Thirty-eight years ago my regiment was ordered to Sarawak, in Borneo, to help in the defence of Eastern Malaysia, which was under threat from President Sukarno of Indonesia. This 'Confrontation', as the conflict was known, had begun three years earlier with an attempted rebellion in Brunei and incursions across the Sabah and Sarawak borders. In contributing to Malaysian self-defence, we were honouring the terms of a treaty that formed part of the UK's national defence policy. The same applied to the soldiers from Australia and New Zealand who served alongside us. The United States was, at the time, preoccupied with Vietnam, to which Harold Wilson declined to commit British troops.

LRB 20 February 2003 | PDF Download