• BOOK
REVIEW
SEMUT Christine Helliwell Reviewed by Gordon Andreassend FNZIS and Peter Byrne Hon Fellow SSSI Semut is the first of two volumes describing a remarkable behindthe-lines commando operation in Borneo in 1945. Books about World War 2 abound. Why would a review of this particular work be included in a surveying/spatial sciences publication? Read on. Eight Australian, New Zealand and British commandos parachuted into the highlands of Sarawak in March 1945. They did not know what awaited them. Japanese soldiers? Unwelcoming local people? Known as Dayaks, the locals’ reputation as headhunters was renowned. Eight more commandos followed in April, not knowing if the first group had survived. The mission was to gain Dayak support in ‘encouraging’ Japanese invaders downriver from the hinterland to the coast. This was Operation Semut – semut means ant in Bahasa Malaysia. Two of the small band were surveyors, Gordon S. (Toby) Carter, of New Zealand, in the second group, and J.K. (Keith) Barrie, of Australia, in the first. Both went on to distinguished careers. Christine Helliwell is an anthropologist who has spent considerable time with the people of Borneo. She heard stories from locals who had been alive in 1945 and was captivated by the Semut story which had not been
comprehensively told before. From official records, countless interviews in Borneo, written diaries and memoirs, and meeting with the few living survivors in Australia; she has pieced together the operation. Her book is more than a history of what was done by whom. She has brought to the reader the soldiers’ challenges, terrors and privations. The terrain and tropical vegetation were a constant challenge. Radio communications
– the informal abandonment of the
were sporadic.
law prohibiting the taking of heads,
They were alone in an alien place.
a practice enthusiastically taken up
Sleep, such as they had, was in
again.
ready-for-armed-action should they
Though explained by Helliwell as
encounter the superior might of the
having spiritual significance to the
Japanese whose location, at the start,
Dayaks, and less barbaric than it may
was unknown. There were periods
seem to an outsider, the practice of
of food scarcity such that starvation
taking heads added another layer of
threatened.
horror for the soldiers. Frustration and
That such a small, lightly equipped
fear of losing support through non-ar-
and armed band could gain the
rival of expected reinforcements and
support of the Dayaks comes as an
equipment was ongoing.
astounding fact, and speaks volumes
Semut is above all, a human story.
of their diplomacy and tenacity.
Helliwell’s research has revealed the
That observation may seem
personalities of the soldiers, who
incompatible with a particular
came from civilian occupations as
inducement to getting Dayak support
diverse as tailor and academic. These
The mission was to gain Dayak support in ‘encouraging’ Japanese invaders downriver from the hinterland to the coast.
were ordinary people doing the extraordinary in an alien environment. The soldiers and their Dayak counterparts developed admiration and fondness for each other. The author makes great emphasis of the hundreds of unnamed Dayak
SURVEYING+SPATIAL
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