Afternoon Rizal,
Thank you very much for the reminder of the greetings, as the old saying goes 'Use it or lose it' and as I have not spoken Malay for so many years I can only recall odd words or the 'mock phrases' which some of us developed in our time with the 6th Bn at Pengkalen Chepa such as the one I signed off with earlier in this link ' Satu lagi empat jalan' which to us was simply 'One more 4 the road' and the other one which I ultimately developed as my morning rouse to the platoon ' Apa Changkol Iban' for the English equivalent of ' What Ho Ibans' in which they absolutely revelled.
Now then as for information availability as you listed - you absolutely amaze me, I would have thought that the Malaya Defence Forces or Army HQ in Kuala Lumpur would have had all that information at their disposal.
All that I can remember is being given a brief resume of their origins - namely that General Templar on taking over after the assasination of High Commissioner Gurney developed the idea of forming the Iban Trackers into experimental fighting platoons to , as Robert Bonner quoted in his book 'Jungle Bashers' -Pages 74 - 75 - '...if I can prove that they can out-bandit the bandits in the jungle, I shall try to raise a Regiment of them.' - he did this in March 1953 and I was amongst the first batch of NCO's given the task of adding military skills to their already highly developed natural fighting abilities and fortunately they were very quick learners and adapted rapidly incorporating their own ' silent signals' into the existing British Army ones. As I have said previously I learned a terrific amount of 'survival skills amongst other things, I also learned very quickly to stop asking 'Appa makan' (What is it?) when a full mess tin was put in front of me on the grounds of 'what you don't know won't hurt or upset you or your stomach!!!'
However, the only possible source of some of this information would in my opinion be contained within the Regimental/Battalion Intelligence/War Dairies wherever these may be kept - as I said in my last email - my own Diaries was handed along with the Roll Books etc in when I went home to bury my Father and was not to be found when I returned, the new one I started was handed in to the Bn I.O. when I was posted back to the UK on completion of my tour of duty.Whether or not this information would have been kept by the War Office/ MoD I have no idea at all, sorry Rizal. If I come up with any ideas on this I will let you know, meanwhile take care, and happy hunting.
Regards.
George.