Mial Bingarape
Torres Strait Islander
Retired Corporal
3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
Royal Australian Infantry Corps
Australian Army
Malaya and Borneo Veteran
Medals
Pingat Jasa Malaysia Medal
General Service Medal
Australian Active Service Medal 1945-75 with clasp
Australian Service Medal 1945-75
Australian Defence Medal
Mial Bingarape saw action in Borneo during the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation. As Section Commander of Platoon 1 of the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) , Corporal Bingarape carried out a two-year-long tour of duty in Malaysia from July 1963 as part of the 28th Commonwealth Brigade. The battalion’s first experience of the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation occurred in October 1964 when some of its members cooperated with New Zealand infantry in rounding up a force of 50 Indonesian troops that had landed in southern Malaya. In March 1965 3 RAR arrived in Borneo and relieved a Ghurkha unit at Bau in western Sarawak. The battalion remained in the area for four months, during which time it carried out patrolling and ambush operations on both sides of the border with Indonesia. Australian soldiers in Borneo found that the tactic of using small four-man patrols worked well in the rugged and densely wooded terrain.