LIM Kian Hock was a science stream student at the Sarawak prestigious school of St Thomas in Kuching. He studied history as a minor subject.

But as he grew up, Lim said he started drifting toward history, particularly the wars and conflicts of Sarawak in which Australian servicemen fought.

For decades, Lim studied the Australian armed forces and those who served alongside them, in World War II and the Borneo Confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia in the early 1960s.

A former secretary of the Sarawak assembly who is now in the 80s, Lim said a chance encounter with a former Australian soldier sowed in him the seed of interest.

Lim said he could only remember the man by his surname, Edmunds.

It is believed he was referring to Tom Edmunds, who was the speaker of the Victorian legislative assembly from April 1982 to October 1988 – almost the same time when Lim was the secretary of the Sarawak legislative assembly.

He said as secretary of the state assembly, one of his official duties was to accompany and entertain speakers from other state assemblies during their state visit.

“So I arranged for an official car for him and told him I would accompany him during his stay in Kuching.”

However, Edmunds said that wasn’t necessary because he was on a private visit.

Lim was even more puzzled when Edmunds invited him to join him for a visit to the Batu Lintang teachers training college.

“I was wondering, why is he going to Batu Lintang and not to the state assembly?”

Not wanting to be thought nosy, Lim didn’t ask him why he wished to go to Batu Lintang.

“I felt it was not nice to ask all these sorts of things so I just followed him.”

When they arrived in Batu Lintang, Edmunds asked the staff there for “the model” he had come to see.

“I thought it was some woman,” said Lim.

From out of the storage room, the staff pulled out a scale model of the Batu Lintang Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

The young Lim still didn’t understand why the Aussie was so interested in the camp.

After Edmunds returned to Australia, the two corresponded and Edmunds shared with Lim many war photographs.

Among the shots he shared were photos of “little skinny people”.

“I looked closer (at the black and white photos) and saw that they were Australian soldiers guarded by a lot of Japanese soldiers along the Main Bazaar,” he said referring to one of Kuching’s more prominent roads that passes one of the city’s landmarks, the 184-year old Tua Pek Kong temple, also known as Siew San Teng temple.

Edmunds also shared photos of the Japanese surrender in 1942.

“So I wrote back to him and asked him, what has all these got to do with you?’”

It was then that Edmunds told Lim that he was among the Australian soldiers who had liberated Sarawak from the Japanese.

Lim said they continued to exchange letters and in one of them, Edmunds said he and other Australian World War II vets would be returning to Sarawak to mark the 50th anniversary of the war.

“By then I was already hooked on war history.”

Outstanding service

Lim said he had made up his mind that after he retired from the civil service, he would volunteer to research Australia’s involvement and role in World War II and post-war conflicts in Sarawak and remember the soldiers.

He retired in 1995 but remained active in the Sarawak Tourism Federation where, despite a lot of pessimism, he managed to form a “little committee” – the History and Heritage Development Committee – to assist vets who might want to return to Sarawak.

On June 22, the Australian government conferred on Lim an honorary Order of Australia Medal.

The award recognises Australians who have demonstrated outstanding service or exceptional achievement. Non-citizens like Lim are recognised with an honorary award.

The investiture ceremony took place at the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, where on behalf of the Australian High Commissioner Justin Lee, Chargé d’Affaires Clare Gatehouse handed over the award to Lim.

The award was in recognition for his service to Australia-Malaysia relations, particularly for commemorating the roles played by Australians in Sarawak during World War II.

In its citation, the embassy stated that Lim is “held in high esteem by Australian World War II veterans and their families who acknowledge his efforts in keeping the spirit of the Anzac alive in Sarawak”.

It added that without Lim’s dedication and commitment, much of Sarawak wartime history, including the Australian war component, would have been forgotten and lost.

Among Lim’s services was a 2013 campaign in which he advocated for the permanent recognition of the Australian Z-Unit that waged a guerrilla war behind enemy lines in the Baram highlands of Bario.

He recalled that the graves for Z-unit Aussies were almost forgotten in Bario’s dense jungle.

“(There’s) only a little track to get there.”

Without money or financial assistance, he got his brother-in-law, who is in the construction business, to construct a path to the grave site and build a monument there.

Lim was also instrumental in the construction of the Australian war memorial in Batu Lintang and the war museum located next to it.

Now in his 80s, he has picked a major figure in Sarawak’s tourism industry, Fiona Marcus Raja, to take over his role.

“I’m getting old.” – September 4, 2023.