In the years after World War II, nationalist and secessionist movements were growing across the world. It’s too easy to see these “winds of change” as uprisings of grand historical forces. It’s harder to see them as intimate stories of a few people in a small struggle in a particular place. What happened in Limbang is one such forgotten story; a tale of life and death, rescue and reconciliation.

“Return to Limbang,” presented by noted military historian Major General Julian Thompson, takes a closer look at what happened in the small riverside town of Limbang on the island of Borneo in December of 1962 – experienced through the eyes and voices of the people who lived it: the rebels who caused it, the colonial residents held hostage, the Americans caught up in it and the British Marines who rescued them. They all have their stories, perhaps none more powerful than the first face-to-face meeting of a British Royal Marine and the leader of the rebels. Forty years later they meet in Limbang and form a bond during this encounter despite both knowing the rebel killed the Marine’s best friend during the battle.

This story is told with an immediacy that takes us across the world, to another time. This distant world seems different from our own, until we see the people who fought and died for their ideals.

This is the snapshot in time that is “Return to Limbang.”