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..return to Personal Recollections & War Diaries Austers over Borneo 1963-1964 by Tim Deane This is the story of 7 Recce Flight, AAC, who have been operating for the last year in Sarawak on the island of Borneo, and I would like to dedicate this article to the pilots, soldiers and ground crew of that Flight, without whom it could never have been written. Not much is known outside the Far East of the intermittent yet unpleasant war being fought against Indonesian aggression in South East Asia. Two wars are being fought in Borneo. The internal struggle against the Clandestine Communist Organisation, and the external war against marauding bands of Indonesian irregulars. These latter groups cross the twelve hundred mile border, usually at the river watershed, and make their way stealthily downstream. Occasionally small groups make landings at night on the coast in small fishing vessels. Aircraft, particularly helicopters, are the great battle winning factor in this war, as they represent the one great advantage that we possess over the enemy. Terrain, People and Climate The large island of Borneo sits like a magnified Cyprus 300 miles to the east of the Malay peninsular. The greater part of the island is Indonesian, but the northern strip consisting of Sarawak and North Borneo has now been integrated into the Federation of Malaysia. Independent Brunei is squeezed in between these two states and the chances are that it will eventually join the Federation too. The terrain is characterised by dense virgin mountain jungle in the interior reaching up to 9,000 feet and more, falling away to a wide strip of coastal swamp. Most of the country is uncharted, and no topographical information is given on any map outside the centres of population. Generally the people fall into two categories: the educated and trading Chinese who have settled in the more developed area, and the Borneo tribes - Ibans, Kyans, etc. - former headhunters who live in the interior. The only lines of communication are the great rivers which dominate the country. Roads are almost non-existent except within the towns. There are no railways. Rivers are the life-blood of the country, and the vast majority of the tribes live it community longhouses along the banks of these great chocolate coloured turgid streams. In the thousands of square miles of mountainous jungle separating the rivers, no sign of human life is ever seen from the air. The climate is similar to Malaya and generally conforms to the pattern of fine mornings after the clearance of dawn mist or fog, building up in the afternoon and evening to immense thunderstorms. This pattern, however, may vary considerably, especially during the monsoon period, when the rainfall is more widespread and unpredictable. Borneo has one of the highest annual rainfalls in the world, rivers commonly rising twenty or thirty feet overnight in the rainy season. Belaga Air Strip This:was the background to the situation, when, on 14th October, 1963, I was bundled out of a Wessex helicopter of 845 Royal Naval Air Squadron, on to what must be the nether most part of the Commonwealth, Belaga Strip-160 miles upriver in the Borneo interior. Four hundred and fifty yards long and barely adequate for Austers in the heat and humidity, overshadowed by a 2,500 foot mountain ridge on either side. The section commander was Mike Munro. John Everett-Heath who had shared the trip out - we managed two hours dual each on the flight-deck of the Comet-had been posted to Simangang with an independent section in the Second Division. Flight Commander Jim Dawson and Staff Sergeant Greaves, who looked after flight workshops, were based in Kuching, the capital, some 250 miles to the west. For the man keen on getting away from it all, Belaga was the ideal spot. Two days journey by boat over treacherous rapids from the nearest sizeable town, and surrounded by the dark inaccessible forests of the interior. Supplied by daily Argosy or Hastings drop, the AAC detachment and the Navy Wessex squadron were completely dependent on air supply. The Belaga section were quartered 20 minutes ride in a powered longboat upriver, at a Somerset Maugham type resthouse which served as the local administrative building for the village. Due to missionary influence, the neckline of the female members of this community was high above the waist, but fortunately, in longhouses up and down river, the sarongs of both sexes were worn at their natural waist level. Parties in these longhouses were frequent and popular occasions, and the friendly and convivial atmosphere much appreciated by all. Dancing by the men to the monotonous chanting of the women took the place of cabaret, and depicted in lithe and sinuous movements the story of the headhunt. The men were intricately tattooed from head to foot, and many of the women too. Tattooed hands indicated that the owner had taken a head, thus becoming an important man in the community. After the dancing exhibition, we, as guests, were invited to perform our own improvised cabaret. I shall never forget the evening Mike Munro and myself, suitably primed by copious draughts of air-dropped Tiger beer, performed a reel never before witnessed North of the Border, to the strumming of the weird native instruments. The applause for this performance was deafening. Flying in the Interior Flying Austers on sorties lasting four and sometimes five hours over some of the most rugged and hostile country in the world took some getting used to after the green fields of Hampshire. Selecting fields and 800 foot points soon became good cartoon material, with that endless green carpet of mountainous jungle intersected with chocolate coloured torrents. Every change in engine note brought an uncomfortable shifting in the seat, and an anxious glance at the gauges, but there was a definite feeling of the wild frontier when we occasionally discovered completely new river systems and mountain ranges, where the map was a virgin white. My arrival coincided with the mopping-up operations of the Long Jarwi battle. Briefly, a sizeable party of Indonesian irregulars had made their way over the frontier, and using river systems, had penetrated to Long Jarwi on the Balui river, a boat and trading station deep in the interior. They had quickly overcome the meager defence by sheer weight of numbers, and as quickly started to withdraw back up the rivers to the frontier, several days' journey away. Thanks to Auster recce and the quick use of Naval helicopters, Gurkha cut-off parties were positioned on the exit rivers, and the majority of the enemy were killed in ambushes as they paddled back up their escape routes. This sort of battle really underlined the value of the Auster and the helicopter in this type of warfare, and was perhaps a copybook example of the use of both. With the eventual capture or escape of most of the enemy involved in this incident, affairs quietened down in our sector. Frequent long distance recce's, lasting four hours or so, based on intelligence information, now became our general routine. The majority of these recce's were up to the headwaters of the Baleh river, a river so rugged and utterly remote, cleaving through 5,000 foot mountainous jungle, the source perhaps 100 miles from the nearest living human being, that every visit sent an involuntary shiver up the spines of those who flew up it. Snakes The events of 21st January I will never forget. I had flown up to Mukah in the early morning, a small village on the North coast, and arrived there at 10 o'clock after a quick landing on the beach followed by a short dip in the sea. After a cup of coffee and discussion in the District Officer's residence, took off again for Sibu. Two minutes out of Mukah I glanced to port, and was horrified to see a coloured ten inch snake crawling out of the map pocket.. By keeping absolutely still I managed to land back at Mukah without disturbing the reptile. There followed an hilarious chase of the interior of the aircraft by Mukah airstrip under the benign guidance of the D.O. Unfortunately the Auster fitted for Far East flying is a mass of nooks and crannies with long range tanks and "Sunair" sets, and the snake was soon lost to view, and despite all efforts could not be found. Assuming that it had escaped, I again took off for Sibu, having armed myself with a stout stick-an invaluable and highly recommended aid for potential snake fighters. Ten minutes later, as confidence began to flow back, the reptile reappeared from behind the instrument panel, and anyone watching the aircraft from the ground during the next twenty minutes would have assumed that the pilot was completely mad. Slip bubbles disappeared out of the window as a brisk fight developed between me and a very agitated snake. Finally the snake committed a grave tactical error by disappearing down the trim lever slot, and there I eventually managed to pin it with the stick. At this stage I deemed it prudent to inform an incredulous controller at Sibu of my predicament. There now only remained the problem of landing the aircraft with one hand and a jammed trim lever. This was fortunately achieved with only the odd bounce, and the snake was finally extracted in front of a large and admiring audience by a triumphant Iban fireman wearing outsize asbestos gloves. A highly coloured account of this incident appeared a week later in the London "Evening Standard." The Sibu detachment had achieved fame at last. ..return to Personal Recollections & War Diaries updated 4th September 2010 |