John S.M. Tulloch

JOHN S.M. TULLOCH joined the New Zealand Army in January 1965. He attended Officer Cadet School Portsea in Australia in 1966, won the Sword of Honour, and in December that year was commissioned into the Royal New Zealand Artillery (RNZA). He served a tour of duty (TOD) in Vietnam with 161 Battery RNZA from July 1968 to July 1969 as a troop commander, and then later as a Forward Observer with 9 RAR. It was during his time in the New Zealand Army and in Vietnam that he developed his expertise in jungle warfare.

He transferred to the British Army and the Royal Artillery in March 1973, and was posted to Germany and completed two Northern Ireland TODs. In 1978 he was seconded to the Sultan of Oman’s Artillery (SOA) where he commanded B Battery SOA. After his Oman TOD, he commanded 137 (Java) Battery RA including a TOD in the Falkland Islands in 1982. Further postings followed in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

In 1994, at the behest of HQ Infantry, he began advising and instructing on the British Army’s Jungle Warfare Instructors’ Course (JWIC) in Brunei and supporting major jungle exercises in Belize. He retired from the military in 2003 and became a MOD Civil Servant, still instructing on JWIC. He retired from the Civil Service in 2015.

In addition to his military and Civil Service appointments, he originated and organised SABAH SALUTE 2011 and the Royal Artillery Act of Remembrance in Sabah. He researched, created and presented the North Borneo Roll of Honour to the State of Sabah in March 2016 and to the Royal Artillery at the Service of Remembrance in Hyde Park, London, in November 2016. He is the advisor to the Royal Artillery on SABAH UBIQUE 2020.

He was awarded the MBE in 2003 in recognition of his service to jungle warfare training, and awarded the Royal Artillery Medal in 2011 for his 38 years’ service to the guns and originating and organising SABAH SALUTE 2011.

A keen reader of history and author of several articles about the Vietnam War and Borneo, he also gives talks on these subjects to the military, history groups and schools. The Borneo Graveyard is his first book.

He is married to Victoria and they have two children. They are all ardent travellers and have trekked and ‘wild-lifed’ extensively in Sabah, Sarawak and West Malaysia.