircraft. Coasters could steam as far as Kapit, 99 miles upstream from the sea. Kapit District covered a huge area of rainforest through which flowed several rivers. The Pelagus Rapids formed a major obstacle, a fact reflected in that there were no settlements south of Nanga Pila. Forty-five miles from the sea is the rough town of Sibu, which sits in the swampy ground at the junction of the Rajang and Igan. Sibu was a strategically important centre from the early days of Rajah Brooke, when he established a fort. Sibu Rural District was mainly rubber plantations cultivated by the Chinese. Binatang, on the coast, was very flat and had mangrove swamps. The thriving little port of Sarikei on the Lower Rajang, which gave its name to the District, was once an important pepper-growing centre. It had several deep-water anchorages servicing several sawmills. Mukah District was the sago-growing area of Sarawak and was inhabited by the Melanau, however the local economy was depressed. Kanowit District contained the biggest Dayak population and had resisted the ambitions of the Rajah Brooke family until the 1930s. Even after the Second World War, a rebellion broke out in the District. With its precipitous face, Bukit Sepali dominates the surrounding jungle.

Fourth Division was smaller than Third. Bintulu was an attractive little town and the commercial centre for the collection of jelutong, which can be made into chewing gum. With a mixed indigenous and Malay population emerging from years of isolation, it sported several jungle-covered volcanic mountains, the highest being Bukit Mersing at 3,344 feet. Miri District covered the coastal strip to Brunei. Baram District was largely uninhabited, except along the many rivers, the capital being Marudi and the limit of launch navigation at Long Lama. In 1962, the District suffered from destructive rivalry as the Roman Catholic and Evangelical missions clashed in the middle reaches of the Sungei Baram. The Evangelical were a hotchpotch of faiths drawn from the Baptists, Plymouth Brethren and other nonconformist churches, who found the isolated communities a soft touch for conversion to Christianity. Between the Sungei Tinjar and Baram, there was an uninhabited plateau at 3,000 feet where the 800-feet-high Long Julan waterfall had been discovered only a few years earlier. The upper reaches of the Sungei Baram was the centre of the isolated Punan clans. Noted for woodcarving, boatmanship and parang swords, these nomads lived in the headwaters of the Sungei Belait in Brunei and around the Baram watershed and headwaters of the Limbang; scavenging for wild sago and wild vegetables, they hunted with blowpipes and their intelligent, though scruffy, dogs. Shy, their skin colour was almost white because they disliked leaving the shade of the jungle. By no means primitive, they forsook permanent dwellings and opted for small, short-term lean-tos.

Fifth Division was the smallest administrative sector and bordered Brunei to the north and North Borneo to the east. It was ceded from Brunei piecemeal with Trusan Valley transferring in 1884, Limbang in 1890 and Lawas District in 1895. Temburong in between the Trusan and Limbang remained in Brunei. Limbang District sits astride the Limbang valley, which was one the finest in Sarawak, and had agricultural potential in palm oil. In the interior, the district is mountainous with Batu Lawas a few metres lower than Kota Kinabulu in North Borneo. Malays, Kedayans and Bisayas inhabited the lower levels, the Dayaks the middle reaches and the Kelabits on the upper slopes. Lawas District centred around the Trusan and Lawas valleys and emerged after the purchase of the latter from the British North Borneo Company in 1905. The Trusan was a long river but not navigable by any craft beyond Long Tenpoa. The Lawas was more accessible. Travel beyond the riverheads at Lawas and Long Tenpoa was only by foot, taking seven to ten days to reach the Indonesian border. At the head of the Trusan valley was Ba Kalalan, which became a major military base. Access to the Indonesian administrative centres at Tanjong via the Lawas Valley was easy. The original clans occupying the District were Murats, however they clashed with Rajah Brooke’s administration and, driven into the upper reaches of the rivers, were decimated by smallpox. Resorting to the bottle, they were drinking themselves to extinction until Christian missionaries converted them in the 1930s. By the 1960s, the Trusan valley was virtually alcohol free. The Murats had a distinguished Second World War record, sheltering refugee Europeans and then hosting Australian Special Reconnaissance Department operations. Across the border in Indonesia were Murut communities with close ties with those in Sarawak. Downriver most of the population were Malays and Kedayans.

Chinese formed 31.5 per cent of the population of Sarawak and were frequently criticized in the belief that they focused on China rather than the country that had adopted them. Across the border in Kalimantan were Chinese communities, who also looked north. Business acumen and hard work allowed many to accumulate sufficient wealth to educate their children to a standard better than the indigenous peoples, however Maoist communism spreading through South-East Asia was exposing them to subversion. The largest ethnic sub-group hailed from the farming Hakkas in Kwangtung Province. In First Division, the Chinese supplied labour on the rubber estates, were heavily engaged in construction, supplied most of the fishermen and were common as barbers and coffee-shop proprietors.

Ibans formed 31.1 per cent of the population. Relatively recent arrivals in Sarawak, they lived in characteristic longhouses and tended paddy fields using an elaborate rotation of shifting cultivation. In some downriver settlements, a few took to living in houses with deplorable results. They were noted for their individualistic, enterprising and democratic society and readily accepted military discipline by supplying men for the Sarawak Rangers during the Malayan Emergency.

Malays made up 17.5 per cent of the population and formed the backbone of government service. The Melanau lived as fishermen, rice farmers and sago growers in low-lying land along the coastal fringe. The Bisayas had their origins in the great clan of Dayak peoples and not only developed Sarawak, but also claimed to have founded the Brunei Sultanate generations. It was a Bisaya who, in 1858, killed Rajah Sir James Brooke’s greatest enemy, Pengiran Makhota, during one of the latter’s concubine-collecting expeditions along the Limbang, which encouraged Brooke to expand from Kuching towards Brunei. Largely converted to Christianity by the Borneo Evangelical Mission, the Bisayas lived in a combination of a longhouse and the ordinary separate house, which was known as a ‘big-box house’, usually providing accommodation for about four related families. A thin wall of bamboo down the centre separated the public place from the private quarters.

Further inland were the related Muruts and Kelabits. Murut settlements perched on jungle-clad hills between 500 and 2,000 feet and were heavily influenced by the Evangelical Mission at Lawas, or the Roman Catholic Fathers of the Mill Hill Society in Limbang. Most lived in longhouses. In early 1945, Special Reconnaissance Department teams organized the Kelabits into an effective resistance against the Japanese. Except at Long Scridan and on the Madihit, they mostly lived at 2,000 feet and above. A vigorous people and powerfully built from constant hill walking, the Kelabit longhouse was the most distinctive in Borneo of an integrated unit, with family accommodation open to all. They were noted for erecting stone memorials to their dead, which the Lawas mission actively discouraged, although this is exactly what Christians do. Both clans had a high standard of living, cultivated from rich rice irrigation, a wide variety of vegetables, fishponds and farm animals. Hospitality was a speciality of these hill people. Living in huge longhouses, with as many as fifty families in each, along the banks of the Sungei Baram and its tributaries, were the Kenyahs and Kayans, with nearly 200,000 across the border in Indonesia, which to them was a meaningless line on a map. Strong aristocratic leadership made them easy to organize.

The Kedayans occupied a large and economically powerful part of the coastal plain of British North Borneo. The legend told against them is that in the great cock fight between the Sultan of Brunei and the Sultan of Java during the sixteenth century, when royal gamblers bet fifty of their own people, the Sultan of Java’s cock lost and it was from this fifty Indonesian stock that the Kedayans were alleged to have originated. Indeed, the name of the clan means ‘servants or followers of the prince’, and consequently they believed themselves second-class citizens. Some observers claimed they could detect a physical resemblance between the Kedayans and the Indonesians, in particular, their darker skin. Efficient farmers along the coastal strip, they excelled at working their buffaloes in the rice paddies. Subject to Islamic law, they lived their own lives without much interference from the other races. It is certainly correct that they were under-represented in Brunei public affairs and were ripe for subversion.

Finally, the Europeans at about 1,740 compromised just 0.2 per cent of the population, most Colonial administrators, police officers, teachers, businessmen, oilmen and missionaries.

North Borneo, with its capital at Jesselton (Kota Kinabalu), covered 29,388 square miles and was broken down into four residencies – West Coast, Interior, Tawau and Sandakan – and, in 1962 was governed by Sir William Goode. Interior and Tawau bordered Indonesia; a dominating feature is Mount Kota Kinabalu. Rajah Brooke had planned to secure North Borneo in order to improve the safety of ships transiting through the South China Sea, but the American adventurer, Claude Lee Moses, outwitted him by persuading the Sultan of Brunei to cede to him a large tract of North Brunei territory. In Hong Kong, Moses sold the cessation papers to four merchants who set up the American Trading Company of North Borneo, but the venture failed. One of the four, Joseph Torrey, convinced the Austrian Consul in Hong Kong, Baron von Overbeck, to speculate in North Borneo, however in 1877, a British civil servant based in Singapore, Mr W.H. Treacher, persuaded von Overbeck to cede the territory to the British. Von Overbeck then persuaded the Sultan to cede the 28,000 miles of North Borneo and by 1881 the British North Borneo Chartered Company was formed. In spite of opposition from the Brooke family, Treacher expanded the territory and after a period of instability and rashly planned projects, including the building of a railway line along the coast, by the twentieth century, profits enabled the Company to finance administrative, economic, health and education development. Timber was an important resource but frequently ran into trouble when labour was short. Indonesians made up the shortfall. In August 1945, North Borneo suffered from Allied bombing and in compensation for losses suffered during the war, the Chartered Company transferred its sovereignty to the Crown. In June 1946, British North Borneo became the British Crown Colony of North Borneo. The Kazackdusuns, 32 per cent of the population of 454,421 in August 1960, formed the largest community group. Originating from the Philippines before the last Ice Age, they were descended from notorious pirates defeated by Brookes and were converted into prosperous and stable rice farmers, fishermen and cattle ranchers. The Chinese numbered 23 per cent of the population and were engaged in a wide range of activities, including artisans, businessmen and government clerks. There were also about 25,000 Indonesians in North Borneo, mostly immigrant workers.

CHAPTER TWO

Indonesia

Two days after Japan surrendered on 14 August 1945, two Indonesian nationalists, Ahmed Sukarno and Muhammad Hatta, proclaimed the Republic of Indonesia from the Dutch East Indies colonial authorities, then in exile in Australia, and were selected as President and Vice-President respectively.

Known to Commonwealth soldiers as ‘The Mad Doctor’, Sukarno was born in 1901 in Surabaya, Java. Graduating from Bandung Technical College as an engineer in 1925, the next year he set out his political aspirations in Nationalism, Islam, and Marxism, a combination that was to direct his ambitions. Complex, flamboyant and a stirring orator, he led a scandalous private life and yet retained the goodwill of his people for twenty years while he moulded the disparate regions of Indonesia into a powerful Asian nation. Arrested again in 1933, he was exiled to Sumatra until released by the Japanese in 1942, who then encouraged him to promote Indonesian nationalism in return for mobilizing support. In March 1945, although staring at defeat, Japan supported Indonesian independence by establishing the Investigating Committee for the Preparation of Indonesia’s Independence, and at a debate in July, Sukarno sided with Professor Mohammed Yamin who argued that since the ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• THE SUCCESSFUL PATROL
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• GLOSSARY
• CHAPTER ONE - The Arena
• CHAPTER TWO - Indonesia
• CHAPTER THREE - Historical Background
• CHAPTER FOUR - The Brunei Revolt December 1962 to May 1963
• CHAPTER FIVE - Jungle Warfare
• CHAPTER SIX - Skirmishing May to 16 September 1963
• CHAPTER SEVEN - The Defence of Borneo September to December 1963
• CHAPTER EIGHT - The Defence of Fifth Division and Sabah
• CHAPTER NINE - Indonesian Escalation January to May 1964
• CHAPTER TEN - Special Operations and Hot Pursuit
• CHAPTER ELEVEN - The Defence of Malaysia August 1964 to August 1966
• CHAPTER TWELVE - Operation Claret
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN - The Thin Red Line
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN - The Battle of Plaman Mapu
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN - The Battle of the Rivers June to October 1965
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Turmoil in Indonesia
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - The British Offensive October 1965 to February 1966
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - The End of Confrontation February to September 1966
• CHAPTER NINETEEN - Conclusions
• APPENDIX 1 - FUNDAMENTALS OF GUERRILLA WAR
• APPENDIX 2 - OFFICIAL CITATION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Index