In December 1962, the SCO (the Sarawak Communist Organisation) still lacked a military wing and its members had not yet undergone military training. Following the Brunei Revolt, the SCO switched to a policy of armed insurgency from January 1963 since the defeat of the Bruneian rebels deprived it of a source of weapons.
He began his career by appearing in small roles at the age of five as a child actor. At age eight, he appeared with some of his fellow "Little Fortunes" in the film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar (1962) with Li Li-Hua playing his mother.
On 6 December, Morris heard the rebellion would start on the 8th. On 7th, similar information reached John Fisher, the resident of the 4th Division of Sarawak, based in Miri some 20 miles (30 km) west of Brunei. As a result, police were put on full alert through Brunei, North Borneo and Sarawak, and Police Field Force reinforcements were flown from Kuching to Miri.
The rebellion broke out at 2:00 am on 8 December. Signals from Brunei to British Far East Headquarters reported rebel attacks on police stations, the Sultan’s Istana, the Prime Minister’s house and the power station, and that another rebel force was approaching the capital by water. Far East Headquarters ordered ALE YELLOW, which placed a force of two Gurkha infantry companies on 48 hours notice to move.
By five in the morning, TNKU controlled Pekan Besar. News came that a number of civil servants at Pekan Besar had managed to escape capture. Around an hour later at downtown, the Deputy Chief Minister was granted an audience by the Sultan. After the meeting, the Sultan made a radio declaration condemning TNKU, the armed wing of the Brunei People's Party, for treason.
Nine hours after ALE YELLOW, ALE RED was ordered and two companies of 1st Battalion, 2nd Gurkha Rifles, of 99th Infantry Brigade, moved to the RAF airfields at Changi and Seletar in Singapore to fly to Labuan Island in Brunei Bay. The Beverleys landed at about 10:00 pm and the Gurkhas advanced into Brunei. They fought a series of actions, suffering six casualties, two fatal. A small group of Gurkhas led by Captain Digby Willoughby rescued the Sultan and took him to police headquarters. An advance to Seria met strong opposition and returned to Brunei to counter a rebel threat to its centre and the airfield.
On 9 December, John Fisher called on the Dayak tribes for help by sending a boat with the traditional Red Feather of War up the Baram River. Tom Harrisson, the Curator of the Sarawak Museum in Kuching and leader of resistance to the Japanese in the Second World War also arrived in Brunei. He summoned the Kelabits from the highlands around Bario in the 5th Division, the centre of his wartime resistance. Hundreds of Dayaks responded, and formed into companies led by British civilians all commanded by Harrison. This force reached some 2,000 strong, and with excellent knowledge of the tracks through the interior (there were no roads), helped contain the rebels and cut off their escape route to Indonesia.
On 10 December, a company of the Queen’s Own Highlanders boarded five Twin Pioneers and a Beverley at Brunei. The Twin Pioneers landed west of Seria and the Beverley at Anduki. A police station 2 miles (3 km) from the western landing was recaptured and so was the Telecommunications Centre after a brief fight. Anduki airfield was quickly recaptured. However, the main Seria police station, with 48 hostages, most Shell expatriates, was not secured until the 12th.
On 10 December, the Far East ‘spearhead battalion’, the Queen’s Own Highlanders began arriving in Brunei. Brigadier Patterson, commander 99th Gurkha Infantry Brigade arrived to take overall command from Brigadier Pat Glennie, normally the Brigadier General Staff at Far East HQ. Both reported to Lieutenant General Sir Nigel Poett, the Far East Land Forces Commander in Singapore. Seria and Limbang remained in rebel hands. Further reinforcements arrived in the following days.
After acquiring two landing craft, the Marines were transported to Limbang by Royal Navy crews led by Captain Black (who later commanded HMS Invincible during the Falklands War) and staged their arrival at dawn, 13 December.
On 14 December, most of the unit reinforced the artillery battery sent there as infantry on 12 December to pre-empt trouble from the Chinese of the Clandestine Communist Organisation (CCO) who were openly sympathetic to the Brunei rebels.
On December 16, 1962, inmate John Paul Scott successfully swam a distance of 2.7 nautical miles (5.0 km; 3.1 mi) from Alcatraz to Fort Point, at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. He was found there by teenagers, suffering from hypothermia and exhaustion. After recovering in Letterman General Hospital, he was immediately returned to Alcatraz. It is the only proven case of an Alcatraz inmate reaching the shore by swimming. Scott's escape, undertaken in slightly more unfavorable conditions than Morris and the Anglins faced, and using a means of flotation that was far inferior to the raft constructed by Morris and the Anglins ( Scott made water wings by inflating stolen rubber gloves ) shook the line of reasoning that Morris and the Anglins had likely drowned. Today, a multitude of athletes swim the same Alcatraz to Fort Point route as part of one of two annual triathlon events.
By 17 December, the rebellion had been held and broken. Some 40 rebels were dead and 3,400 captured. The remainder had fled and were assumed to be trying to reach Indonesia. Of the leaders, Azahari was in the Philippines and Yassin Affendi was with the fugitives.
On 21 December 1962, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro and James B. Donovan, a US lawyer aided by Milan C. Miskovsky, a CIA legal officer, signed an agreement to exchange 1,113 prisoners for US$53 million in food and medicine, sourced from private donations and from companies expecting tax concessions.
In January 1963, the Shah announced the "White Revolution", a six-point programme of reform calling for land reform, nationalization of the forests, the sale of state-owned enterprises to private interests, electoral changes to enfranchise women and allow non-Muslims to hold office, profit-sharing in industry, and a literacy campaign in the nation's schools. Some of these initiatives were regarded as dangerous, especially by the powerful and privileged Shi'a ulama (religious scholars), and as Westernizing trends by traditionalists (Khomeini viewed them as "an attack on Islam").