Tidying Up

Relief 

In the afternoon the lead boat took the casualties and most of the hostages back to Brunei.

The gunboat remained at Limbang with the bulk of the Marines in case of counter attack. That night the boat’s crew stayed in the Residency and the Marines patrolled the town. Early next morning we had another alert to welcome Sub Lieutenant Jowett and Midshipman Mayo with the launches and additional supplies for those Marines who were to stay in Limbang as a garrison.

It became clear to us just how far the noise of  boats’ engines can carry in the still morning air - no wonder we had been detected.

Survivors - the Stoker

The craft returned to Brunei with the hostages and the dead and wounded Marines. The dead covered in white sheets lay in line on the upper deck.  I was one of the group who removed the bodies from the craft.

Four of the hostages came on board Fiskerton, a Roman Catholic priest, a Welsh banker, a woman missionary (or was this Mrs Morris, wife of the Resident ? - Ed) It was obvious that all of them had been through a great ordeal and were still in a state of shock. The young American was telling everyone not to say anything about the fact that he had picked up a dead Marine’s gun and was using it. He thought that was not exactly what Kennedy had in mind when he formed the Peace Corps. The Catholic priest, still dressed in his clerical attire, including hat, was walking around blessing everything in sight from the ship’s dog to fire extinguishers on the bulkheads and the banker was dripping about all the money he had left behind. In retrospect I guess that shock has peculiar ways of expressing itself.

The woman missionary / Mrs Morris seemed to be least affected by it all. She declined the offer of a tot and instead preferred a “nice cup of tea”. By all accounts it was she that had kept up the hopes of the others during their ordeal. I believe she was later honoured by the Queen

De-Brief

The lessons learned from this action were not all that new:

the perils of frontal assault on a well defended position have not changed much since 1066. 

the value of accurate intelligence was defined by Napoleon who said that time spent in reconnaissance was never wasted

having the right tools for the job saves casualties. We subsequently “armoured” the wheel house of the lighters with steel plates - secured with spunyarn and dan buoy mooring wire!

on the positive side, the British talent for improvisation came to the fore - both in terms of the speed of reaction and the resources pressed into action. It was to be exemplified again later in the Confrontation by Naval Party Kilo - armed canoes with outboard engines which patrolled the waterways of  Sarawak .

the versatility and courage of  the men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines was again demonstrated.

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