Malaya

The Emergency

The previous Page was: "Burma 1943"

When the war in Europe was over, the British and the American military experts assumed the struggle against Japan might continue for many months, possibly another two years.

South East Asia Command had already planned their next stategic expectations; an assault to liberate Malaya. Known as "Zipper", the operation had been fixed for September.

The sudden collapse and unconditional surrender of Japan on 10th August 1945, altered these arrangements, and it became necessary to occupy Malaya as soon as possible.

Once more as the Army could not produce enough men in time, a Royal Marine Force was gathered and was ready on 13th August, for the occupation of Penang,

Known as Force Roma, it was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel G. Barclay-Grant, O.B.E., R.M., its strength was 480 officers and men. The time available both for assembly and planning was limited to hours.

The Marines whose forte is mobility based on light stores, were collected together, and Force Roma was embarked on 16th August. Ready for the liberation and occupation of Penang Island; then came the inevitable delay.

Malaya's Beautiful Coast At Stale-Mate

For, after being ready on 16th August, the Marines were held up, while higher authorities debated whether the Japanese in the field would obey their Emperor's acceptance of unconditional surrender.

Lord Mountbatten had to fly back to London for consultation with the Cabinet. The discussions in Whitehall were confused, everyone who understood the Japanese well, were convinced that the troops would obey their Emperor's command; the others were not so sure.

Force Roma, heavily supported by the Royal Navy set sail on 27th August, and anchored seventeen miles to the north of Penang at 1 a.m. on the following day.

There was another interlude for five-days during which the Japanese delegates, who were summoned to "H.M.S. Nelson" discussed the details of the surrender of the island with Vice-Admiral Walker.

The delegates willingly and politely gave all the necessary information, including the disclosure that there were seventy one-man suicide motor-boats at the island, and 3,000 troops instead of the 200 which the British planners had assumed!

The Discussions Maintained Their Course

In these circumstances negotiations went smoothly, but there was an unexpected hitch. There were with the Japanese force on the island some sixty Japanese wives and "comfort girls".

The Japanese admiral objected strongly to his women-folk being placed in a concentration camp together with the troops and requested that they should be left on the island under specially selected Japanese guards.

Vice-Admiral Walker refused, but offered by way of a compromise to allow the women to remain under a guard of Royal Marines. Faced with this alarming alternative, Rear-Admiral Uxuki gave way and accepted the concentration camp.

Point Settled Flag Hoisting

In agreement, the British and Japanes admirals signed the terms of handing over the island which in Malay is called "Pulau Pinang" and means betel island. Possibly after the betel nut; when they grew there; which is a narcotic.

Force Roma then landed, the Royal Marines were the first British formation to set foot on Malayan soil since the evacuation in 1942. It was one of those great occasions.

On entering the city, the whole force formed a hollow square. Then the Union Jack was broken open and the band, composed of course, of Royal Marine Bandsmen of H.M.S. Ceylon, played the National Anthem.

The Local Population

The Islands population which was compossed of many races, but mostly they were Chinese and Malays, went mad with joy and were so happy to see the British back they wanted to show their gratitude.

Bottles of whisky, dug up from gardens and with earth still clinging to them, were pressed on the Marines who had a hard job in threading their way through the swaying crowd to their allotted posts.

Making the Runnymede Hotel their headquarters, the Marines looked expectantly to the Penang Club as an Officer's Mess. Nor were these hopes misplaced.

Within two hours of the landing the old Chinese staff of the Club was on duty, and the portraits of the Royal family, carefully hidden during the Japanese occupation, were back in their former places.

After six days of hard work and strenuous jubilation, Force Roma turned over its garrison duties to the R.A.F. Regiment.

Almost a hundred and sixty years before Francis Light, a young Suffolk trading captain, had hoisted the British flag over Penang.

It was then an almost uninhabited island. Less than a hundred years later the annual turnover of its trade was over four million pounds.

By 1939, its population was nearly a quarter of a million. As Scots had played a great part in its developement, it was fitting that it should have been liberated by a young Marine Lieutenant-Colonel of the name of Grant.

Garrisoning Islands

Royal Marines also took part in the garrisoning of other important posts in the South East Asia Command's theatre. Captain Boothby, R.M., who had been in "H.M.S. Renown" when she brought back Mr. Churchill from Quebec in 1943. He was afterwards the Senior Royal Marines Officer to Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Power in the same ship in the East Indies.

He commanded "Force Boots" which composed of Marines, that took over the island port of Sebang off the western tip of Sumatra after the Japanese surrender. Captain Boothby remained for some time as military commander of this little island; so charming to the eye, but with a beautiful bay which was infested with sharks.

35 R.M. Provost Company

Special mention, must be made of the good work done by these men, in Singapore in the early weeks of it liberation. The trouble with which the Marines had to deal with was illicit liquor, which composed of methyl, ether and wood alcohol, it threatened at one moment to cause serious casualties among the troops and civilian personnel.

Major Little R.M., the Provost Marshal, took strong and, at first unpopular, measures and by his prompt action averted a tragedy.

The Provost Company had also the honour of taking over the surrender of the last Japanese warship in the East Indies. This was the cruiser "Kamikaze" which flying a black flag, surrendered in Singapore harbour.

When the official handing over had taken place, the Japanese commander asked if the Provost Comapny might be drawn up in two ranks on deck in order that he might present the ship's bugle. This was done and the bugle has now been added to the long list of Royal Marine trophies.

Malaya Remained Unsettled

A few years after World War II, the Malayan Emergency festered into a guerrilla warfare situation. It was fought between the Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948, to 1960.

The Malayan Emergency was the colonial government's term for the conflict. The MNLA termed it the Anti-British National Liberation War. The rubber plantations and tin mining industries had pushed for the use of the term "emergency" since their losses would not have been covered by Lloyd's insurers if it had been termed a "war."

Despite the communists' defeat in 1960, communist leader Chin Peng renewed the insurgency again in 1967 when the British started departing form the now independant Malasia; this time it would also last twelve years, until 1989.

Communist Insurgency War

It became recognised as the Communist Insurgency War. Although Australian and British armed forces had fully withdrawn from Malaysia years earlier, the insurgency still failed.

The MNLA commonly employed guerrilla tactics, sabotaging installations, attacking rubber plantations and tin mines, destroying transportation and the countries infrastructure.

Support for the MNLA was mainly based on around 500,000 of the 3.12 million ethnic Chinese then living in Malaya. Some of the ethnic Malay population supported them but only in smaller numbers.

The communists gained the support of some Chinese because they were denied the equal right to vote in elections, had no land rights to speak of, and were usually very poor.

The MNLA's supply organisation was called "Min Yuen." It had a network of contacts within the general population. Besides supplying material, especially food, it was also important to the MNLA as an information gatherer.

The communists camps and hideouts were in the rather inaccessible parts of the tropical jungle with limited infrastructure. The MNLA was organized into regiments, although these had no fixed establishments and each encompassed all forces operating in a particular region.

The regiments had political sections, commissars, instructors and a secret service. In the camps, the soldiers attended lectures on Marxism-Leninism, and produced political newsletters to be distributed to the locals.

The MNLA also stipulated that their soldiers needed official permission for any romantic involvement with local women.

In the early stages of the conflict, the guerrillas envisioned establishing "liberated areas" from which the government forces would be driven; then MNLA control would be established. They were unsuccessful, in establishing any such areas.

The British Response

The Briggs Plan was multi-faceted. However one aspect of it has become particularly well known: this was the forced relocation of some 500,000 rural Malayans, including 400,000 Chinese, from squatter communities on the fringes of the rain forests and placed into guarded camps called New Villages.

These villages were newly constructed in most cases, and were surrounded by barbed wire, Armed police posts and floodlit areas. The purpose of which was both to keep the inhabitants in and the guerrillas out.

People resented this at first, but some soon became content with the better living standards in the villages. They were given money and ownership of the land they lived on.

Removing a population which might be sympathetic to guerrillas was a counter-insurgency technique which the British had used before, notably against the Boer Kommandos in the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. In Malaya, the operation was more humanely and efficiently conducted.

At the start of the Emergency, the British had a total of 13 infantry battalions in Malaya, including seven partly formed Gurkha battalions, three British battalions, two battalions of the Royal Malay Regiment and a British Royal Artillery Regiment being utilised as infantry.

This force was too small to effectively meet the threat of the "communist terrorists" or "bandits", and more infantry battalions were needed in Malaya. The British brought in soldiers from units such as the Royal Marine Commandos and the King's African Rifles.

Another effort was a re-formation of the Special Air Service in 1950, as a specialised reconnaissance, raiding and counter- insurgency unit.

The Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya, Sir Robert Grainger-Ker-Thompson, had served with the Chindits in Burma during World War II. His vast experience in jungle warfare proved valuable during this troubled period.

He was able to build effective civil-military relations and was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency plan in Malaya.

In 1951, some British army units began a "hearts and minds campaign" by giving medical and food aid to Malays and indigenous tribes. At the same time, they put pressure on communists by patrolling deeper into the jungle.

The MNLA guerrillas were driven further into the heart of the jungle which denied them resources. The communists extorted food from the Sakai people and earned their enmity. Many of the captured communist guerrillas changed sides. In comparison, the MRLA never released any Britons alive.

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The Nature Of The Warfare

The British Army quickly realised that clumsy sweeps by large formations were unproductive. Instead what was needed was platoons or sections carrying out patrols and laying ambushes. These were based on intelligence from informers, surrendered MNLA personnel, and aerial reconnaissance etc.

A typical operation was "Nassau", carried out in the Kuala Langat swamp: After several assassinations, a British battalion was assigned to the area.

Food control was achieved through a system of rationing, of how much rice could be kept in each household per head. Armed convoys, gate checks, searches and suspects held until identification was proven.

One company began operations in the swamp about 21st December 1954. On 9th January 1955, a full-scale tactical operations began; artillery, mortars and aircraft began harassing fires spotted in the South Swamp.

Originally, the plan was to bomb and shell the swamp day and night so that the terrorists would be driven out into ambushes; but the terrorists were prepared to stay indefinitely.

Food parties came out occasionally, but the civil population was too afraid to report them. Plans were modified; harassing fires were reduced to night-time only.

Ambushes continued and patrolling inside the swamp was intensified. Operations of this nature continued for three months without any results.

Finally on 21st March, an ambush party, after forty-five hours of waiting, succeeded in killing two of eight terrorists. The first two red pins, signifying kills, appeared on the operations map, and local morale rose a little.

Another month passed before it was learned that the terrorists were making a contact inside the swamp. One platoon established an ambush; one terrorist appeared and was killed.

May passed without a contact. In June, a chance meeting by a patrol accounted for one killed and one captured. A few days later, after four fruitless days of patrolling, one platoon en route to camp accounted for two more terrorists.

The No.3 most wanted terrorist in the area surrendered and stated that food control was so effective that one terrorist had been murdered in a quarrel over food.

On 7th July, two additional companies were assigned to the area; patrolling and harassing the fires were intensified.

Three more terrorists surrendered and one of them led a platoon patrol to the terrorist leader's camp. The patrol attacked the camp, killing four, including the leader.

Other patrols accounted for four more; by the end of July, twenty-three terrorists remained in the swamp with no food or communications with the outside world.

This was the nature of operations: 60,000 artillery shells, 30,000 rounds of mortar ammunition, and 2,000 aircraft bombs for 35 terrorists killed or captured. Each one represented 1,500 man-days of patrolling or waiting in ambushes. "Nassau" was considered a success for the end of the emergency was one step nearer.

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