By the war's end the guerillas had taken control of 41,000 square kilometres of Borneo and killed over 1000 Japanese. But along the way everything did not always run smoothly. In an extract from his book, Kill the Major, PAUL MALONE relates an incident illustrating the complexity of guerilla war.

The Allied plans to retake Borneo - known collectively as Operation Oboe - involved more than 75,000 men landing on both the east and west coast of the huge equatorial island. The Allies first moved on the small offshore island of Tarakan, on the north-east coast, on May 1, 1945, and followed with landings on June 10 on the north-west coast at Labuan Island and Brunei Bay and at Balikpapan on July 1. Guerillas supported the landings at a number of locations.

With no idea of how they would be received, on March 25 eight guerillas parachuted into the Kelabit tribal lands, in the central highland. Thankfully they were welcomed and they were followed by a further 34 special forces men. Under the command of British Major Tom Harrisson, the guerillas were in no position to assist the AIF's first landing at Tarakan. But by June 10, when the second landing at Labuan and Brunei Bay was scheduled, they were well established and mounted simultaneous attacks.

Alone or in pairs, the guerillas were authorised to recruit and train local tribesmen and engage in action as they saw fit. The Kelabit, Kenyah, Kayan, Iban and other tribesmen they recruited quickly came to believe they were authorised to take heads - or, at least Japanese heads, although there was no such official authorisation. On the Limbang River, from its headwaters to within reach of its mouth at Brunei Bay where the AIF amphibious landing was to take place, Sergeant Fred Sanderson and Driver Phil Henry, each with a band of native warriors, mounted ambushes and attacks on Japanese posts.

Born in Rydalmere, NSW, Henry joined up in January 1942 at age 19. At the time of his enlistment he was living with his father, Clifford, at Callan Park Hospital in the inner Sydney suburb of Rozelle. Of medium height at 5'8" (173 centimetres), Henry had the Intermediate Certificate awarded to students who had successfully completed three years of high school. Three years after his enlistment, with the lowly rank of Driver and still only 22 years old, he was leading a band of devoted Iban warriors deep in the jungle in Borneo.

Henry was comfortable in his position, lolling at ease in shorts, slouch hat and bead necklace on July 10 when a platoon of AIF troops found him holding Ukong, a Chinese trading post and police base on the river. Like Henry, many of the Iban warriors were confident in themselves, having already taken Japanese heads in ambushes they had mounted on troops moving inland from the coastal town of Miri and the Seria oil fields. During the unscheduled meeting, the youthful Henry apparently did not show the senior AIF officer and his NCO the respect they expected. And when the officer ordered him about, Henry's Iban troops took umbrage. They were also angry about the way they were being brushed aside, feeling that they deserved respect, having "liberated" themselves from the hated Japanese.

Henry and his band held two alleged collaborators captive. The guerillas' policy was to treat "ordinary" collaborators' actions as excusable, to be overlooked and forgotten. Only where someone had gone beyond the needs and pressures of the Japanese occupation, to exploit a position, or impose cruel hardship, was he to be regarded as a true "collaborator". One of the prisoners was in this latter category.

While Henry was pressing rice wine on the lower ranks, the officers went on an inspection tour of the town. As they did, the Iban turned their attention to the committed collaborator. Hearing a commotion, the officers raced back to be confronted by a headless man writhing on the ground. The Iban had shot and beheaded a collaborator, an action they considered justified and routine, but one they said later had caused one of the officers to nearly faint.

Anticipating what was to happen, at 10pm that night Henry dashed out a signal to his leader Major Harrisson in his mountain HQ: "I herewith make my written report on action I took today in executing Lakop. This action is beyond the bounds of your orders but necessary under the circumstances ... I captured Lakop this morning after he had evaded capture for a fortnight. I brought him here to Ukong and decided to execute him immediately as he would have had to have been held overnight as a prisoner and as most of my men are out on patrol I could not afford any men to guard him overnight and there was every possibility of him escaping. He was a definite threat to the security of my area and I felt I could not take the chance of him escaping as my success in getting Japs in my area depends on surprise. The Japanese are still in the belief that Ukong is in Jap hands which suits me beautifully and it brings them right to me and I could not afford to have one person on the river who would tell them the real state of affairs, as if a large party of Japs heard there was only one member of the AIF at Ukong they could easily overwhelm me in a surprise attack. I therefore feel that my action was justified and this was the only man on the river who would tell the Japs of the situation and I could not take the risk of his escaping and joining up with them."

The note did not save him from the authorities. In Labuan in early August, Henry was paraded before "Z" Special Unit Commanding Officer, Colonel G.B. "Jumbo" Courtney, who charged him with the "murder of a British subject" and placed him under open arrest. Courtney warned him that he could end up with several years in detention.

At his distant headquarters, Harrisson could do nothing immediately. A court martial was inevitable. At the hearing ordered by the 9th Division General George Wootten, 25-year-old Lieutenant Alan John Bradshaw testified that he had met Driver Henry at Bun Bun, where Henry was interrogating an alleged Malay collaborator. Later, Henry had picked up another alleged collaborator. After arriving at Ukong and settling his patrol in billets, Bradshaw said he had a conversation with Henry about one of the collaborators. Henry told him that he had collected quite a bit of evidence against the man.

"I told Dvr Henry that it was my job simply to contact him to obtain information of Jap movements and investigation of native reports and topographic information. I told him that he was not in any way under my command and he could please himself what he did with the collaborators. It was immaterial to me whether I took the collaborator back or not." Bradshaw said that he left Henry and headed down to the barge, which was about 80 yards away, and on his way back heard a shot. "I looked around and came back up the track a little and saw a headless Malay lying on the ground. Dvr Henry was not there. I did not see the shot fired. The Dyaks had the head."

Bradshaw confronted Henry: "Do you appreciate that a man has been shot?"

Henry replied that he had "stacks of evidence" against the collaborator and was acting in accordance with Major Harrisson's instructions. Bradshaw told him that "we", the AIF, discouraged the practice of Dyaks removing heads from bodies. Henry said he considered it reasonable for the maintenance of prestige among the 500 Dyaks he had under his command.

Witness statements were taken from two AIF sergeants and six AIF privates. Some said they heard a shot, all claimed to have been some distance from the incident and all said they had not seen the killing.

The prosecution argued that when Henry told Bradshaw that he had "stacks of evidence" against the collaborator this was a tacit admission that Henry either committed, authorised, or condoned the shooting.

Harrisson received an urgent message about the court martial and presented a statement in defence of Henry. But he also went above Wootten's head and made immediate, direct representations to the highest possible authority - the Commander-in-Chief, General Thomas Blamey.

In his statement to the court martial, Harrisson testified that Henry was one of only 12 operational personnel and was given an area of 1000 square miles over which he was to provide intelligence reports. After the Sarawak AIF landings, on numerous occasions Henry and his guerilla forces had mounted attacks against Japanese posts and patrols, completely dislocating the enemy's intention to escape upriver. With only 15 arms supplied to him, his band had captured hiding places and food supplies in and around Ukong and was responsible for killing about 80 Japanese, with the loss of five of his own self-trained troops. The whole river population of some thousands gave Henry the fullest possible co-operation and support, and looked to him as their natural leader and authority on the spot.

Harrisson said all his men were required to provide weekly reports, and in one of these "routine" reports Henry gave him an account of the shooting of the native (Henry's report was written late at night and, most unusually, had not only the date but the time, 2200 hours, annotated). Harrisson said his standing orders were that prisoners should be sent back to him with evidence and witnesses, but owing to the exceptional conditions of service and remoteness - Henry was 12 days away from HQ, and five of them through uninhabited, unexplored country - "any person must use their own discretion when exceeding my orders, providing they were subsequently able to satisfy me that this was in the essential [interest]of their own immediate security."

On the basis of Henry's later full report, Harrisson said he considered Henry's action "fully justified". It would have been quite impracticable for Henry to have sent this "dangerous and notorious character" back to his HQ under native escorts.

Harrisson's action in contacting Blamey did not go unrewarded. Wootten received a directive from Blamey that he was not to take any action against Henry until Blamey himself had seen the evidence against him.

Brigadier K. A. Wills sent Blamey a copy of the court martial evidence with a cover note that "respectfully suggested" that Henry be moved to the special forces headquarters at Morotai. An initialled handwritten directive on Wills' note, dated September 8 (probably in Blamey's hand) says: "Dvr Henry to be moved to Morotai as requested by Brig Wills."

Henry was subsequently flown to Morotai and quietly returned to Australia, where the matter vanished into thin air.

While not providing any details on the case, Harrisson later wrote: "Against all the efforts of a quota of legal men who decorated command positions in the 9th Div. the charge was quashed from above, by Field-Marshal Blamey in person (I believe)."

In July 1984 Colonel G. B. "Jumbo" Courtney, the special forces commanding officer who had originally charged Henry, wrote to Australian War Memorial researcher Alan Wood, saying that he had a letter from Ken Wills confirming that Blamey had sent Wills to Labuan to try to persuade Wootten to drop the case. Wootten refused point blank, and Blamey then ordered Wills to send a signal that Henry should be moved to Morotai and taken on to Melbourne and thus out of the 9th Division's area where he should promptly "get lost".

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In another letter to Wood dated July 24, 1984, Courtney says "obviously they could not have sustained any firm case against him [Henry]." Somehow forgetting that he was the one who had charged Henry and placed him under arrest before the Japanese surrender, he states: "What I did not previously know was that the alleged offence took place on or about 10 July 1945 i.e. while a state of war still existed with Japan ... Wooten [sic] must have been off his head."

On Harrisson's recommendation, Henry was Mentioned in Despatches with the citation: "Exceptional Services in the field in S.W.P. Area." In January 1948, from Mudgee, NSW, Henry wrote to Harrisson in Sarawak, saying that he was pleased to have received a letter from Harrisson and regretted not having replied sooner, that his father had passed away and he had had to look after his estate.

"I have just had news this week that I have passed the Hawkesbury Diploma in Agriculture," he said. "I'm afraid my ideas of returning to the tropics have been squashed [sic] for a while as I now have the responsibility of looking after my mother. I became engaged some months ago and expect to be married in March." He said he had caught up with Sandy and had gone with him to select a farm which Sandy had bought on the North Coast.

"I am taking a job with a farm machinery firm to gain experience and later hope to go into business on my own. I still often think of the people of the Limbang and will always remember the hospitality they showed me. If your travels take you to that area I'd like you to remember 'Tuan Pill' to them."

Henry later became a successful businessman, and according to Courtney "a pillar of his church."

Kill the Major - The true story of the most successful Allied guerrilla war in Borneo, by Paul Malone, is published by Pity Sake Publishing on July 1. $24.99 AUD.