With the breakdown of the Bangkok talks the Indonesians attempted to push back the recognized border by occupying and holding commanding hill features just inside Sarawak.

This captured Indonesian Terrorist is being escorted to the terminal building at Sibu airport in the Third Division, seems to have multiple light wounds. The soldier guarding him is carrying the prisoner's Sten Sub Machine Gun and web pouches. General Walker had leaflets dropped over the border area and approach routes, offering safe conduct to Indonesian and local guerrilas who chose to surrender"before you are killed by the Security Forces, or before you die of disease or starvation in the jungle.

On the 7th March 1964 a fierce action took place on Track 6 on the edge of the Kling-Kang range in the Second Division, two Gurkhas of the 2/10th Gurkha Rifles were killed as they approached an Indonesian position. The Indonesians withdrew, leaving one dead ( believed many were carried off) and plenty of booty, documents indicated that the camp held 40 men from the regular 328 Para Raider Battalion. Radio intercepts picked up 328 Battalion reports that they had a lot of dead and wounded and were in considerable difficulties. The reply from their Headquarters was brief and brutal, “Get on with it-there is plenty more where they came from!”

Some days later the Indonesians returned to the ridge some 16 miles to the east. This time Major Mayman, commanding A Company,2/10th Gurkha Rifles, who was supported by two Wessex helicopters firing French wire guided Nord SS11 missiles, a troop of 105mm pack howitzers from 70 Battery, royal artillery and the 76mm guns of the two Saladin armoured cars from the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars. Even so the Gurkhas had a hard fight to dislodge the Indonesians, who left two dead when they withdrew.

There were no fewer han 34 similar attacks along the border during the summer of 1964. In Operation “Sabre Tooth” the Gurkhas of the 2/10th hunted down a platoon strength (approx 36 men) of the so called Black Cobra Battalion, commanded by Major Audy Patawari, which had crossed the border at the end of March. The Cobras blundered into a Gurkha ambush which resulted in the loss of their packs containing food and ammunition. By April, 27 Cobras were very dead, out of the original 36. They were decimated by the Gurkha patrols.

On the 20th May 1964, President Sukarno boasted that he would crush Malaysia by the time the sun rises on the 1st January 1965. Reports came in of a steady build-up of Indonesian Marine Commandos and of Paratroopers in camps in Kalimantan, on the Sumatra coast opposite the Malaysian mainland and the Riau Islands south of Singapore.

Faced by this threat, General Walker received 51 Brigade of the strategic reserve, with it’s HQ and one Gurkha and two British battalions. Walker was now able to rotate and redeploy battalions. He established three brigade sectors, which were 99th Brigade of Gurkhas became West brigade with five battalions holding Kuching and three western divisions of Sarawak. 51 Brigade took over as Central Brigade, with two battalions holding the rest of Sarawak and Brunei. 5th Malaysian Brigade was based in Tawau, had three battalions defending Sabah as Eastern Brigade. Source : Britain's Secret War by Will Fowler.