Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Horace Edgar Hamilton Elam
Today, the name Edgar Elam would only be known to his family. His likeness does not feature on any wall in a museum or memorial. He is like so many RAAF veterans, their service life is recorded in a thin personal file but, if you scratch the surface, you might be amazed what you find.
Horace Elam, who went by Edgar, was born in London England on 05 March 1906 to parents Horace and Elizabeth - nee Kemp. His father, Horace was born 18th November 1850, married late to Elizabeth on 29th Nov 1902 and suddenly died on 30th April 1916. Horace Dixon Elam was an infamous teacher of Latin Greek and French at St Pauls School London. There is a book written by Ernest Raymond called Mr Olim in which the character of Olim is based on Edgar’s father. Edgar’s first school was in Willesden Lane, London around 1912. Edgar’s senior school in 1917 was St Edmunds Canterbury (SES) which he left after the summer term of 1925. An exceptional sportsman Edgar, at SES, won the Victor Ludorum and played all the main sports of football, hockey and cricket first 11s and captaining at least two teams. He then attended Selwyn College Cambridge where he read history and anthropology attaining a Batchelor of Arts with honours. Again, he was very active in sports for his college playing for the University at football and for the Wanderers at hockey captaining both.
After university, Edgar was actually all set up to go to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) but because the university had left him off the Honours List - for which due apologies were made - the position was taken. After the error had been rectified by Cambridge university, he took up a position in Sarawak in the service of the Rajah.
But why go to Sarawak on the other side of the world? Studying anthropology at Cambridge must have been a huge influence. Edgar had no reason to stay in England as his mother had died on Christmas Eve 1926, he was aged 28 and single. His knowledge of countries had been instilled in him when young through his stamp collecting and he was ready for a new adventure post university.
Edgar sailed from England on the 10th January 1929 in the P & O ship SS Khiva to Sarawak on the island of Borneo, where he served pre-war for thirteen years as a civil administrator for the Rajah.
Edgar travelled back to England on leave and on one of these occasions he met his future wife Elizabeth Midgley, who went by Lisa, through his sister. Edgar and Lisa married on 27 March 1939 after a whirlwind romance returning to Sarawak just before the beginning of World War Two.
When the war engulfed the Asia Pacific region and Japan invaded Malaya, Edgar joined the Sarawak Volunteers. The Sarawak Volunteers were British civilians who worked mainly for the government or the oil industry who were not keen that the Volunteers should fight any invaders, but it reasoned that if the Volunteers confined themselves to being involved in demolition duties then reprisals could be avoided.
Before we continue with Edgar’s story, first some background on Borneo and their defence plans. Before WWII, Borneo was undeveloped, but rich in natural resources, especially rubber and oil, with oilfields at Serai in Brunei and at Miri in Sarawak, and a refinery at Lutong. Although British-protected Borneo had strategic importance in that it commanded the eastern approaches to Singapore and Malaya, there were no British garrisons there and each territory provided its own small police forces. The prize for the Japanese was Borneo’s oil a vital commodity that they desperately needed.
The defence plan for British Borneo was not afforded a high priority in terms of resources. Colonel C.M. Lane MC, was appointed Officer Commanding Troops Sarawak and Brunei and appreciated that a static defence would not last long against a determined enemy prepared to march through jungle or to seize boats and travel on rivers in order to outflank a defensive position. He therefore proposed the concept of mobile defence whereby after demolishing the oilfields, invaders would be harassed and Kuching airfield would be held until enemy pressure determined that the airfield and its Royal Air Force (RAF) direction-finding equipment should also be demolished. SARFOR would then operate in small sub-units from jungle bases where supplies had been cached, using guerrilla warfare tactics to deny the enemy freedom of movement along the roads, tracks and rivers and on the airfield. This was approved by Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, Commander-in-Chief Far East when he visited Kuching but it was later rejected by the General Officer Commanding, Malaya Command, General Arthur Percival who chose close static defence of Kuching airfield without any depth in the defences being allowed.
Edgar was the Mukah District Officer and in September 1941, with the threat of Japanese invasion, was made liaison officer to the Colonel Lane with the rank of second lieutenant and was based in Batu Kitang, 20km from Kuching. He was later appointed Sarawak Deputy Defence Minister. On Dec 24, 1941, as Japanese bombardment became intense, they were ordered to retreat and among the orders given to Edgar was to retrieve all valuable defence documents and materials, including the Rajah’s flag. After defeat of the allied army in Borneo Colonel Lane ordered Elam and six other Sarawak Government officers out of Borneo as Lane recognised that the “those few who still spoke the native language and would be vital for the return”. Edgar and several other colonial officers retreated to Bau from Kuching and escaped to Pontianak before heading to Jakarta and then to Australia.
While Edgar was undertaking a fighting retreat against the Japanese, his wife Elizabeth and baby daughter Susan, born on 27 August 1941, were having their own experiences. On Christmas Eve 1941 they moved overland from the north of Sarawak and worked their way down to the capital. Elizabeth and Susan journeyed by sea from Kuching to Simanggang and then by river and the last part they had to trek through the jungle to the border with Dutch Borneo. In Pontianak the family reunited briefly before splitting again. From here Lisa and Susan travelled to Batavia (Jakarta) where the Dutch put them one of the last ships, the Boissevain, and arrived in Fremantle on 23 February 1942. From Fremantle Elizabeth and Susan remained on the ship until it made berth in Sydney where they stayed for the rest of the war. Considering Darwin was attacked on 19 February 1942, the Boissevain remained just ahead of the advancing Japanese forces.
Reunited in Sydney the family found a house at 344 Edgecliff Road Woollahra. Edgar wrote, ‘I went straight to the RAAF Recruitment Centre at Woolloomooloo and put my name down for enlistment.’ At the age of 36, he was accepted and joined the RAAF on 25 May 1942 into the Admin and Special Duties Branch. His early years in the RAAF provided him with exposure to the administrative works of the air force until he was posted to number 18 Intelligence Officers Course in April 1943.
On completion of the course Edgar was posted to the Far East Liaison Office (FELO) where his language skills and knowledge of Sarawak would be used to support the war effort. FELO was Section D of the Allied Intelligence Bureau and were tasked to undertake propaganda and field intelligence with the objectives to lower the morale of the enemy forces and so impair their fighting efficiency. FELO also had the task to mislead the enemy regarding our military intentions and influence subject populations in enemy-occupied territories to impair the enemy's war effort and to assist Allied Forces.
Posted to Port Moresby and then Darwin, Edgar worked in educating the allied forces on the importance of propaganda and the dropping of leaflets to gain and maintain the support of the native population. The section also made sure that aircrew were briefed on the importance of leaflets and, “explaining psychological warfare to them gradually convinced many, and later of course as territory was regained, they saw for themselves how much these leaflets were treasured by the natives.”
His duties with FELO also took him behind enemy lines where he initiated contact with the native population to help support the allies and to set up a base of operations. Towards the end of the war, due to Edgar’s knowledge of the region, he was sent to support OBOE 6 with landings at the Brunei Bay area and Labuan Island. Edgar briefed the troops on what to expect in the region, provided information on the native population and also interrogated natives for intelligence on the Japanese. He went in with the landing forces and said, “I made for any remaining building to see what documents I could collect but this job I soon gave up as terrified natives and Chinese were beginning to appear and as I was able to speak the language I asked as interpreter and general help for shepherding them back.”
When the war came to a close Edgar eventually found himself in Kuching at the internment camp for the captured Europeans. Edgar takes up the story, “we arrived at, I think, the most appropriate moment we could have. As we drew up in the ferry, the civilians were attending church service and a more impressive but moving scene, I have never witnessed. As we arrived, they were singing “Now thank we all our God.” We stood listening for some time and then turning to go to a certain section of the camp saw an apparition approaching us. The strain of the watching the service had been bad enough, and it was with difficulty that I had been able to keep a pair of dry eyes. As this apparition approached, by his smile I was in no doubt as to whom he was. I admit I felt my eyes start to water again. The apparition was one of my very best friends, Arthur Taylor, who when I had known him in 1941, weighed 14 stone! He had in his day been captain of Selangor Rugger XV and played in Scotland. This day in a torn white singlet a pair of blue running shorts, no socks or shoes and stubble on his face he weighed a bare 9 stone.”
Edgar returned to Australia and discharged ready to start the rest of his life with his family. He wanted to move back to Sarawak to take up his old job but those who had been interned were given the government positions. The internees displayed hostility to those who they said, “escaped”, rather than stayed behind.
He was demobilised from the RAAF in December 1945 and returned to Sarawak. Edgar was invalided from the service in November 1947. After 4 years’ service in Germany with the Control Commission he took a political position with the Conservative Party Board of Finance first in Cardiff and then in Cambridge where his region was East Anglia and he retired at the end of 1974. In late 1975 he became an archivist at his old college, Selwyn College, Cambridge." He died on 9th October 1982 and was survived by his wife Lisa who died on 31st December 1984 and his two children Elizabeth Susan who was the last baby to be born on 27th August 1941 in Kuching hospital before the Japanese invasion and Edward Bruce who was born in St Luke's Hospital, Sydney on 2nd September 1945.