KUCHING, Oct 18: Military veterans from South Australia have honoured Sarawak’s famed Iban Trackers’ service and sacrifice in three commemorative ceremonies held recently.
According to the South Australia & Northern Territory Branch of the National Malaya and Borneo Veterans Association Australia Inc (NMBVAA), the first ceremony was held in South Australia on Aug 26, where the Branch conducted its annual Malaya and Borneo Veterans Day service of commemoration in the West Torrens War Memorial Gardens.
At the Cross of Sacrifice, the Malaysian and Sarawak flags flew proudly beside the Australian national flag. Her Excellency the Honourable Frances Adamson AC, Governor of South Australia, and Branch Patron, was the principal guest of honour.
Then in September, the Branch president and vice-president conducted a private liaison visit to Kuching to plan for a commemorative service they will conduct next August in conjunction with their New Zealand counterparts. During this visit, they conducted a commemorative service and tree-planting ceremony at the Sarawak Heroes Memorial Park.
And thirdly, the executive party conducted a commemorative service at the Batu Lintang Memorial Square in Kuching to honour those who died in the Batu Lintang POW Camp during World War II (WW2) and the men of the 9th Australian Division who liberated the camp on Sept 11, 1945, as well as fellow South Australian Brigadier Tom Eastick DSO, Commander of Kuching Force.
On each of these occasions, Borneo veteran Don Cameron recited the ‘Ode of Remembrance’ and acknowledged the service and sacrifice of the Iban Trackers.
Arrangements for the events in Kuching were made by Fiona Marcus Raja, chair of the Sarawak Heritage Development Committee under the Sarawak Tourism Federation (STF).
The executive party was supported by Datuk Dr Philip Ting, the long-serving Australian Honorary Consul to Sarawak, who was previously made a Member of the Order of Australia (Honorary) by the Australian government.
The South Australian liaison party also acknowledged the contributions and support of Dato Lim Kian Hock, formerly of the Sarawak Heritage Development Committee. His extensive contributions to Australia-Malaysia relations through commemorating Australian military service in Sarawak were recognised this year when the Australian government awarded him the Medal of the Order of Australia (Honorary).
‘Konfrontasi’
At the height of the Indonesian Confrontation with Malaysia, Private Don Cameron flew to Kuching with an Australian Army advance party on Feb 15, 1965.
He was born in South Australia and enlisted in the Australian Regular Army in Adelaide in 1962. He qualified as a Rifleman and, in December 1962, deployed to Terendak Garrison in Melaka for service with the British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve.
Cameron participated in counter-insurgency patrols on the Thai-Malay Border with Bravo Company of the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) from February to April 1964 and again from September to December 1964, under the command of the 17th Gurkha Division (Far East Land Forces).
The 3RAR main body came to Kuching aboard a Royal Navy troop carrier, arriving on March 23 to serve in the First Division of Sarawak. On that day, the rifle companies were lifted by helicopter direct to their positions near the Sarawak-Kalimantan border.
He served with 6 Platoon in ‘B’ Company, based near Kampung Gumbang. Their fortified position was at a nearby site which the Australians called ‘Bukit Knuckle’ based on the distinctive features of the rock mountain in the near distance.
The Australian company was responsible for a sector of the border, astride a traditional trading route, to deny any intrusion into Sarawak. Their task was to protect the Sarawak capital by defending the approaches to Bau which was recognised as ‘the key to the door of Kuching’.
A total of 24 Iban Trackers were attached to this battalion for operational duty. The Trackers themselves selected Banga Rima to be their leader.
Six of them were assigned to ‘A’ Company, based beside Kampung Stass. This was the northernmost of the battalion’s three forward company positions.
The trackers in this company selected Bala Utut as their leader. On the day 3RAR arrived in Sarawak and the companies deployed to their border positions (March 23, 1965), Sergeant Reg ‘Reno’ Weiland of 3 Platoon led a reconnaissance patrol from Stass to the Sarawak-Kalimantan border.
Accompanying the patrols were Iban Trackers Mudah Jali and Enggil Japing.
Weiland was well-experienced, a veteran of WW2 and served in Japan with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. Weiland, Corporal Hyland, and the two trackers were examining what appeared to be a resting place of leaves beside a log, which an insurgent patrol may have made.
Weiland then began moving to search the tracks to the right. He and Hyland moved forward and put a foot on the log, initiating an explosion.
Tragically, Weiland, aged 38, and Mudah were killed in action by a concealed anti-personnel landmine. Weiland was thrown back and killed instantly. Hyland was thrown back to the right outside the clearing, suffering shrapnel wounds to the right leg. Private Lee was struck in the right arm by a fragment and was knocked off his feet by the blast. Private Shaw, immediately behind Weiland, had a fragment lodged in his foot but was able to walk back to base.
Mudah, standing opposite Weiland, was thrown backwards by the blast and received severe wounds, mostly in the lower body. He died while being carried back to the 3RAR base camp. Enggil was examining the resting place at the time of the explosion and was not wounded.
The Australian media noted that Weiland was “the first Anzac to die in the Borneo theatre”.
‘C’ Company near Kampung Serikin, the middle of the three forward company positions, also had six trackers, with Bala Sigaw as their leader.
Back at the headquarters area at Bau, ‘D’ Company in reserve had four trackers led by Banga Rima. The Assault Pioneer Platoon had two trackers led by Nueng Tabo.
Six Trackers were also assigned to ‘B’ Company near Kampung Gumbang, the southernmost of the battalion’s three forward company positions. Nabau Gerasi was selected to be their leader.
The two Iban Trackers attached to Cameron’s platoon were Balling Ajong and Unchat Unyong.
“They were great Trackers. Balling was a little bit older than Unchat and a very nice fellow. I got on well with both the Trackers, which was good. They were always handy to have out in the jungle. They were very faithful and good at picking up tracks; they were good for us,” Cameron recalled.
At one point in 1965, these trackers wrote their address for Cameron. In a recent radio interview, Cameron said, “I thought about them over the years but never did anything, (I was) too busy, (my) family (was) growing up, etc. I regret not being in touch before.”
Reunion
In 1965, Balling gave his address as care of ‘T.RH. Mangah, Sg Marirai Ballih, Kapit, Sarawak, Malaysia’ (Tuai Rumah Mangah, the Iban longhouse headman named Mangah) on the Marirai Ballih River in the village of Kapit.
Similarly, Unchat gave his address as care of ‘T.RH. Unyong, Sg Bena Sot, Kapit, Sarawak, Malaysia’ — care of his father, who was the Tuai Rumah in a longhouse located on the Bena Sot River in Kapit.
Using the information on these old hand-written notes from 1965, in August 2022, Cameron and his wife Jenny emailed the Kapit District Council asking for assistance locating the families.
A radio interview discussed how, following a military operation or deployment, soldiers come home and get on with their lives; starting with laying down their roots.
And now, all of a sudden, it’s 57 years later, Cameron has already been back to Sarawak three times and was planning to go back for a fourth time as a liaison and to conduct a reconnaissance visit for the proposed ceremony next year, and he and Jenny got to thinking.
“Jenny sent an email to the Kapit Council. Serani Eli, working in the council, replied with the addresses of Unchat and Balling, and she said she would look them up and see if she could find out where they were now. In one and a half days, we received a reply in the affirmative. She had located Unchat’s family — his wife was alive but in poor health,” Cameron recalled.
The prompt reply revealed that the widow of Unchat had been living in the same longhouse for 57 years, although Unchat himself had died in Kapit in June 2021.
It took a little longer to find Balling’s family — Balling had died in 2012, and the family had moved to Bintulu. But unfortunately, his widow was too unwell to travel, and their daughter, now living in the coastal town of Bintulu, was unable to be released from her work and could not attend.
However, Serani facilitated a meeting in Sibu during the Camerons’ visit to Kuching and accompanied Unchat’s son Nyala and his family to have a ‘reunion’ with them.
Unchat’s 73-year-old widow, Banuh Itum, could not make the journey from Kapit to Sibu but sent her best wishes. Cameron said that seeing Nyala today was like seeing a young Unchat from 57 years ago.
Commemoration
For his service in defence of Sarawak, Cameron received Australian operational service medals and the Pingat Jasa Malaysia. He was a founding member of the SA/NT Branch NMBVAA in 1995 and has been vice president since 2010.
5/976 Sergeant Reginald John Weiland (1927-1965) is honoured in the Garden of Remembrance in Perth War Cemetery in Nedlands, Western Australia. His name is recorded on Panel 3 in the Rolls of Honour at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. In Sarawak, Weiland’s name is honoured on the SA/NT Branch NMBVAA plaque in the Sarawak Heroes Memorial Park in Kuching, which was unveiled and dedicated on Aug 29, 2016.
NMBVAA South Australia & Northern Territory Branch president Major Paul Rosenzweig OAM (ret’d) said that the Branch was active in honouring service and sacrifice during the post-WW2 Malayan Wars.
The South Australia & Northern Territory Branch of the National Malaya and Borneo Veterans Association Australia Inc is active in recognising service during the two Malayan wars of the 1950s and 1960s — the Malayan Emergency and Confrontation
The Branch’s commemorative ceremonies are important in recalling the service of the Commonwealth forces and the Iban Trackers during the Malayan wars. Many Ibans supported the Commonwealth forces as trackers during the Malayan Emergency. Then, during the Confrontation, they contributed more than any other local community to their country’s defence.
It is unfortunate that very little has been recorded of the service of these Iban Trackers, and almost no official records still exist.
In Kuching, Rosenzweig and Cameron had the opportunity to meet up with members of the newly formed Sarawak Veterans’ Association, comprising military and police veterans from the Confrontation and Emergency era, led by Lieutenant-General Stephen Mundaw (retired).
The group talked in some depth about the lack of records, and that’s something that the association is addressing at the moment. Cameron said, “The Lieutenant-General who’s in charge of them, he’s an Iban himself. During that little meet-up that we had, I recognise the people still, and I hope this can help them recognise all their Trackers.”
In the radio interview, Rosenzweig said to Cameron, “Your living memory of the two Trackers that you served with is the first step of a very important pathway in retrieving this history”.
Cameron replied, “I’m glad for that because their records have been left behind or forgotten, and I’m very happy to be part of the revival of something that might happen in the future.”
Rosenzweig referred to the proposed reunion visit and service of commemoration to be held in Kuching in 2023.
Cameron’s ‘reunion’ with Unchat’s family brought back all the memories of his service with Unchat in 1965, but perhaps more importantly, it highlighted some of that service for the children, for Unchat’s grandchildren, who can now take a more active role in remembering their grandfather and what he did.
That’s something that the Branch is going to feature during their commemoration next year.
When they visit Kuching in August 2023 for their Malaya-Borneo Veterans Day commemoration, it could well be the last time the Aussie Malaya-Borneo veterans are able to come to Sarawak for several reasons, including age and declining health.
Rosenzweig’s strategy is to encourage the Malaya-Borneo veterans to follow the updates on the proposed trip and come to Kuching next year — but to bring their grandchildren.
“The grandchildren can take advantage of all the tourism opportunities Sarawak has to offer, such as mountain climbing, cave exploration, diving; all the things that are available. Fall in love with the place so that in a few years, it’ll be the grandchildren that are coming back to Kuching, and we can keep these reunions going.
“We can keep these commemoration services going, even when we don’t have veterans coming with us anymore, and we can keep honouring their service,” he said. — DayakDaily
