Malaya Part II: The Communist Insurrection 1948-1953

Discussion in 'Malaya' started by Charley Fortnum, Apr 11, 2019.

  1. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

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  2. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    I have not looked on this website for Malaya, so with Charley's post I looked for some articles on a mainly US website concerned with 'Small Wars'. Here are a selection of some of the articles there (not in priority order):

    Chin Peng The leader of the insurgency
    Malaya: The Myth of Hearts and Minds | Small Wars Journal
    https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/674-manea.pdf An interview with Karl Hack
    Algeria and Malaya: A Tale of Two Distinct and Dramatically Different Counterinsurgency Campaigns | Small Wars Journal
     
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  3. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    Yes, there's some good stuff there.

    I've posted a fair smattering of material on Malaya mainly the early stage ('48-'53) as my grandfather was there with the Royal Artillery.

    I'm always on the lookout for specifics about operations or life around Tampin and Gemas (Negri Sembilan) at this time. Most of what I've gleaned has come from accounts of men with the Green Howards and 26 Field Regt R.A. (to which 54-bty from 25 Fd Regt in Hong Kong were attached).
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2023
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  4. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

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  5. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    A neighbour of mine did the whole of his National Service of 18 months with The Green Howards in Malaya.He was continually on jungle patrols at the time when a breakthrough in the emergency appeared to be a long way away.

    RAF Bomber Command Lincoln and later Canberra squadrons were frequently on detachment as required under the overall Operation Firedog to combat the Chinese terrorists in the jungle.Lincoln squadrons used RAF Tengah on Singapore and the Canberras used RAF Butterworth, up state off Penang Island,as their bases.No 83 Squadron, out of Hemswell was detached to Tengah on Operation Bold from August 1953 to January 1954 for anti Chinese terrorist air operations.In all, 13 detachments from April 1948 to September 1956 were undertaken by Bomber Command.

    Not forgetting the RAAF who used their long nosed Lincoln B30s in the bombing role...it appeared that a frequent load was 1000 pounders for Lincolns.
     
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  6. JimHerriot

    JimHerriot Ready for Anything

    Hello Charley,

    Have you come across this web page in your travels?

    The "suggested reading" list on the right of the page has some titles that may be of interest (should they not have already appeared on your radar!)

    Here's the link;

    Operation Sharp End: Smashing Terrorism in Malaya 1948 - 1958: Memories of the Malayan Police

    Kind regards, always,

    Jim.
     
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  7. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    I have--and it's a good read.

    In fact, by pure chance, I bought a print edition of the same title on eBay this week for a whole £2.83.

    I'll be interested when it arrives to see whether the text differs at all.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2020
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  8. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    Charley and Jim,

    Thanks for the link to 'Operation Sharp End', I'd seen it before, although where and when is now lost to my memory. The Editor Brian Stewart authored another book 'Why Spy? The Art of Intelligence', published in 2015 and from a very short review in 'The Spectator' some choice words, nay wisdom:
    Link: Why Spy? | Hurst Publishers or Why Spy?: On the Art of Intelligence (Intelligence and Security): Amazon.co.uk: Stewart, Brian, Newbery, Samantha L.: 9781849045131: Books

    I will one day return and read his linked book (2002): https://www.britishempire.co.uk/library/scrapbookofarovinghighlander.pdf
     
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  9. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    Thanks to YouTube for me a discovery, even if the language and style is very dated:
    Link to a 1967 51m documentary (added December 2020):

    Located Parts 3 & 4 on:
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2021
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  10. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    The Forum -- BBC World Service - (downloadable on BBC Sounds)

    On the Malayan Emergency...
    The Forum - The Malayan Emergency - BBC Sounds

    One of the earliest Cold War conflicts was a 12-year guerrilla war commonly known as the Malayan Emergency and fought from 1948 in the jungles of what is now Malaysia. This communist insurgency was fuelled not only by ideology but also by the desire for Malayan independence from British colonial rule. There have been a number of books and documentaries devoted to the subject but relatively few in English capture the experiences of the Chinese community in Malaya that was at the centre of the Emergency. Rajan Datar is joined by three guests, all with family links to the Emergency: Sim Chi Yin, a photographer and artist from Singapore whose book She Never Rode that Trishaw Again tells the story of her grandmother widowed during the war in Malaya; Show Ying Xin, a postdoctoral fellow at the at the Australian National University’s Malaysia Institute in Canberra; and Rachel Leow, Associate Professor in Modern East Asian History at the University of Cambridge and author of Taming Babel: Language in the Making of Malaysia.

    BBC Sounds - The Forum - Available Episodes
     
  11. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    Currently, slowly reading 'Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare' by Jacqueline Hazelton, once a journalist and now an academic. Her book's focus is on five campaigns, the first being the Malayan Emergency, which get nineteen pgs. of text and six pgs. of footnotes.

    From the publisher's notice:
    Link: Product Details - Cornell University Press

    There is a YouTube 1hr long presentation by the author 9which I have not viewed yet):
     

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