Semut: The Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo by Christine Helliwell (review)

ON 24 JUNE 1945, a group of Iban guerrilla warriors, led by four special forces operatives of Australia’s Z Special Unit, carried out a hit-and-run raid against Japanese soldiers in the village of Song. Song is located on the Rejang River, the largest river in Sarawak province on the island of Borneo. Waiting until the Japanese soldiers emerged from their air raid shelters, the Iban guerrillas crept silently from the jungle armed with long swords. Within minutes, eleven Japanese soldiers had been killed, decapitated and left on a jungle path. There was more to follow. Early the next morning, a motor launch bringing Japanese reinforcements was ambushed by the same guerrilla force and sent to the bottom of the Rejang, some 57 of the 60 Japanese soldiers on board being killed. Little wonder that the Japanese abandoned Song three days later.

The capture of Song village was just one of the military actions of Operation Semut, a combined British and Australian secret operation launched at the end of the war to assist in the liberation of Borneo. Eventually there would be four Semut operations. This book focuses on two of them: Semut II and III, the operation’s activities along two of Borneo’s great rivers, the Baram (Semut II) and the Rejang (Semut III). The author, Christine Helliwell, plans to cover the events of Semut I and IV in a subsequent publication.

There is a significant controversial aspect in this book. The Dayak tribes indigenous to Borneo had long been feared for their practice of head-hunting – taking the heads of enemies killed in battle. The British colonial administration, headed by the Brooks family, had spent years eradicating a practice most people viewed as abhorrent. Yet to recruit the Dayaks to Operation Semut, the prohibition on taking heads was removed. It proved to be an effective recruiting tool, although at times it also backfired. Not all the heads taken by the Dayaks during Operation Semut were Japanese.

There is a strong New Zealand connection to Operation Semut. As in World War I, New Zealanders seemed to have served in every theatre of this second great conflict of the twentieth century. Operation Semut had its share of New Zealanders, including Major Toby Carter. Carter was the commanding officer of Semut II and proved to be a very effective Special Forces operator. He was also unjustly relieved of command for showing too much compassion and concern for the Dayak guerrillas he commanded. It should also be noted that Helliwell herself, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, is a New Zealander.

One of the key themes of this book is just how much the success of Operation Semut depended on the Dayaks. It was the Dayak tribes, especially the Kenyah, Ibans and Kayan tribes, who did most of the heavy lifting. This included most of the fighting and dying, too. Without the efforts of the Dayaks, Operation Semut would have been a disaster.

Semut is a remarkable book. The research is meticulous, helped by the fact that Helliwell has walked the ground of Operation Semut many times. The writing is superb and flows as smoothly as the rivers at the heart of this book. Semut is a revelation about a little-known guerrilla campaign of World War II; one which owed its success to the local indigenous tribes, who were intent on collecting as many heads of their new enemy as possible.