Aust Unit Facing 7500 Indonesians

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 13

Aust Unit Facing 7500 Indonesians

(By A. A. P.-Reuter Correspondent, RICHARD MYERSCOVGH) z BAU (Sarawak), March 29. Helicopters moved land-mines, sand bags and trench wire through Bau base camp yesterday as, 10 miles away, forward Australian companies dug in against an estimated 7500 Indonesian troops menacing the state capital of Kuching.

At Bau, the commanding officer of the newly arrived 3rd Battalion, Boyal Australian Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel B. A. McDonald told me: “We can move out of here in half an hour—and I mean forward not back.”

The battalion faces 20 of the most sensitive miles of frontier in the Borneo war. Here, it is only 40 miles from Kuching to the border.

In the brief period they have been in Borneo, the Australians have been fired on with mortars and small arms. A sergeant has been killed and two men wounded by booby traps.

One of Sarawak's few paved roads links Kuching with the goldmining town of Bau, 30 miles to the south-west. RIVER “ROAD”

The limestone ranges thrust out from the coast forming a valley for the treacherous fast-flowing Sarawak river and providing a possible avenue of advance for the Indonesians. It is the Australians who are standing in this gap. The 3rd Battalion headquarters at Cambrai camp adjoins the tiny Dyak and Chinese township of Bau itself. It lies under the jungle-cov-ered thrust of limestone hundreds of feet high and half a half-mile long lake that covers a flooded goldmine. Stationed with the Australians at Bau is a detachment of the Royal Tank Regiment whose heavy and light arm-

oured cars perform convoy and other road duty. A British Royal Engineer unit is building an airfield. At present all air activity centres on a helicopter pad where Royal Air Force machines from Kuching, four minutes’ flying time away, stage through with men and supplies. Yesterday one consignment for front-line positions included a number of galvanised rubbish tins.

They will be used to store food in the forward camps in rat-infested bush. Commonwealth officers in Kuching say there is no sign of any reduction in the Indonesian build-up on the border. There is a new professional air about recent Indonesian operations, they add. However, the Indonesians

were relying largely on river transport as jungle trails appeared to have major supply problems, according to one source.

Commonwealth infantry patrolling ceaselessly from four to 14 days at a time, so far had been able to keep a check on the situation. Patrols were in touch often enough with border settlements to prevent a hold being established on any of them through opposition terror tactics. Extensive use is now being made with mortars, field artillery and raiders whenever possible. The Indonesians too, are employing more gunfire. Both sides are permitting limited traffic across the frontier by the local people, some of whom have tribal grounds straddling the border.