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Memories of Sarawak 1963-1964

by Bill Morgan

When Indonesia invaded Borneo in mid 1963 two Auster 9's of 7 Flight were quickly sent across to Kuching to support 3 Commando Bde based in Kuching town.

They were flown directly from Singapore to Kuching Airport, being equipped with ferry tanks and given an RAF Shackleton escort. The aircraft were flown by Capt Chris Brown of the New Zealand AAC and Capt Mike Monroe.

The trip was at the endurance limit of the Auster, if the net headwind had exceeded 5 knots the Austers would not have made it! (At the time, no one had realised that the oil tank only just held enough oil for this duration. Ed)

Later on aircraft were flown on to HMS Albion, a Commando Carrier, in Singapore. The carrier then steamed across to just off of Kuching and the Austers flew off and headed for the Airport. Landing and taking off were both fairly hairy; the problem on landing was to judge the correct approach height. Too low and the aircraft would crash into what was called the 'round down' and too high and one would run out of deck to stop in.

The Navy thought the whole exercise was a great joke. Their aim was to catch the aircraft on its final bounce, in my case, and immediately position it upon, and then drop, the forward lift. Quite a fright for the poor old pilot, who had no idea that he was suddenly going to fall through the deck.

The aircrew were well entertained during the crossing and the Navy made sure we never saw daylight until it was time to launch. This normally took place first thing in the morning, with a decidedly hung over feeling, Auster crew were ordered to 'mount their aircraft' and after much waving of flags the Auster trundled along the deck.

Initially the carrier did not steam along and this caused panic, as the Auster hardly gained sufficient flying speed before it ran out of deck, stalled. Flying speed was then gained as one lurched toward the ocean! Later the Navy relented and gave us 17 knots net over the deck.

In Kuching we were accommodated with 42 Commando RM in Semengo (Malay for crocodile) camp and lived in locally made rattan shelters, all was primitive but reasonably comfortable.

Flying duties were many and varied. Liaison trips to Sibu and Simangang were regulars, plus mail drops to ground units in the jungle. Target

Registration was carried out on border crossing points in the 1st Division, as well as recce's for Bde and Commando staff. Forward air controlling was tried using marker flares dropped from the Auster bomb rack. Jim Dawson had a hang up when the flare initiating cord failed to snap. He spent a perilous 30 minutes or so trying to hook the flare up on a wire tied between two upright poles. Ultimately the flare was hooked off. Jim seemed to lose his enthusiasm for this method of marking reference points for FGA aircraft after this episode.

The major problem was that the mapping of Sarawak was extremely poor. The maps were just black and white, showing the coastline, the rivers up to about 50 miles inland, with just some of the major features and the border area. Each pilot had to make up the detail on his own map as he went along. Most of the navigation was carried out by familiarisation and swapping information amongst the aircrew.

A sad accident took place when Sgt Dave Thackery was shot down by an Indonesian AA gun just inside the border and his passenger, the Senior RAF Chaplain, was killed. Dave's upper left arm was shattered and he did extremely well to crash land the Auster in the jungle. ( He landed it in a helicopter clearing with no injury, from the crash, to himself or his passenger. Ed)

The Austers came under operational command of the RAF Station Commander and were tasked by the G3(Air) at Bde HQ on a daily basis. I was also detached for some time at Simangang, in support of 1/10 Gurkha's, carrying out recce's and aerial photography in the border area. I recall taking some 'near vertical' photos of an Indonesian Army Camp at Badau just across the border and discovering the odd hole in the tail plane of the Auster upon my return to base. The CO and I decided that it was better to call these drainage holes rather than admit our proximity to the border!

Merdeka day took place whilst I was on detachment. This day was to celebrate the formation of the federation of Malaya, Sarawak, Labuan and Sabah into Malaysia. My contribution was to provide a one aircraft flying display along the river in Simangang Town. Along the river spear fishing was taking place from long boats, the fish having been stunned with pulverised baluba root extract. This was normally banned, but allowed on this special day.

In my humble opinion the major risk with this detachment was being driven to the airstrip each day by a Gurkha driver having had chicken curry on the bone for breakfast!

Back in Kuching the relationship between the flying elements of all three services was superb. We of course were known as TWA, standing for Teeny Weeny Airways. The RAF had Hastings,  Vikings, Whirlwind 10's, a Beverly, the dreaded Belvedere twin rotor helicopter, a couple of Hunters and a Javelin which tended to eject a mass of flame from its rear end. The Navy initially had piston engined Whirlwind 7's of 846 Sqn, which really were very short of power and always flew in pairs.

On one occasion I acted as the escort to a Navy Whirlwind 7 on an emergency casevac mission as there were no other aircraft available. I also remember taking a 5 gallon drum of AVPIN - isopropyl nitrate - nasty stuff, used to start Navy Wessexes, for 845 Sqn RN at Sibu. An off duty RAF pilot, who was coming for a jolly on his day off, asked me what was in the AVPIN drum. When I told him that it was indeed AVPIN, he decided he didn't need a jolly that much and declined the flight!

All in all, the Austers did well, but were grossly short of power and there were very few places they could land, so it was decided to replace them with the newly in-service Scout.

The Air Corps had two options, either to bring out trained helicopter pilots who would not know the terrain, as the maps were poor, or send some fixed wing pilots back to UK, to be converted on to helicopters. In the event they chose the latter option and Roger Cemm and I went back to Wallop in mid 1964 to be retrained, leaving our families back in Kluang.

Six months later I returned and was posted to 14 Flight under Jim Dawson, with CPO Saxton, a Navy Air Mechanic as our Senior Engineer. Again we were based in Kuching and 7 and 14 Flights rotated, leaving all the equipment in place and just moving personnel.

The Scout was a disaster from day one, the 'fracto' Nimbus 102 engine was unreliable and we had two Rolls Royce Engineers attached on site to keep things going. They were carrying out major engine rebuilds in the field. Whilst in UK on training we were not allowed to fly over woods, yet here in Sarawak it was 99.5% woods in the shape of solid jungle. We never got anywhere near the target 150 hours engine life out the Nimbus and, to add insult to injury, one arrived flown in from UK, marked 'temperate climates' only.

The later Nimbus 105 post Mod 664 engine was hardly any better. We also had a problem called lateral shake, whereby the helicopter's tail boom twitched. Damper units were fitted, but this made little or no practical difference. We spent many hours doing flight idle descents from about 10,000 feet to try and adjust the dampers. Much later it was discovered that there was a design fault in the free turbine which caused the vibration. We lost Sgt Doc Waghorn in the area of Lundu about this time and his aircraft was not found until some years later.

Scouts were deployed at forward locations with units near the border, crewed by a pilot and a Mechanic. The crew stayed forward until the aircraft needed a 30 hour service when they were flown back to Kuching. There were not enough tools to cover these deployments, so we had to go to Kuching Town and buy extra spanners etc out of the PRI funds. Shortages are not new to Afghanistan!

Often when all the Scouts were grounded I flew in the second seat in the Hastings. The RAF need two pilots when they flew within range of the Indonesian AA guns on the border. They only came out with one pilot per aircraft, so they offered to basically train any AAC ex fixed wing pilot to bring the Hastings back to Kuching a land it in an emergency. For a couple of months I had more Hastings hours than helicopter ones.

These were the days of the integrated Air Platoons and six Sioux were attached to the Flight for Flying Standards and maintenance purposes. One day a slightly white faced Chief Saxton came in to the op's room and asked if I had a plastic bag. When questioned he said needed it for his three fingers, which he then produced. He explained that they had just been chopped off, when he caught them is a Sioux engine cooling fan, whilst adjusting the rotor control linkage. He later rejoined the flight, a few fingers less, after hospitalisation.

Again we were based in Semengo Camp, but this time with the Scots Guards. Life was not fun, as the Guards saved up and banked their cash dollar Messing allowance to have a blow out when they got back to Malaya. Those of us that were attached were not in a position to be able to take advantage of the second part of their plan. I recall being lined up before the acting CO, Major McGregor of McGregor, who apparently owned half of Scotland, and received a rocket because I had taken an extra potato at lunch time, against 'advice' of the Mess Sgt. It made no difference that in my defence Jim Dawson said he didn't want his authorised spud. In the Scots Guards orders is orders!

Later on 2 Para replaced the Guards and life was much better. For relaxation we were able to get into town and take advantage of the bars and market stalls selling all kinds of food, cooked before your very own eyes. On Saturday nights there was a dance at the Aurora Hotel which was well attended by the locals and we were all made very welcome. Those of us that were there from the old 7 Flight days were also well looked after by the ex pats living across the river. There was a great demand for aerial photos of their houses and gardens, taken with the brick-like F95.

I spent some time in support of D Sqn of the SAS, carrying out recce's with them in preparation for their raiding parties across the border. They had their favourite bar in town and Flight members were always welcome there. The SAS Sqn was based just outside town in an old house. The routine was totally foreign to anything I ever experienced in a normal unit. Discipline seemed non existent and rank carried no weight, though they did respect pilots a bit!

14 Flight had a RAOC photo detachment attached to it and we developed and printed all the airborne F95 camera and SAS stuff for Bde HQ, by this time 99 Gurkha Bde. Some of the SAS stuff was a touch gory to say the least.

I left 14 Flight in late 1965 and was sent to Netheravon to form a new 2 Flight, coming under 2 Wing AAC, run by Brigadier Desmond Leach and in support of 19 Bde in Colchester. I picked up four shiny new Scouts from Westlands and got all the vehicles and G1098 ready to hand over to John Elliot.

During my final days as a Scout driver, I was asked by Capt Mike Little if there was anything that bothered me about flying it. I said that the one thing I had always been scared of was turning the HP cock off, instead of the cabin heater. Both were in the same area and worked in a similar sense. The difference being, that once you turned the HP cock off, the only way was down! Mike said yes, he had never thought of this conflict and promptly did just that whilst doing a practice casevac out of a clearing in the Thetford Training area. The Scout was a write off, Mike has a bad back to this day I hear, and the poor guy acting as the practice casualty on the stretcher wasn't too impressed either. So I went out of the Air Corps and back to Royal Signals with a bang, albeit indirectly.

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updated 4th September 2010