A Green Howard in Borneo
/My final tour with the British Army before taking early retirement was spent in four exciting and interesting years with the Green Howards serving in Libya, Colchester, Malaya, Hong Kong, Singapore, Borneo and two spells in Canada. Time well spent, as OC B Company and then HQ Company.
A much-forgotten episode was the emergency in Borneo between 1963 and 1965. The Battalion was to take over two border bases between Northern Borneo (Sarawak) which was part of Malaysia, and Southern Borneo which was part of Indonesia. The issue was a border dispute between the two countries and the British, Australians and New Zealanders went to the aid of Malaysia and were involved at various times in intense jungle fighting.
The Green Howards completed eight weeks of intensive training at the Jungle Warfare School in Jahore Baru and in August 1966, I was flown to Kuching in Sarawak to recce a B Company border base. There were two border bases, one designated to A Company, commanded by Major Tony Burke MC, and the other to B Company. The rest of the Battalion would be somewhere in reserve! A helicopter took me from Kuching to the unnamed border base which was only approachable by river or helicopter. The whole area was extremely mountainous and covered in thick jungle.
The base was originally prepared by the Gurkhas with the local Ibans lending a hand and was extremely comfortable when compared with similar situations during the Malayan Emergency as the photographs illustrate. I was conducted on an extensive patrol of the border area which was not designated in any way. The border was simply mountains running roughly where the border was thought to be! The Ibans gave me a canoe tour of the river network and a confident OC B Company was all set to bring his company into action and win a D.S.O. or at least an M.C., to help in his promotion efforts.
After the recce a helicopter picked me up and flew me back to Kuching. I was then told that a peace treaty had been signed and the emergency had ended! The good news was that the Green Howards jungle skills had been sharpened. The bad news was that the excessively-priced life insurance premium I had paid, with the promise that if peace was declared, I would get a refund of the “excess”, turned out to be not true but a good sales gimmick by an ambitious salesman.
I learnt later that war was not officially declared as this would have increased the cost of insurance in Malaya and South East Asia.
The Battalion returned to Colchester where we left our friends in the Green Howards in November 1968 as they said goodbye to the Stevenson family at Colchester Railway Station. We were leaving for Canada, sailing to Montreal.
We eventually reached Toronto Station from Montreal where we were met by a contingent from our Allied Regiment, The Queen’s York Rangers. After a very warm champagne reception, late at night, I signed a document that recruited me into the Regiment and I went to bed, a very tired but happy warrior and still allied to The Green Howards.