British counterinsurgency in Brunei and Sarawak, 1962–1963: developing best practices in the shadow of Malaya

On 8 December 1962 the North Kalimantan National Army (Tentera Nasional Kalimantan Utara, TNKU) launched an insurrection in the oil-rich British protectorate of Brunei on the island of Borneo. The insurgents were a militant wing of the dominant political party, the Parti Rakyat Brunei (PRB), led by a former guerrilla from the Indonesian National Revolution: A.M. Azahari. Although absent in Manila, Azahari gave political direction in pursuit of his dissatisfaction with the corrupt Sultanate government and opposition to the Anglo-Malayan plan to incorporate Brunei into Malaysia by August 1963. Azahari’s alternative call for a fusion of the three British Borneo territories into North Kalimantan was favourably received by Indonesia, which supported the insurgents to further their own expansionist goals. Although initially successful in subverting government control throughout most of Brunei and spreading to the neighbouring colony of Sarawak, the rebellion was soon crushed by British forces airlifted from Singapore. Nevertheless, a second phase of insurgency continued until the capture of TNKU military leader Yassin Affandi on 18 May 1963.

In contrast to the earlier Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the Brunei Revolt has produced a relative dearth of historical interest. One conspiratorial theory proposes that Britain stoked the revolt to justify tightening control over Borneo: an alarming suggestion entirely at odds with the shift away from formal imperial influence. Other existing accounts depict the insurgency as merely the first phase of the Konfrontasi (Confrontation) with Indonesia (1963–1966) or a minor political episode in the negotiations over the creation of Malaysia.Footnote¹ However, the insurrection in Brunei was a vital link in the development of counterinsurgency best practices in South-East Asia. As Christopher Tuck has shown, Britain achieved laudable operational success during the standoff with Indonesia.Footnote² But this outcome was greatly contingent on the adaptation of the Malayan experience into a finely-tuned counterinsurgency instrument during the Brunei Revolt. Following initial failures to react to timely intelligence, the British authorities enjoyed considerable success in selectively and appropriately adapting the experience gained in Malaya. Although the Revolt itself was a relatively small campaign, its major fighting resulting in only six security force and 60 insurgent fatalities, it provides important insight into the effectiveness of British counterinsurgency during a period overshadowed by larger campaigns.Footnote³

This counterinsurgency study benefits from the release of the ‘migrated archives’ containing previously classified material relating to intelligence and counterinsurgency. In evaluating these new sources, this article considers two inter-related questions: the effectiveness of British counterinsurgency in Brunei and the extent to which this was inspired by prior success in Malaya. Overall, greatest success was achieved not by directly copying Malaya but adopting best practices applicable to the unique environment of Borneo. This conclusion was reached by Major-General George Lea, second Director of Operations in Borneo (1965–1966) in the official campaign report of 1966:

Malaya as paradigm: problems and ‘lessons’

Although Malaya’s relevance as an objective ‘lessons’ paradigm has been eroded by successive generations of historians, including David French and Karl Hack, during the Brunei Revolt, British counterinsurgency practitioners explicitly sought inspiration from Malaya.Footnote⁶ One battalion commander argued that ‘the success of the Brunei and Borneo operations was largely due to our past experience’.Footnote⁷ Overall, the Brunei experience suggests counterinsurgency learning was more successful at the operational than strategic policy level, resulting from the leadership of individual commanders rather than successful institutional learning. Nevertheless, importing ‘lessons’ from Malaya to Brunei was rendered problematic due to the different operational environment.

Most notably, the Borneo territories constituted more complex geographic, demographic and political constructs than Malaya. Borneo, the world’s third largest island, was split between Indonesian Kalimantan in the south and the three British territories in the north (see Figure 1). Brunei constituted the middle territory, intruding into eastern Sarawak. The easternmost Fourth and Fifth Divisions, formerly Brunei territory, became penetrated by Azahari’s TNKU. In contrast, western Sarawak suffered more from communist subversion and greater fears of Indonesian cross-border penetration. This distinction between the eastern and western districts created problems in formulating policy from the capital Kuching where the communist threat naturally assumed greater significance. To the east, the colony of North Borneo suffered only one isolated TNKU incursion which was easily suppressed, but contained a large Indonesian population with potentially subversive connections.

Figure 1. Map of British Borneo, 1962–1963.

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Politically, Brunei became a British protectorate in 1888, but under the 1959 constitution enjoyed considerable internal independence. In contrast, Sarawak was personally ruled by the British Brooke family – the ‘White Rajahs’ – for a century until formally ceded to the Colonial Office. The cession of 1946 created a number of political problems, inspiring the assassination of the then Governor in 1949. Along with external political factors such as the road towards Malaysia and the aggressive role of Indonesia, these complex geographic and political constructs required sensitive decision making. There were in particular limited opportunities for coercive responses or for directing the unpopular Brunei government into winning the hearts-and-minds of its people.

Furthermore, as argued by Karl Hack, population control was vital to success in Malaya because the insurgents came from a homogenous ethnic minority (albeit a sizeable one). But the TNKU in Brunei represented the majority Malay population of over 52%: also the dominant ethnic grouping for providing the ruling elite.Footnote⁸ This made ethnic categorisation unfeasible, creating problems in establishing population control. Consequently, reliance was placed on the physical control of major population centres and military ‘framework’ operations to develop a visible presence in rural areas.

However, these significant differences did not prevent counterinsurgency practitioners from seeking inspiration from Malaya. The pertinent ‘lessons’ as defined by contemporary military decision-makers were outlined in a summary report by Lieutenant-General R.H. Bower, Malayan Director of Operations in 1957. Although noting that the Malayan Emergency took place in unique conditions, Bower maintained that a number of ‘lessons’ could be derived.

In the pre-revolt phase, Bower emphasised the importance of preventive measures through good intelligence, as well as the need for timely intervention should this fail. Once counterinsurgency operations were in progress, he argued in favour of replicating the system of unified command present under the celebrated Gerald Templer (1952–1954), preferably with civilian supremacy or a military leader in a civilian role. This acknowledges the nature of an insurgency-counterinsurgency war as not just a military struggle but a contest for political legitimacy. On the operational level, the Malayan experience taught that effective counterinsurgency required three stages: controlling the population, taking the fight to the insurgents, and winning hearts-and-minds. Finally, Bower’s 1957 report also gives testament to the importance of intelligence and psychological warfare in prosecuting counterinsurgency.Footnote⁹

Nevertheless, Bower warned against doctrinal inflexibility. Templer was successful because he abandoned his predecessor’s floundering systematic roll-up plan in favour of more flexible operations. Templer created a system of four main operational schemas: ‘framework’ operations in target areas, intelligence-led State/Federal Priority operations, ‘mopping-up’ pacified White Areas, and deep jungle operations to deny sanctuaries. This flexibility was instilled into every British soldier through a training booklet produced with the assistance of future Brunei Director of Operations Walter Walker.Footnote¹⁰

After the Brunei Revolt, in 1966, Robert Thompson authored his famous handbook Defeating Communist Insurgency. Although somewhat inapplicable to the Brunei case due to its explicit focus on anti-communism, further emphasising the pitfalls of counterinsurgency learning, Thompson’s analysis nonetheless reiterates many of Bower’s generic ideas for developing best practices.Footnote¹¹ This reinforces Bower’s focus on organisational clarity and seizing the initiative after securing and holding the population centres.

These key ‘lessons’ shared by Malayan practitioners proved crucial in providing inspiration for the development of best practices in Brunei. Both the military authorities and Colonial Office actively sought to internalise learning from past experiences, but this was not always understood and in some cases was ignored by individual officials. Although the central Colonial Office in London attempted to encourage re-evaluation of intelligence mechanisms for predicting insurgencies following the Cyprus Revolt of 1954–1959, decision-makers in Sarawak rejected the need to follow this advice, possibly contributing to a failure to act upon intelligence in December 1962.Footnote¹²

Origins of the Brunei Revolt: intelligence failure?

Before the outbreak of the TNKU revolt, the British colonial administration and Brunei representatives were well-informed of insurgent preparations. From as early as March 1962, evidence emerged of the training of Azahari’s supporters in Indonesian Kalimantan, and in early September, wooden training rifles were recovered from a jungle parade ground in North Borneo. When Special Branch enquiries proved fruitless, it was decided that an oath of silence was in operation: revealing a certain paranoia fuelled by the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya. Nevertheless, despite the lack of popular cooperation, intelligence continued to accumulate pointing towards an imminent revolt, with captured documents proving the existence of a TNKU underground army.Footnote¹³

Less than 24 hours before the revolt, Richard Morris, Colonial Resident of Sarawak Fifth Division, attempted to warn his superiors that ‘there are no grounds whatsoever for any complacency’.Footnote¹⁴ Morris’ letters to Sarawak Chief Secretary Jakeway provide personal insight into British thinking in the period leading up to the rebellion. His letter of 7 December raises an important question regarding the extent to which he was justified in charging the administration with complacency. Further evidence from the ‘migrated archives’ supports these charges, suggesting that this period saw an unequivocal failure in intelligence analysis and policy direction, despite praiseworthy human intelligence collection.

In the months preceding the TNKU insurgency, the predominantly ethnic-Malay PRB grew to political prominence within Brunei. Following electoral victory in July–August 1962, Azahari publicly announced a restrained policy. He reassured the government that, if treated as a responsible political party, the PRB would alter course and accept Malaysian unification whilst working towards limited constitutional reform. This led High Commissioner Dennis White, Britain’s chief diplomatic representative to the Sultan’s government, to the partially erroneous conclusion that ‘I believe that the Party would like to pursue a moderate line, and avoid a clash’.Footnote¹⁵ Although undoubtedly true for the less radical wing of the PRB, Azahari himself was secretly creating the TNKU with other militant figures such as Ahmad Zaini and Yassin Affandi. Their policy could hardly be described as peaceful.

More worrying than White’s acceptance of Azahari’s conciliatory rhetoric is the treatment of intelligence from late-November 1962 which conclusively proved the existence of an underground army. Reacting to mounting evidence, from 25–27 November the Sarawak Police Field Force investigated subversive activity in the Lawas area of Fifth Division. This resulted in the arrest of ten Malays with jungle uniforms and the seizure of documents proving the existence of a militant organisation under the PRB banner which harboured irredentist Bruneian claims towards eastern Sarawak.Footnote¹⁶

But during this raid, Morris succumbed to the prevailing complacency of the political administration, believing that pre-emptive police action ‘should result in an easing of the situation’. This was despite further information from an admittedly untested informant which suggested approximately 500 men were formed into two TNKU companies within Fifth Division.Footnote¹⁷

As a result of the growing seriousness of the situation, an intelligence meeting was convened at Lawas on 28 November by the three Special Branches of the British Borneo territories. Based on captured documents, informer information and interrogation of the Lawas arrestees, these colonial intelligence chiefs estimated the TNKU strength at 500–2000 men. However, they treated this as a predominantly long-term threat, expecting subversive activity to escalate as the date of Malaysian unification (31 August 1963) approached. For the present, the Special Branch experts were satisfied with a low-key response without invoking emergency powers.Footnote¹⁸ This directly contradicted external intelligence from expatriate Malayan civil servants working for Radio Brunei, who had ascertained ‘clear evidence’ of plans for an imminent insurrection.Footnote¹⁹

The results of this intelligence evaluation were forwarded by Sarawak Governor Alexander Waddell to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London. Nevertheless, Waddell informed his superior that ‘rumour is rife in the area but situation is under control … No reason seen at present for introduction of emergency measures’.Footnote²⁰ Similarly, George Hamilton, Earl of Selkirk and British Commissioner-General for South-East Asia, dismissed the TNKU threat as ‘embryonic’, claiming that ‘the information we have now received from Borneo Territories is reassuring at least in short term’.Footnote²¹ The Brunei Revolt proved a major irritant to Selkirk whose appointment was essentially a decolonisation brief to ensure an orderly transition to self-rule in a manner which would preserve British regional influence. Azahari’s challenge to the hard-negotiated Malaysia plan constituted a serious threat to this strategic policy goal.Footnote²²

Underneath this complacent attitude, evidence of a more urgent danger mounted. On 23 November, police discovered another parade ground in Brunei with uniforms containing a buffalo head badge and PRB flag. In North Borneo, Special Branch officer Johnny Cheng cultivated intelligence sources who confirmed that 80 Brunei citizens crossed into Kalimantan for firearms training. Cheng compiled a report focusing on the imagery employed by the TNKU: specifically, this buffalo head emblem with three stars between its horns. This was a potent symbol used by Indonesian nationalists in their postwar insurgency against Dutch imperialism, but with the three stars to represent the three British Borneo territories, suggestive of Azahari’s ties with Indonesia.Footnote²³

Whilst the internally independent regime in Brunei responded appropriately by enacting public security ordinances prior to the revolt, in British Sarawak, the Governor followed advice from Morris in deferring action. Morris, an Australian national, feared that emergency powers would be reminiscent of colonial heavy-handedness and provide political ammunition to the anti-Malaysia lobby. Yet even in the same message Morris reported that arrests in his Fifth Division had increased to 17 and that new intelligence suggested previous estimates of TNKU strength were vastly inadequate. Perhaps this complacency is best summarised by his conclusion that ‘I am reasonably satisfied that the TNKU is not ready to strike now … at least I do most sincerely hope so’.Footnote²⁴ The British authorities in both Borneo and Singapore appear to have been suffering from wishful-thinking motivated by worries of endangering the Malaysia plan.

The misinterpretation of intelligence during this period reveals a stark failure to learn from Bower’s Malayan report. Although the applicability of Malaya as a paradigm is disputable, the failure of the Malayan Security Service (MSS) to anticipate the 1948 insurrection provides a clear ‘lesson’. Yet the MSS had not benefited from the mounting evidence collected by the three Borneo Special Branches in 1962, because their focus on criminal secret societies had undermined intelligence collection. In Brunei and Sarawak, the fault lay not with collection but later stages in the cycle: namely, analysis, evaluation and dissemination. The controlling authorities actively dismissed the implied urgency in the increasing intelligence they were receiving. This was a cognitive more than structural failure, in contrast to that of the MSS.

The regional Commanders-in-Chief in Singapore were apprised of this intelligence by Selkirk, but took no action to enact Plan Ale: the contingency plan to suppress an internal security threat. Colonel Sweeney, commander of one of the first units to arrive in Borneo, attributed this dismissal of intelligence to political preoccupations with the creation of Malaysia. He suggested that the Commanders and colonial officials were unwilling to countenance any challenge to their delicate timetable.Footnote²⁵ Furthermore, Britain was seeking to reduce its defence commitments East of Suez, albeit determined to retain a political and nominal military presence. The TNKU Revolt and Konfrontasi undermined these ambitions, contributing to a more complete withdrawal by the end of the decade.

Within the Brunei administration, High Commissioner White departed for Britain in November 1962, still believing that PRB electoral success would persuade them to operate through constitutional means. Intelligence was easily dismissible for White, since ‘Brunei has, since time immemorial, been a hot-bed of rumour, lies and intrigue’.Footnote²⁶ An orientalist element to British complacency can also be inferred from this, with colonial prejudices enabling certain representatives to discredit the very real threat constituted by the TNKU. By early 1963, White was replaced in no small part due to this untimely faith in Azahari’s better principles.

Nevertheless, White attempted to pass the blame onto Special Branch, suggesting that their investigations had accelerated the revolt which previous information indicated was planned for 25 December. The Brunei Shell Petroleum Company’s private intelligence officers had agreed with this timetable.Footnote²⁷ On balance, both the political and intelligence establishments were culpable for this failure. The police attempted to forestall a revolt through coordinated searches such as Operation Hujan inaugurated on 3 December, but lacked the time and resources to pay dividends. This was a classic case of too little too late, indicating a failure to absorb Lieutenant-General Bower’s suggestions on timeliness.

One further explanation can be found in the Cold War obsession within metropolitan military and intelligence communities, as noted by Rory Cormac’s extensive research.Footnote²⁸ In the 1954 Cyprus revolt, EOKA insurgents achieved relative surprise because the local Special Branch diverted attention to communist subversion from the more dangerous Greek nationalist movement. Comparably, a similar focus on Bornean communism hampered the attempts of the intelligence community to collect information on the TNKU. Whilst gathering information on Azahari’s ties with Indonesia, for example, more concern was expressed over comparably insignificant contacts with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) than the actual governmental and military links which provided practical aid to the insurgency.Footnote²⁹

Moreover, the Brunei Revolt coincided with a strengthening of the underground communist movement in Sarawak, dubbed the Clandestine Communist Organisation (CCO). Reflecting flawed intelligence planning, in the early 1960s, North Borneo Special Branch targeted its efforts against the emergent local branch of the CCO at the expense of nationalist organisations. This led to excellent information on the communists, with the interrogation of one 18-year-old student in October 1960 revealing 85 names and aliases constituting the precise hierarchy by which the Sarawak CCO aimed to replicate itself across the territories.Footnote³⁰

Nevertheless, this contributed directly to the atmosphere in which the TNKU was not treated as a serious threat because it did not conform to Cold War norms. This reflects a misunderstanding of the subjective ‘lessons’ of Malaya. Although that revolt was a communist insurgency, practitioners such as Bower emphasised that future insurrections may not be communist-inspired, and the pertinent ‘lesson’ should have been the need for serious and timely treatment of intelligence.

Returning to Major-General Lea’s Borneo campaign report, which summarises ‘lessons’ garnered from both the Revolt and Konfrontasi, this failure in intelligence direction, analysis and application amply demonstrates the delicate balance between failing to learn from past mistakes and inappropriately copying specific scenarios. General Lea supported the need for historical awareness but emphasised that ‘principles and lessons learned from earlier emergencies and operations should be closely studied and considered but not slavishly applied’.Footnote³¹

The colonial and military authorities in South-East Asia failed in both regards during the build-up to the TNKU rebellion. On the one hand, the cardinal ‘lesson’ of Malaya regarding the need for good intelligence analysis to forestall an emergency was blatantly ignored, whilst the focus on communism inspired by the leading role of that ideology in the Malayan insurgency skewed analysis. Ultimately, Malaya stands out as the exception rather than the rule as one of the few genuine communist insurgencies to subvert the British Empire.

British officials only began responding to this intelligence on 7 December: the day before the outbreak of insurgency. Morris’ counterpart in Sarawak Fourth Division, John Fisher, reported the testimony of a reliable source that the TNKU would launch an insurrection at 2:00AM on 8 December and descend on the town of Miri. Although Governor Waddell continued to dismiss this completely accurate intelligence as ‘difficult to credit’, steps were taken to reinforce the police at Miri which prevented that town from falling to the TNKU.Footnote³² Despite wartime intelligence experience in naval coast-watching in the Solomon Islands, Waddell proved more reluctant to treat the TNKU as a credible threat than his North Borneo counterpart William Goode, whose Singapore credentials included colonial counter-subversion. One possible explanation is the geographic problem of Sarawak: for Waddell, the view from Kuching was dominated by the growing communist problem not Malay nationalism.

Counterinsurgency phase one: securing bases

Major-General Lea’s Borneo report, retained in the private papers of Sarawak Special Branch chief Tim Hardy, separated Brunei counterinsurgency operations into two distinct phases. Firstly, from 9–13 December, attention focused on crushing the rebellion, establishing safe base areas and thus separating the insurgents from the population. For the remainder of the campaign until May 1963, pursuit-and-search was initiated, maintaining pressure on the remaining TNKU fighters whilst increasingly preparing for the longer struggle against Indonesia.Footnote³³

During the first phase, the Malayan Emergency provided positive inspiration to only a moderate extent. Even after the outbreak of the revolt at the forewarned time, the Singapore authorities continued to demur on taking rapid action, replicating problems encountered in the first two years of Malaya. Within a few hours, the TNKU deactivated the power station in Brunei Town, overran the Seria oilfields and captured Limbang in Sarawak. Resourcefulness by the Brunei Police, reinforced by North Borneo Governor Goode, safeguarded the capital city and the person of the Sultan. Consequently, the TNKU focused on assaulting police stations around Seria to capture more powerful weaponry such as heavy machine guns, replacing the civilian shotguns available at the outbreak.Footnote³⁴

Unlike in Malaya the British authorities conceptualised the TNKU as genuine ‘insurgents’, not ‘bandits’ or ‘terrorists’.Footnote³⁵ This indicated an appreciation that Azahari’s following constituted not just a military insurrection but a political movement responding to genuine grievances, as well as the differences between operating in a colonial and semi-independent environment. For this reason, the possibility of a deal with Azahari was considered, albeit rejected because of his unpopularity with the Sultan of Brunei and Tunku Abdul Rahman of Malaya. Dealing with Azahari would damage British influence in South-East Asia, undermining the very purpose of creating Malaysia. Consequently, it was more prudent to discredit the PRB leader as ‘an untrustworthy fanatic and self-seeker’, adopting similar rhetorical devices to those utilised in Malaya to publicly undermine the insurgents’ popular support.Footnote³⁶

The political position of Brunei as an internally sovereign protectorate consequently produced a more complex political environment than Malaya. From the outset, the Colonial Office was adamant that Britain was responding to a call for assistance from the Sultanate and not intervening politically. As conveyed by the Secretary of State, ‘[the] present trouble in Brunei … is not a dispute between a colonial power and liberation movement’.Footnote³⁷ Of course, this was not the interpretation favoured by Azahari, but this denial of political responsibility is significant when considering the counterinsurgency structures adopted later.

Major-General Walker judiciously summarised that the initial phase in which British security forces regained control of the urban base areas was a success achieved only ‘by the skin of our teeth’.Footnote³⁸ The contingency plan prepared by the Commanders-in-Chief, Plan Ale, was based upon expectations of a repeat of the recurring riots which plagued Singapore throughout the 1950s. Just as the Colonial Office in Cyprus had based estimations of the EOKA threat on previous low-key rioting in the 1930s, this failure in military planning contributed to difficulties in launching a timely response.Footnote³⁹

Furthermore, the inadequate Plan Ale was implemented painfully slowly. Ale Yellow (48 hours’ notice for troop departure) was called following Fisher’s report on the night of 7 December. But this was not increased to Ale Red (immediate departure) until seven hours after the revolt started.Footnote⁴⁰

The first troops to be airlifted to Brunei Town were the 1/2 Gurkha Rifles, but further delays occurred due to the Royal Air Force’s insistence to weigh each soldier before take-off. After their commanding officer, Colonel Shakespear, intervened personally to end this charade his men were able to depart, not arriving in Brunei until 17 hours after the revolt started. Only the dedication of the Brunei Police Commissioner and rapid action of Governor Goode, an old ‘Asia hand’, in despatching Field Force reinforcements from North Borneo prevented the rebels from seizing the capital.Footnote⁴¹

The inadequacy of Plan Ale was starkly demonstrated to one Scottish soldier waiting to deploy in Singapore. As Corporal Archibald Cross made ready, he witnessed aircraft returning wounded Gurkha soldiers equipped with batons and riot shields. Completely unsuitable for the situation faced, in which the insurgents had succeeded in ‘liberating’ a number of heavy machine guns, this image illustrates the extent to which the Commanders-in-Chief had ignored intelligence pointing towards a full-scale military uprising. Corporal Cross only felt his own unit was better prepared through accident, as a result of anti-piracy patrols in North Borneo.Footnote⁴²

If the first day of counterinsurgency operations is indicative of an unambiguous failure to learn from the Malayan experience, instead of repeating its initial inadequacies, the subsequent five days show otherwise. During this period, thanks to the foresight of operational commanders on the ground, the campaign was fought with exemplary effectiveness.

In his official report, operational commander Brigadier Glennie gives particular emphasis to the importance of airmobility using helicopters and Short-Take-Off and Landing (STOL) aircraft. Britain first gained experience of helicopter warfare in Malaya where Templer had personally secured access to these new innovations, proving vital in prosecuting deep jungle operations. Similarly, in Brunei, large helicopters such as the British-designed Belvedere allowed security forces to block off escape routes into the interior, preventing a more protracted struggle.Footnote⁴³

More dramatically, the decisive importance of airmobility was demonstrated during the recapture of the Brunei Shell Petroleum Company installations at Seria. Although less famous than the recapture of Limbang by Royal Marine Commandos on 12–13 December, the Seria action on 10 December is better illustrative of the importance of tactics developed in Malaya. Fearing sabotage, the relief of Seria was a top priority for economic as well as humanitarian reasons, with the insurgents having taken several hostages in the nearby workers’ settlement of Panaga.Footnote⁴⁴

However, this operation was complicated following the ambush of Gurkha troops attempting to relieve Seria by road. Therefore, an audacious plan was enacted to retake the area using airmobility. Seria itself was inaccessible to large aircraft, so STOL Twin Pioneers were used to effect a landing on a makeshift grass airstrip west of the town. Meanwhile, completing a pincer movement, soldiers of the Queen’s Own Highlanders were airlifted to the Shell airfield at Anduki by a large Beverley transport. Due to heavy fire from TNKU defenders, the Beverley pilot was unable to stop, necessitating the disembarkation of the Highlanders whilst the aircraft was still taxiing before taking off under fire. As a result of these two audacious manoeuvres, order was restored in the oilfields within two days.Footnote⁴⁵

Due to such effective and rapid action authorised by the theatre commander, the first phase of British counterinsurgency was transformed into a resounding success. However, it is important to note that this was by no means inevitable, and although the experience of helicopter warfare in Malaya proved influential on the decisive use of airmobility, other best practices from past campaigns were less effectively implemented.

Specifically, problems were encountered in the development of an appropriate counterinsurgency organisation. Colonel Shakespear was initially appointed Commander of Far East Land Forces in North[ern] Borneo. However, although an attempt to establish a centralised command, this was a confused structure as Shakespear was ordered to operate under the direction of both the Brunei and Sarawak Police Commissioners and the woefully unprepared Commanders-in-Chief in Singapore, with little room for discretion.Footnote⁴⁶

Greater clarity was achieved with the appointment on 9 December of Brigadier Glennie as Commander British Forces in Borneo (COMBRITBOR) under direct command of the overall Commander-in-Chief, Far East: a rotating position currently held by Admiral Luce. Unlike Shakespear, Glennie was only obliged to consult with the civil authorities and had operational command of all three fighting services.Footnote⁴⁷ This was a clear attempt to avoid the problems encountered in Malaya prior to the appointment of Harold Briggs as the first Director of Operations in 1950. However, Glennie was expected to command a rather ad hoc arrangement until the establishment of a committee system under Walker which more closely replicated the Malayan model. The escalation of the British command structure from separate service commands to a brigade and then divisional-type headquarters with inter-service aspects, although ultimately effective, is suggestive of a lack of sound administrative planning which could have created such an organisation from the offset.

Comparably, the transition from peacetime to operational intelligence collection proved problematic, although the need for improved tactical information was clear to the security forces. Throughout the classic colonial counterinsurgencies, Britain consistently experienced difficulties in coordinating the needs of the primary collectors of intelligence, the local Special Branch, and the military.Footnote⁴⁸ Whilst the latter needed timely operational information, the former focused on long-term political intelligence. This problem was repeated in Brunei where a business-as-usual attitude was prevalent amongst the civilian police to whom Special Branch reported.

Before more durable solutions could be found, the Malayan government intervened to provide six experienced Special Branch officers to interrogate captured insurgents.Footnote⁴⁹ Although relieving staffing pressure, this did not provide actionable military intelligence. Interrogation reports focused less on operational details such as TNKU order-of-battle than lists of political contacts desired by Special Branch. Further, the authorities continued to be fascinated by both the TNKU’s oath of secrecy, and the role of Indonesia in offering training facilities.Footnote⁵⁰ Whilst undoubtedly useful for the Foreign Office in formulating policy at the start of Konfrontasi, this was not useful tactical intelligence. There was, therefore, a clear deficit of coordination between the differing needs of intelligence consumers and producers.

Consequently, during the first phase of counterinsurgency, it is evident that Britain achieved only mixed success. Importing operational techniques developed in Malaya resulted in exceptional effectiveness on the battlefield, and prevented the TNKU from retreating into deep jungle sanctuaries from which to fight a protracted campaign. As suggested by Bower’s Malayan reflections, the priority was in securing base areas and dividing the insurgents from potential civilian helpers. However, the military authorities in Singapore had blatantly failed to internalise the need for effective forward planning. Their inappropriately lethargic response was only rectified through the intervention of more junior commanders: a failure highlighted by Brigadier Glennie as the most striking mistake of the Brunei campaign.Footnote⁵¹ This supports the conclusion that learning from Malaya was more evident at the operational than strategic level.

Counterinsurgency phase two: mopping-up

On 17 December 1962, Major-General Walter Walker, an outspoken commander suffering strained relations with his London superiors, assumed control as COMBRITBOR. The new counterinsurgency leader was also invested with wider powers as a Malayan-style Director of Operations. The son of a tea planter in British India, Walker had commanded Gurkha divisions in wartime Burma and the Malayan Emergency, grounding his experience in jungle counterinsurgency. According to his successor’s official report, the success of Walker’s appointment ‘reaffirmed a major lesson of the Malayan Emergency, that there must be one Director of Operations with responsibility for all matters connected with the campaign’.Footnote⁵²

Walker’s appointment marked a transitional point in Brunei and Sarawak counterinsurgency. As Walker explained to visiting Filipino journalists, around 300 rebels remained in the jungle. Rounding up these insurgents presented a considerable challenge given the inhospitable terrain of Borneo and poor flow of intelligence due to popular sympathy with Azahari’s socio-political agenda. The new British commander had no intention of repeating the mistakes of his predecessors, telling the journalists that ‘I certainly do not intend to be caught napping’.Footnote⁵³ At this time, Selkirk informed the Colonial Office that it would be rash to assume the emergency was over: a salient remark also suggesting that the Brunei Revolt had achieved some good in shattering the previous complacency held in Singapore.Footnote⁵⁴

This mopping-up phase culminated with the capture of TNKU military commander Yassin Affandi on 18 May 1963. To cope with the demands of this less intensive period, under Walker’s leadership, the security forces selectively imported structures and techniques based on the Malayan model to attain a high standard of effectiveness. Yet the success of this organisational reformation was also due to its adaptation to the unique political environment in Borneo, balanced by a committee system ensuring the primacy of diplomatic representatives.

The first major problem to be resolved was the haphazard command structure. On 13 December 1962, Selkirk instructed the creation of a State War Executive Council, which ultimately became the Brunei and East Sarawak Executive Committee (BESEC). Four days later, a meeting of British representatives at Labuan Island adopted the suggestions of Admiral Luce for a Borneo Security Council (BOSC) and Borneo Operations Committee (BOC). The term ‘war’ as used in the Malayan system of Federal and State War Executive Committees was dropped to avoid political embarrassment given the complications of fighting counterinsurgency in a technically independent state.Footnote⁵⁵

The BOSC constituted the highest source of authority for directing strategic policy. Chaired by the Brunei High Commissioner, Walker sat on the BOSC as representative of the Commanders-in-Chief, but lacked executive power. Overall, the BOSC reflected the principle established in General Bower’s Malayan ‘lessons’ of civilian control over the military, with Walker forced to debate policy on an equal footing with the colonial governors.

However, Walker was chairman of the BOC, which existed to control counterinsurgent action on the operational level. In practice, most decisions were taken by this military-dominated forum and only overridden by the BOSC when conflictual with higher policy. This reflected a compromise between the need for civilian oversight and effective military leadership. Unlike Templer’s appointment in Malaya, Walker had no personal civil authority, but his chairmanship of the BOC and position as the ranking military representative on the BOSC gave him sufficient latitude to exercise strong personal leadership. The Director of Operations himself saw the experience of Malaya as paramount in the creation of this effective counterinsurgency organisation, informing journalists ‘we have now established a well-proven system of planning and controlling operations on the Malayan Emergency pattern’.Footnote⁵⁶

Walker believed his experience working under Templer had a salient effect on his direction of Borneo operations. In particular, he later recalled the most memorable aspect of his Malayan period as the benefit of working ‘hand-in-glove’ with Special Branch. This evolved into his personal concept of ‘jointmanship’. Although Walker at times found the committee system more cumbersome than the sole executive powers granted to Templer, his pursuit of ‘jointmanship’ ameliorated any difficulties entailed. In practice, Walker ensured inter-service cooperation by housing all three headquarters in a Brunei Town girls’ school, alongside the joint planning sections. From this vantage point, he rigidly enforced ‘jointmanship’, unafraid to bring senior officers to task for infringing this principle. For example, he rebuked naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Dreyer for his reluctance to disembark helicopters from the carrier HMS Albion. At Walker’s chastisement, Dreyer agreed to the forward deployment of these helicopters near the jungle front-line, enabling more effective support for ground-force operations.Footnote⁵⁷

This ‘jointmanship’ contained the hallmarks of a sound adaptation of general principles learned in Malaya. The counterinsurgency organisation developed in Brunei represented not a simple clone but an adaptation to the specific operational environment. In particular, the delicate position of Brunei as a British protectorate denied the opportunity to invest Walker with civilian powers, thereby necessitating greater sensitivity to the local British diplomatic representative through the BOSC.

By the time of the first BOSC meeting on 1 January 1963, although helicopter airmobility had cordoned off Brunei and Sarawak, a number of hard-core insurgents remained on the run. This included Yassin Affandi, who had escaped initial custody on 25 December 1962. In bringing counterinsurgency operations to a conclusion, Walker postulated three main aims: winning the confidence of the civil population, hunting down the remaining rebels and dominating the jungle to prevent contact between the fugitives and potential helpers.Footnote⁵⁸

This final point strongly reflects the purpose of the Briggs Plan in Malaya. But the ethnic make-up of Brunei rendered ethnically-targeted resettlement impractical and also obsolescent. Because of the rapid defeat of the urban insurrection, the security forces already exercised effective control over the settled areas. Walker’s focus on securing these base areas, one of his five key ingredients for success alongside ‘jointmanship’, shows an appropriate response to the situation faced, rather than slavishly seeking to copy Malaya in inappropriate circumstances.Footnote⁵⁹

Deep jungle operations, characteristic of the more flexible military approach introduced by Templer, were initially the preserve of Harrisson Force. Tom Harrisson, curator of the Sarawak museum, had raised an irregular army of Sarawak indigenous peoples to patrol the area they inhabited. At the first BOC meeting of 26 December 1962, Harrisson feared that the introduction of British troops would undermine his irregulars’ morale.Footnote⁶⁰ Showing sensitivity to these concerns, Walker adopted a phased intensification of deep jungle operations as part of a plan presented at the BOC meeting of 9 January on behalf of Brigadier Patterson, commander of 99 Gurkha Brigade.

Patterson’s scheme called for cordon-and-search ‘framework’ operations in the rural areas alongside the deployment of the Highlanders and 42 Commando into the deep jungle. Moreover, Walker proposed the creation of a Mobile Fire Brigade for rapid insertion following intelligence leads.Footnote⁶¹ As demonstrated in the previous phase, these operations were heavily dependent on airmobility. Walker identified this duality of flexible deployment and pressing the fight inside the jungle sanctuary as the primary reasons for success in Brunei, heavily derived from witnessing the effectiveness of comparable tactics in Malaya.Footnote⁶²

Meanwhile, as the combat situation stabilised, increasing effort was made to win the hearts-and-minds of the civilian populace, thus contributing to the improving flow of intelligence. Particularly salient in this regard, security forces participated in relief duties during destructive floods of mid-January 1963, as well as the establishment of medical clinics. In Sarawak, Richard Morris noticed a distinct shift from the pre-revolt antipathy for government towards friendliness and cooperation as a direct result of these efforts.Footnote⁶³ Although the overall significance of hearts-and-minds to the victory in both Malaya and Brunei is debatable, counterinsurgency practitioners chose to interpret it as a key ‘lesson’ of Malaya and effectively implemented this in Borneo.

By early February 1963, the success of these schemes had neutralised the majority of rebel gangs. For the remaining four months, operations concentrated on the hunt for Affandi, utilising a range of operational types. Least successfully, ‘framework’ manoeuvres were used in Operation Cold Shower to encourage surrenders through a show of force, albeit with no effect. More usefully, intelligence-led operations, acting on captured documents analysed by Special Branch, narrowed the search radius. Intelligence flow was improved due to hearts-and-minds efforts such as the printing of a Safe Conduct Pass to encourage TNKU defections and distribution of surplus army rations to the jungle populations.Footnote⁶⁴

These intelligence improvements eventually placed the security forces on Affandi’s trail. On 2 April 1963, acting on Special Branch information, a campsite was discovered, vacated by Affandi’s gang only 48 hours previously. Although by this juncture most other high-value TNKU officers had been captured, in no small part thanks to the incentive of a rewards system for informers, Affandi’s continued evasion was a source of irritation. As a result, from 4 April, curfew was imposed in the Brunei Bay area to facilitate heavier night-time patrolling.Footnote⁶⁵

Nevertheless informer intelligence rather than these heavy-handed measures secured Affandi’s capture on the night of 17–18 May.Footnote⁶⁶ This is suggestive of the importance of winning the hearts-and-minds of the local population, despite a growing tendency amongst counterinsurgency commentators to emphasise the effectiveness of more coercive solutions.Footnote⁶⁷ Following this final success, Brigadier Patterson confidently asserted that ‘the TNKU threat no longer existed in Brunei’.Footnote⁶⁸ Azahari himself remained in exile in Indonesia, no longer a serious threat to the creation of Malaysia.

In addition to this pattern of military operations, success was also achieved in the intelligence arena. The differing needs of intelligence producers and consumers constituted a serious obstacle to effective coordination. To encourage better ‘jointmanship’ at all levels, Walker ordered Military Intelligence Officers (MIOs) to be integrated within Special Branch, replicating his combination of the three fighting services under one roof.Footnote⁶⁹ This was not entirely successful, as the Head of Brunei Special Branch continued to complain that MIOs were not passing on the reports of preliminary unit interrogations at the front, leading to unnecessary duplication of effort.Footnote⁷⁰

At the operational level, the counterinsurgency committees directly imported two intelligence processes from the Malayan Emergency. To improve collection, the BOC took influence from Templer’s use of anonymous letterboxes to collect information from security-conscious informants. This was implemented with a central PO Box 5000 and a network of so-named ‘Templer boxes’ in the major settlements. Complimented by a rewards system also influenced by the Malayan experience, this began to achieve results in a remarkably short time, although the BOC minutes do not offer more quantifiable evidence.Footnote⁷¹

To resolve the strategic problem of coordination, Selkirk forwarded a plan copied from Malaya to appoint a Director of Intelligence with responsibility over both military and civil structures. However, no suitable candidate could be found. Consequently, Colonel Wellsted, the ranking MIO, was appointed interim Deputy Director of Intelligence (Military) and the High Commissioner’s intelligence advisor became his civilian counterpart.Footnote⁷²

This ad hoc power-sharing agreement was formalised only in late-February 1963 with the creation of a Joint Territories Intelligence Committee (JTIC) at the instigation of Colonial Office Security and Intelligence Advisor Jack Morton. Morton had served in Malaya as Templer’s Director of Intelligence and was thus well-placed to offer advice based on his Malayan experience. As a result, Morton ensured that the JTIC Permanent Secretary sat on the BOSC as official intelligence representative, providing greater influence over strategic policy.Footnote⁷³

The JTIC proved highly effective as a forum for multi-source assessment. In its first meeting, it pieced together the links between the TNKU and other dissident groups including the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) – a front for the CCO – and Barisan Socialis in Singapore. Their intelligence suggested that the CCO was critical of the TNKU for acting precipitously before garnering mass support in all three Borneo territories. Such assessment was highly useful for the BOSC in forecasting CCO intentions.Footnote⁷⁴

The evolution of this system further indicates the need for adaptation of the Malayan experience rather than copying it: the latter unnecessarily delayed the creation of the JTIC whilst searching for a single Director of Operations. Because the Borneo situation involved both internal and increasingly significant external elements, an overly unified system would undermine the advantages of maintaining the separate responsibilities of Special Branch and military intelligence in dealing with this two-fold threat. Furthermore, the geographic span of operations across multiple territories rendered Malayan-style centralisation politically inexpedient.Footnote⁷⁵ As with the creation of the BOC/BOSC structure and utilisation of flexible operations, the success finally achieved in intelligence organisation, in this instance requiring metropolitan intervention, indicates the development of sound best practices inspired by but not slavishly replicated from Malaya.

Even before the capture of Affandi, attention was already moving away from the TNKU following Indonesian border incursions into Sarawak in April 1963. Simultaneously, intelligence showed that the CCO was actively preparing for armed insurrection, shifting the focus of internal counterinsurgency operations to western Sarawak. In Selkirk’s words, the emergence of this communist threat ‘appears to mark [the] opening of a new phase’.Footnote⁷⁶

In response, Governor Waddell promulgated an order calling on all non-natives in western Sarawak to surrender their firearms and ammunition on 19 April 1963. This strong reaction was influenced by Walker’s fears that unless action was taken ‘we could find ourselves in another Malayan type situation complicated by an external threat’.Footnote⁷⁷ The spectre of Malaya with all the implications of a protracted conflict also haunted Information Officer Alastair Morrison. In his public announcement of Operation Parrot, the firearms collection policy supported by cordon-and-search operations, Morrison ominously warned that ‘the communists have thrown off the pretence of constitutional struggle and are substituting for it instead the tactics of Chin Peng and his followers who brought eleven years of suffering and hardship to the people of Malaya’.Footnote⁷⁸

Thus justifying the move towards more explicit measures of population control, Walker’s counterinsurgency organisation was partly inspired by the more coercive aspects of the Malayan campaign. But more pertinently, the security forces were also learning from recent mistakes and the ‘lessons’ of December 1962. In the aftermath of the TNKU revolt, it no longer seemed acceptable to ignore intelligence which predicted even a long-term emergence of the CCO as a serious threat.

Conclusions

Ultimately, Brunei operations, similarly to the subsequent confrontation with Indonesia, were only a moderate success for Britain. Utilising records unavailable to previous historians, this paper has moved beyond the dominant interpretation of the TNKU insurgency as merely the prologue to Konfrontasi or an episode in the diplomatic history of Malaysia to provide an original counterinsurgency analysis. On the operational level, counterinsurgency was orchestrated with consummate skill, in great measure thanks to the sound leadership of Walter Walker with his explicit focus on instrumentalising the lessons of his own Malayan experience.

However, at the strategic policy level, the end-goal of ensuring Brunei made a smooth transition into Malaysia did not come to fruition. Lacking direct control, the British authorities were powerless when the Sultan opted to withdraw from his agreement following the discovery of new offshore oil deposits in March 1963. This conforms to Christopher Tuck’s conclusions regarding Konfrontasi: that good counterinsurgency is no guarantee of policy success.Footnote⁷⁹ Fundamentally, the Brunei Revolt erupted at a time when British influence was waning in South-East Asia, dwarfed by the American involvement in Vietnam and struggling to find a new role following decolonisation. Consequently, higher policy represented an imperfect solution at best, and these political difficulties – constituting a very different environment to the Malayan Emergency – contributed to the initial reluctance to undertake a major defence commitment at the start of the insurrection.

Major-General Lea’s 1966 Borneo report highlighted a number of ‘lessons’ to be learned from the Brunei Revolt and Konfrontasi. In a positive regard, these campaigns reaffirmed the utility of the Malayan model of a single Director of Operations, and the adoption of the BOC-BOSC committee structure enabled the successful adaptation of this to the unique circumstances in Borneo. Conversely, Lea argued the paramount negative ‘lessons’ from his experience were the implications of unthinkingly importing inappropriate models from past experiences. Therefore, although a learning process can inspire counterinsurgency success, this must be conducted with caution and appreciation of the specific factors entailed in each operational situation.Footnote⁸⁰

In the build-up to the Brunei insurgency, the British colonial and military hierarchy in South-East Asia remained complacent in face of growing evidence that the TNKU were a serious threat. Clearly this represents a failure to learn from the Malayan experience, where a business-as-usual attitude also prevailed until the appointment of Harold Briggs as the first Director of Operations. Local intelligence chiefs as well as colonial officials and the Commanders-in-Chief all interpreted the TNKU as a long-term threat despite indications of more imminent preparation for insurgency. In this regard, David French’s description of British counterinsurgency structures as more ‘forgetting’ than ‘learning’ organisations is apt.Footnote⁸¹

Nevertheless, during both subsequent phases of counterinsurgency, security forces prosecuted the conflict with striking success. In many ways this was due to explicit consideration of the ‘lessons’ of Malaya as defined by the 1957 report, applied not rigidly but in a manner appropriate to the Brunei political environment. This is most evident in the creation of a committee system which replicated many aspects of the Malayan model, whilst remaining sensitive to the unique problems of operating in a semi-independent state by preserving the authority of the British diplomatic representative.

Therefore, the Brunei example suggests that British counterinsurgency has a mixed record of learning from the past. Not the paragon of learning virtue sometimes extolled, the colonial and military authorities failed to internalise the relevant ‘lessons’ of past campaigns until after the outbreak of rebellion. Nevertheless, using Malaya as a counterinsurgency model also created dangers, including an intelligence focus on communist threats before the TNKU uprising, and the failure of attempts to import the concept of one single Director of Intelligence.

However, when these lessons were implemented through the development of generic best practices, operations were prosecuted with exemplary effectiveness. Counterinsurgency structures and tactics adopted in Brunei continued in existence throughout Konfrontasi. This was in no small part due to the personal leadership exerted by Walter Walker and his 1965 successor George Lea: both commanders benefited from experience in Malaya, but were equally sensitive to the unique circumstances encountered in British Borneo. Therefore, although the lack of higher direction at the start of the Brunei campaign is suggestive of a lack of institutional learning at the strategic level, operations proved successful largely due to the efforts of individual operational commanders to develop best practices in the shadow of their own Malayan experiences. The short duration and minimal bloodshed of the campaign stand as testament to their success.

Funding

This research is part of a doctoral project funded by the White Rose College for the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH) in association with the AHRC. I am grateful to the Bodleian Library, Trustees of the Imperial War Museum and relevant copyright holders for allowing access to their collections. I also wish to thank Niccolo Petrelli, Martin Thornton, Adam Cathcart and Bryony O’Neill for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft. This paper was immeasurably improved by the suggestions of Paul Rich and the journal’s peer-reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.