A dated photo, courtesy of Chua, shows Bujang, Wan Jamaluddin and Kim Huat with their colleagues and friends.
MIRI: The sight of an elderly man laying flowers at the Heroes Memorial in the Limbang Waterfront yesterday showed that someone remembered a historic event that took place 58 years ago.
Chua Eng Hing, 67, said he was only nine years old during the Limbang Rebellion of 1962, where four brave Sarawakian policemen – Kim Huat, Bujang Mohamed, Insoll Chundang and Wan Jamaluddin Tuanku Alek –lost their lives in defending the town from the rebels.
“I lived in ‘Shop No3’, next to the police station. I was at the scene, from the beginning until the Marines came,” Chua told thesundaypost.
Photo shows a close-up shot of the tombstone on the grave of Wan Jamaluddin, who was laid to rest at the Muslim cemetery in Kampung Bunga Raya.
“The fallen heroes will never be forgotten – we will and should always remember them.”
Chua also called upon all Sarawakians to never forget this historic event and one way to do this is for them to follow him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/chualimbang).
A check on his page yesterday showed various posts about ‘Limbang Day’, including one about him having a 12.12km run ‘to remember 1212 to mark 58th anniversary of Limbang Day’.
In the past, the anniversary of the ‘Liberation of Limbang’ was a major event where even war veterans from the UK and Australia attended.
The monument at Limbang Waterfront serves to honour the memory of the police and troops who lost their lives during the ‘Rebellion of 1962’.
“Almost all of those who were there have passed away,” said Chua, who helped as an enabler to the film production team of the ‘Return to Limbang’ historical documentary.
Year 1945 marked the beginning of the end of British colonialism in Southeast Asia, where they began pulling out of the region.
This exit eventually led to the formation of Federation of Malaysia in 1963, which at the time included Malaya, Singapore (which separated from Malaysia in 1965), Sarawak and North Borneo (what Sabah was known then).
It is said that AM Azahari, the leader of Parti Rakyat Brunei, wanted no part of Malaysia – instead, he wanted a federation of the three Borneo states (Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei) to be headed by the Sultan of Brunei as a constitutional monarch.
Chua lays flowers at the monument to honour the fallen heroes.
The North Kalimantan National Army (TNKU), the armed forces set up by him, launched an attack on Limbang around 2am on Dec 8, 1962.
The rebels had, at the time, captured weapons from Limbang police station and later, took Australian-born Resident of Sarawak’s Fifth Division,Richard Morris and his wife Dorothy together with 12 others as hostages, whom the rebels threatened to execute on
Dec 12.
In an assault dubbed the ‘Limbang Raid’, 42 members of the L Company of the British Royal Marine Commando – led by Capt Jeremy Moore – sailed up Limbang River under the cover of darkness before springing their attack upon the TNKU rebels.
Two of the British commandos were killed in the fight, and another two lost their lives during the liberation of Limbang and the rescue of the hostages.
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