By DayakDaily Team
BAU, Aug 23: Continuing their reunion pilgrimage to Sarawak to honour the service and sacrifice of Australian and Commonwealth service and police personnel who served during Confrontation, the National Malaya and Borneo Veterans Association (NMBVAA) visited SK Suba Buan in Bau.
From Kampung Krokong, the party headed to the school, where principal Simon Kuek Nokep hosted them in the presence of Suba Buan community leader Karim Lidek.
In a press release, Kuek said the visit was particularly meaningful as the NMBVAA continued to honour the service and sacrifice of Australian, Malaysian, and Commonwealth personnel who served in post-World War II conflicts, particularly in Sarawak and the Bau district, where Australian troops, known as the Sarawak Defenders, were deployed during Confrontation.
During the visit, South Australian NMBVAA State President Major (retired) Paul Rosenzweig OAM JP presented a branch financial donation to Kuek to support a commemorative project the school might otherwise not have had the funds to undertake.
The donation included contributions from members such as Captain (retired) Garry Lea, who served in Sarawak in 1966, and former Able Seaman Ted Richardson, who served in the Royal Australian Navy with the Far East Strategic Reserve.
Rosenzweig said the NMBVAA’s approach to commemoration was built on four pillars—remembering the fallen, remembering Malaysia, honouring the living, and looking to the future.
“Through this approach, the association builds on our shared history to strengthen friendship and cooperation between generations and nations,” he said.
As part of its focus on the future, members of the pilgrimage presented bundles of books to the school library, covering subjects ranging from local military history and Australiana to early English learning.
Vicki Crannaford and Dianne Sampson presented books in memory of their brother, Signalman John Darrell Tassell (1944-1966) of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals, who died in northeastern Malaya on April 4, 1966, aged 21.
Dianne Davies and family members Jules and Brendon Preston presented books on behalf of Davies’ husband, former Warrant Officer Class 1 Allan Davies of the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery, who served in air defence artillery at RAAF Base Butterworth from 1964 to 1966.
A souvenir exchange ceremony was also held as a gesture of appreciation, friendship and the lasting partnership between the NMBVAA and SK Suba Buan.
The programme was followed by a tree-planting ceremony symbolising friendship, peace, remembrance, and environmental responsibility.
Rosenzweig, together with Vice-President Don Cameron and Jeff Hiscock, veterans who served in Borneo during Confrontation, planted trees on the school grounds.
The reunion pilgrimage, dubbed Operation ‘Hornbill 2026’, sees the party calling in to Kampung Krokong, Kampung Suba Buan, and Kampung Serikin in Bau.
The areas were among those where Australian military forces were deployed in 1965 and 1966 to protect Sarawak during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation and defend the approaches to Bau, described at the time as ‘the key to the door of Kuching’.
The commemorative programme also marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Malaysia-Indonesia Peace Agreement, also known as the Jakarta Accord, on Aug 11, 1966, which ended the Confrontation and ushered in six decades of regional peace. — DayakDaily
