BA KELALAN

Ba Kelalan was in the 5th Division of Sarawak in the interior highlands at 3,000 ft above sea level and about 4 km from the Indonesian border . In fact just at the convergence of the boundaries of Indonesia , Sarawak and Sabah . It was to be my home for the next six months .

The valley through which the River Ba Kelalan flowed was about fifteen miles long and flanked on either side by jungle covered mountains . The valley itself was cultivated with wet paddy fields . Scattered up and down the valley were about nine kampongs which consisted of two to three long houses .These longhouses were substantial wooden constructions with corrugated iron roofs. There would be up to eight families living in a longhouse The people in the valley were Muruts ,whilst in the adjacent valley in Bario they were Kelabits . I doubt if the people had much sense of a national identity towards Sarawak as as far as they were concerned they were Muruts , Kelabits , Ibans or Dayaks etc.The population of the valley was about 800 to 1,000. The majority would spend their entire life in the valley without leaving it.

In many ways it was like going back in time as there were no roads , no electricity ,no telephones and the Ba Kelalan River was not navigable so no boats . The only way in was to walk or by light aircraft .

Our little fort was a bamboo construction and like everything else on stilts . It overlooked a grass airstrip which was vital to the community . Surrounding the airstrip were a couple of longhouses , a school, small administrative building and a church . The Muruts had been converted to Christianity by an Australian Evangelical Church.

Each kampong had a headman and the chief in the valley was the Pengulu . However , I was to discover he was not necessary the most powerful person in the valley . Tribal politics can get quite complicated.There was a Government Representative or Administrator , three Sarawak Police Field Force and a medical dresser (male nurse ) and that was the basic infrastructure but one had to take into account : the Pengulu , a cabal of kampong headmen , the school teacher and the Murut Evangelical Minister . Even then there were other sub structures and unless you spoke Malaya they could be difficult to penetrate .I did not really trust the Police Field Force and was glad when they were withdrawn .

Even at school one had read about the wild men of Borneo and head hunters . The Muruts were essentially passive hill farmers and if headhunting had gone on it was a thing of the past .Some did go hunting in the jungle with blowpipes and dogs but they tended to be of the older generation. Most were content to cultivate their rice fields with the help of domesticated water buffalo. Their diet would be supplemented by pig meat, fresh eggs and a variety of vegetables . 

I have looked up Ba Kelalan on Google and it is amazing to see how it has developed . It still remains pretty isolated although they are trying to develop a tourist industry based on jungle treks.  However, one of the images was of a crashed light aircraft . In my day it was one of the trickiest strips to land on for Army Air Corps pilots . One new development is an annual Apple Festival .

As the British Gurkha officer left shortly after I arrived my little force of two sections of Gurkhas (2/6 GR ) , a Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC ) corporal (SRN qualified ) and a seventeen year old male interpreter (Musa ).

The SAS troop who were commanded by CSM Lawerence Smith opted to live in a nearby re entrant in the jungle . Ba Kelalan was as I have said in the TAOR of A Sqn  22SAS .Although as a second lieutenant I was senior to a CSM he was really the boss and I was , certainly happy to defer to him as he was a veteran of the campaign in Malaya . Many in the troop had been in Malaya and some on that famous operation in Oman to capture the Jebel Akhdar . However , for some Borneo was their first operational tour . When my own platoon arrived our first month was spent improving our field defences but later I got them to go out with the SAS on patrol , initially  day patrols but later for seven days at a time . This was ideal and my soldiers learnt a lot from these more experienced soldiers.

The SAS were structured to gain intelligence . One of the most valuable members of their patrols would be the medic especially if he could speak Malay . Extract a rotten tooth from a Mutut which has been causing him agony and you have a friend for life .

The SAS were designed to operate behind enemy lines but in 1963 cross border operations had not been authorised. After about two months it was decided to pull this SAS troop out and for the remainder of our tour I was in charge of Ba Kelalan. CSM Smith got involved in many other operations and was awarded the MC . Although , the SAS troop had pulled out I was still technically under command of A Sqn . The Sqn Comd was Bill Dodd who much later was my commanding officer in Belfast . Over my time in Borneo I had five different company commanders but due to the lack of helicopters I seldom saw them and really worked direct to battalion headquarters.

The strange thing I did not really have any written directive as to what I was meant to do .This did not really worry me as my task was pretty  obvious : deter-detect-destroy .

We had no maps and made our own. One tended to think on time lines like the the nearest other base was at Long Semado two days to the north.Communications were by means of HF radio but due to the ionosphere you could only get through between 7am and 7 pm.

Our supply chain was air drops . Monday was the highlight of our week -Airdrop Day which meant two days of fresh rations .