The Bowen Bunker

A Bowen Bunker on top of a knoll

It is very interesting that we would not find anything about the Bowen Bunker in the internet anymore. Nor anything describing it in the Gunners or Sappers websites. I tried many times to google for the Bowen Bunker but no results. I wondered why. Is it delberately removed? I do remember there were available information about it in the Internet many years ago.

Bowen Bunkers were used extensively in the single gun positions in Sabah and Sarawak  during Confrontasi. All command posts and several main bunkers in the gun positions were Bowen Bunkers. I recalled living in my Bowen Bunker next to the Command Posts in Bogosong and Sungei Limau on Sabatik Island. The Bowen Bunker was a 5 star bunker accomodation. Solid, safe and well designed by the Royal Engineers.

I would like to pay tribute to the Bunker Bunker for providing us with the required protection levels and basic comforts. Since there are no more information about the Bowen Bunker in the Internet, I shall try to decribe it here for others to have fond memories of it and for those who did not have the chance to enjoy it, to let them know some of the properties of the Bowen Bunker.

The Bowen Bunker had a modular designed wooden cum sand bagged framework, prefabricated and built for secured accomodation. It was elongated and fitted into a dug out trench. It measured approximately 10 feet long X 6 feet wide and 7 feet in height. The framework comprised of 4 X 2 inches sawn timber, logged roof with sand bags. It is airy and cool inside the Bowen Bunker. The Bowen Bunker was usually camourflaged with netting and leaves.

The Bowen Bunker was dug at chest deep level into the ground and it had sandbagged windows that serves for looking out and firing our personal weapons. The Bowen Bunker had a roof of double decked sanbags as OHP. We entered our Bowen Bunkers from either sides of the bunkers. We slept on issued foldable campbeds and put our gears on tables and shelves made of wooden frames.

We can see our single gun pit from the command post Bowen Bunker. My bunker which was adjacent to the command post had a very good view arc and field of fire.

As Bowen Bunkers were dug into the ground we had wooden panelled floors, sometimes just above the water level inside the trench as in Sungei Limau. Bogosong position was on a small knoll, hence the trenches were dry. It was bright during the day inside the Bowen Bunker and we used low battery powered lights at nights. I had the previledge of a reading light beside my bed.

Whilst it was a comfortable accomodation for us, it was also very comfortable for snakes and small rodents to seek shelter. One night, a GPO had the frieght of his life when he scratched his legs when he felt it ichy, only to realise that he was scratching a python snake instead.

Anybody got old pictures of the Bowen Bunker?

Take care

Allen Lai


After note:
The picture of the Bowen Bunker CP below is contributed by WO Yasin's son Encik Zamri.

Thank you Encik Zamri. Love this photo.

Merging histories and Gunner stories - Firepower Royal Artillery Museum

With Project Ubique 300 underway, I feel that it is the best time now for us to share our artillery histories and stories. I had looked into the Australian War Memorial in Canberra Australia for links and I had found some material of 102 Bty RAA's operations in our confrontasi in the 1960s.

I am still browsing into the RA websites for their operations in Malaysia. Yes we can actually find very accurate artillery ORBATs and deployments in Mayalsia and Singapore during WW2 and the Confrontasi, but I have not found any writeups in what they did whilst they were deployed here.

 I googled and came to THE FIREPOWER ROYAL ARTILLERY MUSEUM website. This musuem had several very interesting interviews with RA officers who had served in Malaya and in the Confrontasi. 

I wish to link to three very candid discussions in the Musuem's interview with RA Gunners who had served here.

 Lance Bombardier Richard Paul Stephan's interview here

http://firepower.org.uk/fighting-talk/richard-paul-stephens/

Major Leslie Bond's interview here:

http://firepower.org.uk/fighting-talk/leslie-bond/

Captain Peter  Head's interview here :

http://firepower.org.uk/fighting-talk/peter-head/

Although the interviews were quite lenghty, the part when they had served in Malaya and the Confrontasi is very nostalgic.

There are also many Gunners and their impressive careers herein. Do read them if you have the time.

Enjoy the links.

Allen Lai

Bombs away

High level bombings

Hi all,

Look what I captured one morning. The bird was on a bombing raid and I did not have my UN helmet on. Perhaps I should have joined the Air Defence Regiment. I actually had thought about joining S BTY in the mid 1960s, but decided that Field Regiments were more macho.

A field Gunner always.

Allen Lai

Gunners in Confrontasi

Arty Plotter Mk 1

I am always frustrated to research for materials of our Gunners in action. Sadly, there were none. Unless some of us start to collect and collate old photos, we can actually make videos and slide shows to record our history. There are plenty of softwares in our computers to do that now. I wonder when will we ever be independent of foreign support. We should not be pathetic anymore. We have the knowledge and uptodate equipment. All we need is effort and self reliance. Lets start to be proud to be Malaysian Gunners.

For starters I actually visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. There are excellent records of all their wars, campaigns and deployments. I am am particularly pleased that the Australian War memorial has gone online with most of their materials.

Of great interest to us would be Australian Gunners in Borneo. I get high with nostalgia each time I watch the video below. We were there after the Commonwealth Forces left the Confrontasi for us to close up the campaign.

See the video and description below. I am not sure why the Gun crew No 2 and No 3 had to hold on to the handlebar on the shield when the gun fired. Is it gun drill? To stabilise the gun or stabilise themselves so that they do not fall off the seats ? IG please explain and make a convention soon.

 I also like the Gun crew No 4 loading and ramming in the round. So macho. Arm muscles to die for.

We were there and did exactly the same things, been there and done that. The only exception was perhaps underslung deployment by their twin rotor helicopters. We deployed by stripping our guns and loaded them into the Alouette helicopter or assault boats.

We did our part and contributed and we are proud.

Enjoy

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F03672/

Thank you Australia War Memorial.

Allen Lai

Photo lama

Hi all,

Since I am into photography, I wish and I might as well propose that we start a Gunner's photo gallery in this blog. I am sure all of us have some old photos to share in our personal albums. 

Rama and I can organise the gallery herein. 

All you have to do is just snap your old Gunner photos with your smart phones. E-mail the photos to me at laikimhinn@Gmail.com or to Rama. (Email address later). No need for any captions or write up if you don't want to. All I need is your name and the Regiment. Send as many photos as you want. The more the better for sharing your history and moments as a Gunner. No problems.

Thats it, we will archive your photos for proserity. Do share with us some old gems. 

What say you all? You have lost nothing as you still have your originals. Serving officers may want to send the latest photos.

What say you Rama?

Drop me or Major (R) Rama an email if you are interested.

Take care

Allen Lai

Size does matter

Yes size does matter. I know. Don't you?

As a Gunner I had experienced with 9mm, 5.56mm, 7.62mm, 20mm,105mm. All are calibre measurements in barrels in the guns and weapons issued in the MAF. Each calibre had its range and carried a certain shell weight. Size does matter.

Today I am still struggling with size and calibres. I use 24mm, 50 mm, 70 mm and 300mm to shoot my targets. I have shot with 300mm but could do with 600 mm.

I used to smell of cordite and sweat from my celerong fatiques, now I smell of baked mud and sweat soaked T shirts. I traded my combat boots for walkabout/running shoes. On ops I would always look out for the enemy and likely ambush areas. My M16 rifle always cocked and ready. Today I walk about always on the lookout for birds and anything that catches my attention. My SLR camera switched on, set and zoomed and ready to shoot; almost always with reflect. My SLR camera can shoot bursts of 5 frames per second.

I am now into photography.

Photography has many things common to gunnery. Calibration, sights, speed, line of sight, and most importantly aim/focus. It all started with me trying my level best to update all the Gunners photographs in this blog as I meet them. And hey presto, I am hooked into photography. I am now better equipped with better cameras and lenses to shoot more than Gunner faces. And Yes, size does matter.

I try to shoot all genres of photography. Birds, animals and of course anything that are photo worthy. Photography is a good hobby for retirees. There is so much to learn and experience. The end results are often very satifying. Below are some of my photos. Let the picture says its thousand words.

Come join me in photography, let's catch the early birds.

Enjoy

Allen Lai

Out gunned

We were completely out gunned during Confrontasi with Indonesia. Right from small arms, armour and artillery. Not to mention the naval and air force. Our small arms were the SLR, HBSLR, SMG, and a Browning pistol for close battle combat. Indonesia were equipped with the US M15 assault rifle. We had two field regiments of 105 mm Howtizers and a Bty of 40mm Air Defence artillery. Our armour comprised the Ferret scout cars. No APCs and tanks yet. Indonesia had 155mm artillery deployed in the Nunukan area.

The battle lines were drawn all accross the international boundaries between Sabah, Sarawak and Indonesia. The FEBA  was mostly narrowed to Sabatik Island in Sabah and the Second to Fifth Divisions in Sarawak. From Lubuk Antu to Long Pasir in Sarawak. From Wallace Bay to Sungei Limau in Sabah. 

We were out gunned.

Commonwealth forces were still opertional, albeit on a lower scale, mostly deterrent. British Far East Land Forces had its HQ in Labuan. Most of British ground forces were withdrawn to Brunei and Semunajung. MAF took over the battle. We were deployed to all British originated single gun positions in Sabah and Sarawak. Commonwealth forces were conducting covet special operations to great effect.

A Bty each from 1 ARTY and 2 ARTY were deployed to man all the Commonwealth forces handed over gun positions, 1 ARTY in Sarawak and 2 ARTY in Sabah. S Bty AD was deployed to Sandakan Sabah, in anticipation from an imminent air threat from the Philippines. I was not privy to why we did not deploy 2 full regiments. I was too young to discuss and question strategy then. I was proud and glad that I did my fair share of roulements to Sabah. I actually enjoyed every moment in the front line. Being out gunned never affected me. I had my single gun, my gun position, my heaven. I was GPO and there was no tomorrows.

All my worldly possessions were in my issued kit bag, haversack and patrol bag. I was glad that we had a Sabah Allowance as it was just adequate for our merriments with cheep liquors. Cigarettes and condoms were free issue. I slept in a foldable camp bed in the GPO's Oven bunker next to the Command post.

Out gunned ? Who cares? My personal thoughts were only filled with Nor Azizah, our darling and screen sensation in the 1960s. I had her centre page poster on the wall of my Oven bunker and a picture of her in the inside cover of my shooting performa. She would take away all our stress and cares in the world. Our favourite song was "Help me make it through the night" and "Widuri". I can't sing, but who cares. I was in seventh heaven as a GPO.

Was I afraid? You bet I was. Stories of Indonesian raids by their special KKO forces in Kalabakan had sent shivers down our backs. I had experienced several "stand to" calls in addition to our standard "stand to" drills daily at first and last light. I still shudder and recall several shouts by our sentry "Musuh !!" and we "stood to" the whole night.

Our gun position were sometimes shelled during the night with enemy mortar fire. Luckily no shells were on target. I still believe the enemy were only firing HF fire to demoralise us. We would reply to their mortar fire with our gun fire into predicted targets derived from the crack and boom sound method to give us a sense of direction and distance of their mortatr position. This was the best we could do lift up our morale. We did not have a Locating Bty. Our only protections were sand bags and the Oven bunkers. The gun had gun pits with OHP ammo dumps.

What was our role? We did not have the range as 10K wasn't much coverage. Not to mention target crests and dead grounds. As most of our targets were firable only in high angles and our Howtizers were a great asset. High angle compensated for short of range. Our area of interest were basically covering areas at known cross over points along the international boundary. We had DF targets , a DF(SOS) target near our gun position and hundreds of predicted targets handed down from Bty to Bty as we did our roulements. We just changed the target number prefixs. E Bty used Papa target Prefixs. For metrological data we had to rely on Lt Gill Singh's Sabah Drop factor, a unique met chart designed by him. Lt Gill was a Singaporean who joined us in 2 ARTY in the 1960s. He was to return to the SAF and became SAF's Chief Artillery Officer. Lt Gill was a metrological officer before joining the army.

I had fired onto an enemy OP position at the entrance of Sungei Melayu. The enemy had HMGs and were firing at our BK who was enroute on a routine visit to our gun position at Sungei Limau. We were on target. I had fired in the direction of Nunukan from Sungei Limau gun position in retaliation to enemy threat to our BOP location in Wallace Bay. Yes admittedly non of our guns have the range to hit the targets in Nunukan, but we still fired in the direction to Nunukan in defiance. Our single gun positions were at Wallace Bay, Bergosong, Sungei Limau, and Semantan.

The enemy had 155 mm guns in Nunukan. And we were just inviting an artillery duel. Enemy Gunners were real "gentlemen" and had not responded with counter battery fire. Indonesian artillery had the range to fire accross Selat Nunukan into our area.

Out gunned or not, we fought the confrontasi with pride as Gunners. Hopefully we should not be out gunned or "out-anything" in the future.

Take care. Once a Gunner always a Gunner.

Allen Lai