- Author
- Ramsay Silver, Lynette, FAIHI
- Subjects
- WWII operations
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- September 1994 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
At 8.30 a.m. the following day – the anniversary of Riggs’s birth – a casket containing his remains was handed over with full military honours to Colonel Suwarno by the Commodore of the Indonesian Naval Base at Tanjung Pinang. From Tanjung Pinang an aircraft provided by the Indonesian Fleet Air Arm flew Colonels Nicholson and Suwarno to Jakarta where the casket was placed in a coffin draped with the Union Jack. At 9 o’clock on the morning of 3rd June General Mantiri, whose cooperation and support had been so vital to our mission, handed over the coffin to Mr Charles Grey, The Deputy Head of Mission of the British Embassy.
In late August the mortal remains of Gregor Riggs and his mate Colin Cameron will be given a burial fit for heroes in Singapore’s Kranji War Cemetery. the funeral ceremony, which will be carried out with full military honours, will bring to 17 the number of Rimau men laid to rest in Kranji – the bodies of the ten who were beheaded and the four who died immediately after the raid, and the ashes of another who died in captivity.
The six remaining heroes of Operation Rimau lie in unmarked graves on the Indonesian islands of Buaja, Maja Java and Timor.
© Lynette Ramsay Silver, June 1994.