These days, the city seaport of Balikpapan spreads over the north eastern entrance to its bay and is home to half a million souls. Its modern airport lies inshore of the Makassar Strait separating Borneo from the island of Sulawesi two hundred kilometres distant.
Once a Bugis fishing village, now a city hub thanks to Indonesian oil and gas, Balikpapan is a sprawl of red tiled roofs with palms making a pacific statement on broad highways. It is regarded by resident expats as a good billet and a safe one. Gated living areas cocoon the Hash House Harriers from intrepid Buginese whose ocean-going canoes traded with aboriginal Australia centuries before the Portuguese or Captain Cook.
Hansard: 11 June 1958
Mr.Shinwell asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Ormsby-Gore) what information was in the Rt. Hon. Gentleman’s possession regarding the attack on British vessels in Indonesian harbours.
Rt. Hon. Ormsby-Gore: the British tankers ‘San Flaviano’ and ‘Daronia’ were both attacked from the air by bombs in Balikpapan harbour on 28th April. San Flaviano was set on fire and sunk. ‘Daronia’ escaped without damage or casualties.
Her Majesty’s ambassador at Jakarta made enquiries of the Indonesian Government as a result of which Her Majesty’s Government are satisfied that the attack was not carried out by the armed forces of the Indonesian Government. It is presumed that the attacking aircraft was under orders of Indonesian dissident forces in North Celebes.
As a result of the bombing of ‘San Flaviano’, the Shell Company has suspended its tanker service to Balikpapan and evacuated wives and families from oil installations there to Singapore.
What had given rise to Mr. Shinwell’s question in the House, was this.
On Monday, 28th April 1958, a black painted Douglas Invader bomber had appeared above Balikpapan city. No-one paid it much attention or noticed that it showed no markings until it roared down to machinegun the undefended wharf.
The aircraft then targeted several of the vessels anchored in the harbour. One 500lb bomb sank an Indonesian naval corvette, a second bounced off the SS Daronia (a twenty year old British tanker that had previously survived being torpedoed in the Indian Ocean) and a third struck the SS Flaviano on the starboard side. The British tanker erupted in flame. Its scheduled discharge of crude oil had almost completed when the bomb struck, and the ship’s tanks were filled with a residue of flammable gas.
Below deck in the 12,000 ton vessel, launched on Merseyside two years earlier, a young officer was confronted by fire. In tropical clothing, both hands protecting his face, he ran to a companionway and climbed to join crew members launching lifeboats from the port side. Shocked and badly burned he was later flown to Singapore. After months of treatment at the Alexandra, he was repatriated to his native Liverpool.
The Invader bomber carrying no markings or insignia was piloted by an American Air Force officer, a William H. Beale, seconded to the CIA as part of an operation by the United States in support of the ‘Permestas’, a right wing group. Ironically, Saint Flavian, for whom the bombed vessel was named, had met death in an attack by conservative extremists.
With David Ormsby-Gore’s statement, the matter was duly recorded and dismissed, but only because another incident had gone unremarked. One month earlier, a certain Allen Lawrence Pope, similarly transferred to the CIA from the United States Air Force, had flown an unmarked aircraft on a further bombing mission in Indonesia and been shot down and arrested. The mainstream Press did not report on this and for a time the CIA covert operation remained deniable. The Rt. Hon. Gentleman was therefore able to safely omit any reference to the USA in his parliamentary reply. Two years would pass before the trial in Jakarta of Allen Lawrence Pope and exposure of the USA’s failed policy to destabilise the young Republic of Indonesia. Sixty years later, the attack on SS San Flaviano at Balikpapan harbour would have unforeseen consequences.