The story of the Malayan Emergency in a few clicks

Picture courtesy of the National Army Museum

Did you know that the campaign in Malaya was one of the few successful counter-insurgency operations undertaken by the Western powers in the 20th Century?

Still studied today, the Malayan Emergency provides many important lessons on how such campaigns should be conducted.

The National Army Museum has a great online exhibition on the Malayan Emergency and in a few clicks you can get through an outline of what happened there from 1948 to 1960. 

Units from the British Army's Brigade of Gurkhas played a key role in the campaign, and a Gurkha fighting patrol features in the plot of  'Merdeka' the novel.  The picture shows a Gurkha patrol having a briefing and a 'brew up' in the Malayan Jungle in 1959.