News:

Are you researching a soldier? Interested in the regiment? Please join the forum

There is much more information available on our website: Click Here

Main Menu

Australian SAS Diggers Found - Malayan Emergency

Started by DaveMurphy, March 16, 2010, 04:29:23 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

DaveMurphy

G'day All,

I am not normally found in this part of the forum, but thought that some of you might find this article in today's Australian news of interest, even though it is not of the Manchesters:

Remains of SAS diggers Ken Hudson and Bob Moncrieff found in Borneo
From: The Australian March 16, 2010


THE remains of two Special Air Service diggers who went missing in action during the 1960s Confrontation with Indonesia have been found in West Kalimantan (Borneo).

Lieutenant Ken Hudson and Private Bob Moncrieff, both of E Troop, 2 Squadron, SASR, drowned in the early hours of March 21, 1966, while attempting to cross the Sekayan River near Kampong Entabang, 6km west of Serankang.

Defence sources told The Australian an army search team involving SAS and Indonesian special forces (Kopassus) have recovered the remains of the two men.

The army has been involved in the search for the pair since 2007 but the search gathered new impetus earlier this year when the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) agreed to help the Australian Defence Force in the recovery operation.

Its understood the two soldiers were inside Indonesian territory when they drowned.

The key to the discovery was information provided by pro-Indonesian Dayak tribesmen, notably Ketua Adat, the keeper of culture and history for the local tribe.

There are no roads into the area, which lies in the remote border region, and access is only by canoe.

Between 1962 and 1966 Indonesia and Malaysia fought a small undeclared war involving troops from Australia and Britain.

It came as a response to opposition by Indonesia to the creation of the Federation of Malaysia, seen by Jakarta as an attempt by Britain to maintain its Malaysian colony under the guise of granting it independence.

A total of 23 Australians were killed during the Confrontation - seven of them on operations - but because of the sensitivity of the cross-border operations, little publicity was given to the conflict at the time.


george.theshed197

Morning Dave,
Yes I had been advised of this news by my cousin Val from Queensland, thanks for putting it on here, no doubt Apai Rizal may have something to say later on because he also was operating in that area with the Royal Malaysian Rangers at various time during that period.
I was aware of the situation at that time as many of my former Sarawak Rangers were in fact operating with both the British and Australian/NZ Special Ops folk and somewhere in my archives is a newspaper cutting including photographs of small groups of them on R & R after ops.
A very small world indeed,
Enjoy your tour in the States.
Take care,
George,

themonsstar

Good to here that two lads will be going home after all this time, RIP lads.

rizalbob

Apai Tuai George,

I just missed the Indonesian Confrontation by a couple of years. I was still in my secondary school in Miri (northern part of Sarawak and close to Brunei). I remember in 1964, I came home during a school vacation and I used to hear the artillery doing their routine bombardment of selected targets along the Sarawak-Kalimantan border almost every evening. Some of the patrols even came down to our longhouses. I went to one of the underground bases at Sungai Tenggang, along the Kuching - Simanggang trunk road one day to request for a medivac for my sister who was taken ill. They sent her to Simanggang hospital which was about 50 km away by a Land Rover.

In later years, when I joined the Malaysian Rangers, these same areas, Serian, Kuching, Sibu and its mighty Rejang River were to become my operation areas - in our search and destroy operations for the communist insurgents.


Apai Rizal