604 Sqn dedicated to Malaya-Borneo Veterans’ Day

Since the first commemoration held in 2011, No 604 Squadron, Australian Air Force Cadets has mounted a Catafalque Party and Honour Guard each year for the annual Malaya-Borneo Veterans’ Day Service in Adelaide.

CAPTION: Leading Cadet Byron Barnes-Williams on duty on Malaya-Borneo Veterans Day 2017. Leading Cadet Barnes-Williams was also a member of the 2016 Pilgrimage to Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia.

The SA/NT Branch of the National Malaya-Borneo Veterans’ Association of Australia Inc holds this Malaya & Borneo Veterans’ Day commemoration in the West Torrens War Memorial Gardens. This service is held in August, on the Saturday closest to 31 August, to mark two significant anniversaries: the end of the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960) and the End of the Indonesian Confrontation with Malaysia (1962-1966).

The City of West Torrens provides the necessary logistics to make each occasion a great success, and supports the after-Service reception.

Until this year the ceremony was centred on the Cross of Sacrifice in the Memorial Gardens. On 22 April, the SA/NT Branch unveiled and dedicated a new memorial with plaques honouring those who served and lost their lives during the undeclared wars we know as the ‘Malayan Emergency’ and ‘Confrontation’.

During that ceremony, Leading Cadet Zain Carse of No 604 Squadron, AAFC wore a poppy honouring his grandfather Corporal Dave Carse of the New Zealand Army. Corporal Carse served in Malaya in 1958-59 during the Emergency, with the 2nd Battalion, New Zealand Regiment of the 28th Commonwealth Infantry Brigade.

The 28th Commonwealth Infantry Brigade Group was a formation of the Far East Strategic Reserve (FESR), based in Malaya/Malaysia from 1955 to 1971. It was made up of forces from Australia, New Zealand and the UK – primarily three infantry battalions and a British field artillery regiment with an Australian battery. From 1962 they were based at Bukit Terendak close to Malacca – known to a generation of Australians and their families as Terendak Camp.

For that ceremony in April this year, Pilot Officer (AAFC) Paul Rosenzweig, 6 Wing Public Affairs & Communication Officer, was invited to be the guest speaker. He said “I’d like to think that through the bonds we are establishing now with our Cadets, in years to come when they return as the new generation of veterans they will return to this organisation to continue the work you do in perpetuating the memory of these almost forgotten campaigns”.

On 26 August, the 604 Squadron cadets returned to the West Torrens War Memorial Gardens, to help honour those who served and died in the two military engagements – or undeclared wars – which were fought on the Malay Peninsula and in northern Borneo.

Lest we Forget.

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