Strike from the Sea

In October 1964 No. 2 SBS were flown in to the Sarawak area of Borneo to create, with 40 Commando RM, the Tawau Assault Group. This force was equipped with cabin cruisers, dories and native craft powered by outboards, as well as SBS canoes. The border between Indonesia and Sarawak was difficult to identify among the backwaters of the River Serudong, which in places ran through thick jungle adjacent to the Indonesian border or on Sebatik Island where the border halved the island. Just southwest of Sebatik Island, across a narrow channel, the Indonesian Marines had bases on Nanukan Island.

Their purpose was to disrupt the vital teak timber trade in Sabah. Intelligence reports indicated definite plans by the Indonesians for operations on the Sibuk Bay coast. A shoreline of mangrove swamps and tidal rivers made it a difficult area to patrol from the district capital of Tawau, a small port with a population of 4,300. To the northwest lay Cowie Harbour, an anchorage north of Sebatik Island with the Wallace Bay settlement. Wallace Bay was No. 2 SBS headquarters, from which they patrolled south down the coast in Gemini inflatable boats. They had also been using an OP high in a dead tree near the border. The section also manned a harbour launch, which openly watched the passing coasters, junks and local boats. The Indonesian Marines kept a similar watch from the southeast coast of Sebatik island and had a clear westward view across the waters to other Indonesian bases on Nanukan Island.

The observation post posed no threat to 40 Commando in the Tawau area, but the destruction of the Indonesian post was an obvious target and would undermine the Indonesian morale. But before the attack could be launched, a recce would have to be made to determine the state of the ground just beyond the beach and whether or not barbed wire entanglements and mines were hidden at the jungles edge. Two SBS swimmers were sent to find the answers to such questions one moonless night. With their inflatable boats just out of view of the Indonesian watchtower, the two swimmers slipped over the side and then swam towards the beach a little way south of the tower, coming ashore to find no defences in the palms and scrub nearby.

They could make out a hut to their right, about 80 ft from the tower, where the lookouts off watch were sitting round a flickering fire. The swimmers withdrew having estimated the distance from the tower to the hut, located the impenetrable clumps of scrub and thorn, and found that a small beach southeast of the tower was suitable to land several inflatable boats. Their report was studied by 40 Commando who decided to mount a raid in force against the post by fifteen Marines led by an SBS lieutenant. They came down the coast in a small motor cruiser on the night of the raid and launched three inflatable boats some short distance from the border. These were paddled south, one staying near the border as covering protection so that its GPMG would deter any patrol boats from pursuing the Commandos as they withdrew.

The other inflatable boats covered the 9km to the sandy beach mentioned in the recce report. The plan was to position two scouts between the OP and the hut to prevent any Indonesians escaping along the path or if there were any reinforcements sent towards the hut, to prevent from interfering in was expected to be a short sharp fight. As the lieutenant's craft beached it came under inaccurate machine gun fire as the men in the tower had spotted the movement below them. The lieutenant called his assault team with their SMGs to spread out and assault forward as he ran towards the hut. His sergeant, with a GPMG gunner to the right, waded waist deep along the shore guided by the gunfire.

The lieutenant crossing open ground raced towards the hut. His shout of "grenades!" sent the sergeant and his GPMG gunner ducking for cover under the water, holding their weapons over their heads as they did so. The lieutenant had lobbed two M26 grenades into the hut followed by a burst from his SMG raking the palm leaf hut. The assault team came up (the jungle scrub having been too thick for them to 'spread left') and having counted the Indonesian bodies, the patrol, under strict orders not to get involved in any prolonged fire-fight, prepared to leave. The element of surprise had been lost very early in the raid and there was no alternative but to withdraw before the enemy could organize an effective counterattack. Back aboard the Geminis, the raiders quickly had sufficient water under them to open up the throttles of the outboards and make good their escape, just as mortar bombs began to rain down close to the observation post.

The SBS sections also practised their techniques for landing by canoe from submarines. Their first recce during the moonless nights early in May 1965 was to Labuan Bilik. The submarine lay well clear of the island until nightfall, when she floated off a Gemini and four canoes 8km from the shore and the Gemini and canoes beached without mishap. There was no sign of any enemy activity and the Marines paddled back to rendezvous with the submarine. But a reconnaissance on the second dark night found Indonesian patrols on a second island. One of the three teams that landed on this rocky island found a path that led to the jungle edge above a cliff. Up to this point they had been covered by one of the other canoes moving a little way off shore. The two Marines in the third boat swam ashore, climbed quietly over the rocks and moved inland to higher ground overlooking some huts. From their vantage point they could see the movement of enemy personnel.

These canoeists made a third recce to an island close to the Sumatra coast. A small river estuary was the target, against which three canoe teams were landed, and they were looking for the boats used to smuggle arms. Thus the cycle of reconnaissance continued, carefully planned to co-ordinate recces and raids in a way that added to the intelligence picture and the information collected on these clandestine operations helped the Far East Land Forces Headquarters In Singapore to plan cross border operations. By the summer of 1965, in Borneo, there were signs that Indonesian incursions were decreasing. Ambushes set up through the summer by the security forces found fewer Indonesian intruders than they had for several years. By 1966, the 70,000 strong security force was intercepting Indonesian forces as they crossed the border. The Royal Marines fought their last action of the confrontation in mid-March, pursuing Indonesian Commandos south of Biawak. A truce was finally agreed in August. The total casualties of the Commonwealth military forces in this undeclared war, which lasted over four years, were 114 killed and 181 injured, which were a fifth of the Indonesian losses.