Bribery used to weaken the Communist Terrorists

During the Malayan Emergency Government Forces air-dropped propaganda leaflets into the jungle  to encourage the Communist Terrorists (CTs) to leave the jungle and give up their weapons and/or their comrades. This one was dropped in 1953 and the Chinese text reads:

"If any member of the Malayan Communist Party is able to leave the jungle and bring out a Bren gun, or able to lead the Peace Keeping Forces to unearth a hidden Bren gun that he or she knows about, he will be eligible for a $1,000 reward. Receive a $1,000 reward to start a new life!"

In an earlier post on this blog I covered Psychological Warfare of the Malayan Emergency.  It worked and played a significant part in weakening the CTs.  As the Emergency dragged on, every weapon lost to them was hard to replace as their was no way for the CTs to engage with sympathetic governments (such as the People's Republic of China) outside Malaya - a major difference to the situations in Vietnam and Korea at the time.  Government forces had a stranglehold on the CT supply lines and used  leaflets such as this to attack them from within.

.

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.

The Situation In Malaya - Secret Cabinet Briefing Paper

Two weeks after the murders of the first three European's in Malaya a secret briefing paper was produced by the Colonial Office of the British Government for the British Cabinet.  Dated 1st July 1948, the paper covers the following:

• Background to Recent Events
• Present Situation
• Measures to Meet the Situation
• Plan of Future Operations

It is now in the public domain on the National Archives website of the UK Government. To read it click here. 

Has the World forgotten the Malayan Emergency?

Source: Wikipedia

Malaya was the 'domino that didn't fall' to Communism, and most people who were not there (or who do not know of someone who was there), do not seem to know about it.  Yet most people have heard of what happened in Vietnam in the following decades.  During the Malayan Emergency the casualty statistics (according to Wikipedia) were:

16 June 1948 - 3 murders start the Malayan Emergency

Image copyright Roll-of-Honour.com

Just after 8'o'clock in the morning on Saturday 16th June 1948, Arthur Walker, Edinburgh-born manager of the isolated Elphil rubber estate near Sungei Siput, arrived back at his office.   He had just finished his morning inspection of the estate. 

Twenty minutes later three young Chinese rode up to the office on bicycles.  One was heard to say 'Tabek Tuan' (Greetings Sir) and Walker cheerfully replied.  A few seconds later two shots rang out and he was dead, shot through the heart and chest.  The Chinese calmly left.

A small boy who grew up behind the wire...

The 'New Villages' were built as part of the British plan to deny food and support to the jungle-based Communist Terrorists (CTs), and to win the 'hearts and minds' of the local people.  The plan worked and helped to bring the Malayan Emergency to an end.  Chinese squatter communities were uprooted from the jungle fringes and forced into the 'New Villages' - where for many the living conditions and amenities were a lot better than what they had left behind.  But the villages were surround by barbed wire, subject to curfews and the inhabitants were randomly searched when leaving.  Outside the wire they were still targeted by the CTs.

Photo from the Straits Times

Wong Yoon Wah is a Poet and has won the Cultural Medallion (Singapore’s highest honour for arts practitioners).  He is the director of the international language and culture centre at Taiwan’s Yuan Ze University and senior vice-president of Southern College in Malaysia.  He was born in Perak in 1941 and lived happily on the jungle fringes until his family was forced into a 'New Village' in 1951.  He was to stay there for 11 years and the experience made a huge impression on him - a child caught between two sides in a conflict.  Read his story in the Star Online.

Veteran of the Malayan Emergency Awarded the 200th Pingat Jasa Malaysia Medal

This month Charles Waddington, who spent 9 years in the Royal Engineers, was finally awarded the Pingat Jasa Malaysia medal.  He served in Malaya and Borneo for 3 years in the late 1950's/early 1960's.  The 200th recipient of the award, he first applied for it 6 years ago.  The medal was somewhat controversial in the UK as the Government policy on medals did not allow UK veterans to officially wear it until 11th November 2011.  The medal was first issued by the Malaysian Government in 2005, and veterans from other Commonwealth Countries have been able to officially wear it from the outset.  The closing date for applications was 30th September 2012.

Charles lives in West Yorkshire and his story can be read in the Keighley News.

No war should be forgotten.....

British Forces have been in Afghanistan since 2001 - that's 11 years ago.  Once they withdraw in 2014 they will have been in theatre for 13 years.  Is it possible that 50 years from then the war will be virtually forgotten by the British people?  The war in Malaya has been.....

.....and the rain my drink

I have just bought an old Jonathan Cape edition (First reprint 1956) of Han Suyin's book '....and the rain my drink'.  It was republished in 2010 by Monsoon Books.  According to the information on their website:

First published in 1956, Han Suyin’s magnificent novel about the Emergency Period in Malaya and Singapore evokes all the colour and conflict of a land where, in the late 1940s and early 50s, a bitter guerrilla war was fought between communist terrorists lurking in the Malayan jungles and British, Australian and New Zealand armed forces. With infinite sharpness and feeling, she writes about the intertwining lives of many people caught up in the clash of powerful forces. Dogged, downtrodden Chinese rubber tappers, a pretty girl called Small Cloud for whom betrayal has become a way of life, and the stiff, aloof world of the British administrators and their “mems”.

I have read her most famous novel 'A Many-Splendoured Thing' set in the hectic over-crowded world of colonial post war Hong Kong, but never this book.  The title comes from an old Chinese Ballad:

I will go to the forest for justice.

The wind for my garment I wear.

....and the rain my drink.

I'm looking forward to reading it.

Malayan Emergency - Related Links

A list of related links has just been put up on this website.  The idea is to provide a consolidated source of information for the period 1948 to 1960 in Malaya, as well as background to 'Merdeka'.  This is a dynamic list and so suggestions for other links to include are welcome.

Malayan Emergency - Related Links

Jungle Forts of the Malayan Emergency

During the research for this book I looked into the Malayan Jungle Forts.  To the best of my knowledge there were 12 permanent Forts, as well as a number of temporary ones.  One of them, Fort Iskander, is mentioned in 'Merdeka' as a re-fuelling point for the helicopters.  The Forts were established as patrol bases for the Police Field Force and also to win over the local Malayan orang asli peoples, thereby closing off a supply channel for the Communist Terrorists.

To research the Forts I mainly used the Ipohworld archive, which is an excellent resource.  Ipohworld is an education-based, not-for-profit organization established in 2004 to promote awareness and appreciation of Perak, the Silver State of Malaysia and its unique, diverse and rich heritage, with particular focus on Ipoh and the Kinta Valley.  Some of the related links are:

The Malayan Emergency - Jungle Forts and Airstrips
Fort Brooke - An Aerial View of the Fort Buildings
The Jungle Beat 

Psychological Warfare of the Malayan Emergency

During my research for the book I found a fascinating paper on the psychological warfare used by the British led forces during the Malayan Emergency.  Prepared by Herbet A. Friedman it gives an excellent insight into the measures taken to weaken, isolate and ultimately starve the Communist Terrorists.  It is also well illustrated with a lot of photographs from the time (from both sides) and also with reproductions of Maps, Posters and Leaflets.

One remark that I found interesting, and that is attributed to an Australian Soldier is:

'Terrorists who were caught were treated like murderers, while those who surrendered were treated like kings.'

There are also some humerous quotes relating to General Templer.  Noel Barber is said to have given the following account after Templer visited a nearby village after a guerilla ambush:

'You're a bunch of bastards,' shouted Templer; and Rice, who spoke Chinese, listened carefully as the translator announced without emotion: 'His Excellency informs you that he knows that none of your mothers and fathers were married when you were born.'

Templer waited, then pointing a finger at the astonished villagers to show them who was the 'Tuan,' added 'You may be the bastards, but you'll find out that I can be a bigger one.'  Missing the point of the threat completely, the translator said politely, 'His Excellency does admit, however, that his father was also not married to his mother.'

To read the whole of Friedman's paper see http://www.psywar.org/malaya.php