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For this reason, I decided to help SB officer Deputy superintendent Lim Chian Seng write his memoir to honor dozens of dead or injured SB compatriots. If all goes well, the book will be published by the end of the year.

Called “running dogs” by the communist the atrocities they committed was no less the most dastard “war crimes” during the 27-year Sarawak insurgency. DSP Peter Lim Chian Seng, 82, was among the top SB officers on “hit list” after Sarawak’s Tan Sri Koo Chong Kong was assassinated in Ipoh in 1975. Peter’s story is about how he was survived three two assassination attempts by the elite PGRS communists in 1971 and survived.

Lim recalled that at 1 p.m. on July 31 1971 he and his wife left his station at Bau to go to Kuching on a quiet Sunday. His wife teacher Chua Kin Tee, accompanied him to Kuching to buy special formula milk for their first child five-month old Kek Seng. He rarely travelled alone, but on this occasion, he had a premonition that trouble was brewing and handed his wife his loaded 38 Smith and Wesson pistol with six rounds.

For months CTs had been watching Lim’s movements because he had been making several arrests of key individuals and had to be eliminated. Lim said: “They knew I had to travel by my old Volkswagon along the narrow and winding Bau Road to get to Kuching.” “Apparently, the informer contacted the PRGKU group who set up two separate ambushes along the same road to ensure I didn’t escape.”

After about 20 minutes Lim reached the first ambush site at the Buso junction where the first group of CTs armed with a Sten Gun and rifle waited. As his car came into view the CTs opened fire riddling his vehicle. “I shouted to my wife ambush and stepped on the pedal but 25 yards ahead a second group of four to five CTs with shotguns went in for the kill.

“I was hit on the right eyebrow was by a pellet that shattered my sun glasses with splinters entering the eye. The same pellet was embedded in my skull. “Another pellet also grazed my left chest while a rifle bullet went through the car.” Lim continued: “As the blood blurred my vision, I lost control and my car skidded and crashed into a telephone pole at the top of a steep ravine where my wife and I were partially trapped there.”

“I came out of the car into the open and my wife followed suit as we took cover in the ravine. My shirt was soaked in blood a uniformed CT emerged from the jungle who thought I was mortally wounded, wanted to finish the job. As he approached my wife passed me my Browning and I shouted in Mandarin to the CTs not approach because he was heavily armed.

Thinking I had two pistols, the CT commander called his comrade back and they disappeared into the jungle. “I was prepared to fight it out to the end and reserved my last bullet for myself, in case I was captured alive,’ added Chian Seng who was familiar with fate of captured “running dogs”.

Later he learnt that the CTs were members of the hardcore PGRKU or Pasokan Gerilya Rakyat Kalimantan Utara whose specialty was torture band mutilation before killing. As the minutes passed, Lim realized the CTs had abandoned their plans and had fled from the scene. Five minutes later his wife finally managed to stop a passing PWD truck and they both hitched a ride to Bau police station three miles away.

"I must thank my brave wife. It seemed like ages before anyone was willing to stop and give us a lift. "My wife stood by the roadside desperately waving down passing motorists, while I stayed hidden in the valley. He added: "It was still touch and go because the CTs could have been still around. I had six rounds and made sure that if I had to fight them, I had to leave at least one bullet for myself.

"I can imagine what would have happened if they had captured me alive!!" Lim was operated on, his pellet removed and two weeks later he was back on duty. Four months later another attempt was made on his life at the Bau-Jugan junction, a stone's throw from the Siniawan police station.

In the second incident Lim and a convoy of policemen were travelling by land rover from Bau to the Siniawan police station when they were ambushed by gunmen at a sharp corner near the junction.

"After my first experience I was better prepared. When they opened fire I ordered the driver to step on the pedal and we just made it around the bend without crashing.

Lim said: "Two minutes later we were at the police station where we got reinforcements. I returned on foot with some men through the jungle to see if we could make a counter attack. But they had fled.” At the scene they found eight home-made "molotov cocktail" bombs (bottles with petrol or kerosene had to be lighted and would incinerate on explosion).

"Looking back, I dread to think what would have happened had our driven lost control of the vehicle and we crashed at the ambush site," he added.

Lim was promoted a year later to the rank of ASP but while he was away the terrorists caused havoc in the district. A year later on July 14 1972 the same group murdered a young Johnny Lee 21, at Tondong on suspicion of being a “running dog”.

After organizing a “public trial” Johnny tortured, tied to a tree in the town center and set on fire. However, in a twist of fate the PGRS commander and master of torture was killed in a botched CT ambush not far from Bau! Divine justice?