by Harper, Tim
66. Note by P. J. Murray, 16 September 1948, FO371/69509, TNA.
67. Bowker to Foreign Office, 15 September 1948, ibid.
68. Bowker to Foreign Office, 18 September 1948, FO371/69510, TNA.
69. Bowker to Foreign Office, 21 September, ibid.
70. Anon to ‘Pop’, 2 September 1948; ‘Skunk’ to ‘Ewan’, 14 September 1948, Tom Driberg Papers, S3 (miscellaneous), Christ Church, Oxford.
71. Bowker to Foreign Office, 13 September 1948, FO371/69510, NA; cf. Furnivall to Dunn, 14 December 1948, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.
72. Bowker to Foreign Office, 13 September 1948, FO371/69510, TNA.
73. Rangoon to Foreign Office, ‘Burma insurrection’, 13 July 1948, FO371/69516, TNA.
74. ‘Red star over Asia’, News Chronicle, 27 August 1948.
75. Note, September 1948, FO371/69519, TNA.
76. Murray to Laithwaite, 25 October 1948, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.
77. Bowker to Foreign Office, 11 November 1948, FO371/69522, TNA.
78. Bowker to Foreign Office, 18 November 1948, FO371/69519, TNA.
79. Furnivall to Dunn, 21 September 1948, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.
80. Callahan, Making enemies, p. 132.
81. Jonathan Falla, True Love and Bartholomew: rebels on the Burmese border (Cambridge, 1991), p. 26; cf. Callahan, Making enemies, p. 132.
82. Falla, True Love, p. 27.
83. Furnivall to Dunn, 24 December 1948, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.
84. Furnivall to Dunn, 28 March 1948, ibid.
85. John de Chazal, memoir, p. 4, Mss Eur D1041/3, OIOC.
86. Military adviser to UK High Commission in India to London, 30 March 1948, L/WS/1/1187, OIOC.
87. Correspondence appended to situation report, 28 November 1950, FO371/84243; prime minister Pakistan to prime minister UK, 20 July 1948, DO35/3163, TNA.
88. K. K. Tewari, A soldier’s voyage of self discovery (Auroville, 1995), p. 46.
89. Roy Bucher to Miss Elizabeth Bucher, 24 September 1948, Bucher Papers, 7901/87–5, NAM.
90. People’s Age, 1 February 1948.
91. People’s Age, 29 February 1948.
92. People’s Age, 14 March 1948.
93. Military adviser to UK High Commission in India to London, 6 May 1948, L/WS/1/1187, OIOC.
94. Ashton Wade, A life on the line (Tunbridge Wells, 1988), pp. 147–9.
95. Andrew Gilmour, My role in the rehabilitation of Singapore, 1946–53 (Singapore, 1973), p. 16.
96. J. P. Cross and Buddhiman Gurung, Gurkhas at war in their own words: the Gurkha experience, 1939 to the present (London, 2002), pp. 178–80; Ahmad Boestamam (trans. William R. Roff), Carving the path to the summit (Athens, OH, 1979), p. 95.
CHAPTER 10 1948: THE MALAYAN REVOLUTION
1. Gent to H. T. Bourdillon, 22 January 1948, A. J. Stockwell (ed.), British Documents on the End of Empire: Malaya, Part I (London, 1995), pp. 372–3.
2. Malaya Tribune, 13 November 1947.
3. Gent to Creech Jones, 30 December 1947, 4 January 1948, CO537/3667, TNA.
4. Thio Chan Bee, The extraordinary adventures of an ordinary man (London, 1977), pp. 70–74.
5. Simon C. Smith, British relations with the Malay rulers from decentralization to independence, 1930–1957 (Kuala Lumpur, 1995), pp. 97–9, 118–19.
6. Editorial, Malaya Tribune, 15 December 1947.
7. A. J. Stockwell, ‘British imperial strategy and decolonization in South-east Asia, 1947–57’, in D. K. Basset and V. T. King (eds.), Britain and South-East Asia (University of Hull Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Occasional Papers, no. 13, 1986), pp. 79–90, at pp. 81–2.
8. ‘Note: W. Linehan’, 2 March 1948, CO537/3746, TNA.
9. Christopher Blake, A view from within: the last years of British rule in South-East Asia (Castle Cary, 1990), pp. 84–5.
10. John Ede interview, OHD, SNA.
11. Malaya Tribune, 24 September 1947; Yeo Kim Wah, Political development in Singapore, 1945–55 (Singapore, 1973), pp. 254–66.
12. Lady Percy McNiece interview, OHD, SNA.
13. Lee Kam Hing and Chow Mun Seong, Biographical dictionary of the Chinese in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, 1997), pp. 88–90.
14. Yong Ching Fatt, Tan Kah Kee: an Overseas Chinese legend (Singapore, 1987), pp. 312–18; Chui Kwei-chiang, ‘The China Democratic League in Singapore and Malaya, 1946–48’, Review of Southeast Asian Studies, 15 (1985), pp. 1–28.
15. ‘KMT party funds: their sources and investments’, supplement to Malayan Security Service, Political Intelligance Journal, [MSS/PI], 31 August 1947.
16. C. F. Yong and R. B. McKenna, The Kuomintang movement in British Malaya, 1912–1949 (Singapore, 1990), ch. 8.
17. Lt. Col. T. N. Glazebrook to C.H. Tarner, MI2, 20 April 1948, WO208/3929, TNA.
18. ‘The KMT guerrillas, North Perak’ supplement no. 4 of 1948 to MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948; Wilfred Blythe, The impact of Chinese secret societies in Malaya: a historical study (London, 1969), pp. 388–91.
19. ‘Statement of Yuin See’, appendix A to supplement no. 4 of 1948 to MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948.
20. Blythe, The impact of Chinese secret societies, pp. 368–78, 392–9.
21. Ibid, pp. 380–83; Charles Gamba, The origins of trade unionism in Malaya (Singapore, 1960), pp. 230–31.
22. MSS/PIJ, 15 May 1947; ‘Politico-Triad activities in Malaya’, supplement no. 2 to MSS/PIJ, 15 January 1948.
23. Anthony Short, In pursuit of mountain rats: the communist insurrection in Malaya (Singapore, 2000 [1975]), pp. 52–3; Chin Peng, My side of history (Singapore, 2004), pp. 202–5.
24. ‘Translation of a cyclostyled pamphlet marked “Passed at the 4th Plenary Conference of the MCP Central Executive Committee held from 17–21 March 1948’, supplement to MSS/PIJ, 30 June 1948.
25. ‘Malayan Communist Party policy’, supplement No. 9 to MSS/PIJ, 31 July 1948.
26. For example, MSS/PIJ, 6 March 1948.
27. Clive J. Christie, A modern history of Southeast Asia: decolonisation, nationalism and separatism (London, 1996), pp. 183–6; Gurney to Creech Jones, 10 November 1948, CO537/3685, TNA.
28. Straits Echo, 20 March 1948.
29. Firdaus Haji Abdullah, Radical Malay politics: its origins and early development (Petaling Jaya, 1985), pp. 44–7.
30. MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948.
31. Straits Times, 26 April 1948; MSS/PIJ, 15 May 1948.
32. Shamsiah Fakeh, Memoir Shamsiah Fakeh: dari AWAS ke Rejimen Ke-10 (Bangi, 2004), pp. 53–4; Ibrahim Chik, Ibrahim Chik: dari API ke Rejimen Ke-1 (Bangi, 2004), pp. 64–6.
33. MSS/PIJ, 31 May 1948.
34. We have drawn here on the richly descriptive and sumptuously illustrated study by Khoo Salma Nusution and Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, Kinta Valley: pioneering Malaysia’s modern development (Ipoh, 2005).
35. Ooi Jin Bee, ‘Mining landscapes of Kinta’, Malayan Journal of Tropical Geography, 4 (1955), p. 52.
36. For this, see Francis Loh Kok Wah’s seminal work, Beyond the tin mines: coolies, squatters and New Villagers in the Kinta valley, c. 1880–1980 (Singapore, 1988), pp. 66–85.
37. T. N. Harper, The end of empire and the making of Malaya (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 96–101.
38. For a contemporary assessment see E. H. G. Dobby, ‘Some aspects of the human ecology of South-East Asia’, Geographical Journal, 108, 1/3 (1946), pp. 40–51.
39. State Forest Officer to Resident Commissioner, Perak, 3 July 1947, ibid.
40. Farmers of Bekor Sakai Reserve and Keledong Saiong Forest Reserve to Resident Commissioner, Perak, 3 January 1948, Pk. Sec/2777/47, ANM.
41. Petition of Chin Wong Peng and others, ‘Cultivation in Kg Bahru, Kuala Selangor’, 29 August 1946, MU/1437/46, ANM.
42. Harry Fang, ‘Who are the squatters?’, Malaya Tribune, 5 February 1949.
43. Farmers of Pokang (Kampar) to the District Forest Officer, 14 June 1947, Pk. Sec/1006/48, ANM.
4
4. District Officer Kuala Kangsar, memo, 16 March 1948, Pk. Sec/690/48, ANM.
45. ‘Pulling out tapioca in Comp. 16 Bikam and Comp 2. Changkat Jong Forest Reserves’, 12 May 1948, Pk. Sec 830/48, ANM.
46. Labour Department monthly report, April 1948, MU4181/47, ANM.
47. Labour Department monthly report May 1948, ibid.
48. Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, pp. 323–7.
49. ‘Interrogation of a Perak prisoner, MCP area representative, political’, supplement no. 7 to MSS/PIJ, 15 July 1948.
50. John Dalley to Hugh Bryson, 7 June 1967; 3 July 1965, BAM, II/19, RCS, CUL.
51. A. J. Stockwell, ‘“A widespread and long-concocted plot to overthrow government in Malaya”? The origins of the Malayan Emergency’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21 (1993), pp. 66–88.
52. J. B. Williams, minute, 28 May 1948, CO537/3755, TNA.
53. J. D. Dalley, ‘Internal Security – Malaya – 14 June 1948’, CO537/6006, TNA.
54. H. James and D. Sheil-Small, A pride of Gurhkas: the 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Goorkhas, 1948–71 (London, 1971), p. 7.
55. Chin Peng, My side of history, pp. 214–15.
56. J. M. Gullick, ‘My time in Malaya’, Heussler Papers, RHO.
57. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, p. 118–19.
58. Dalley to Hugh Bryson, 3 July 1965, BAM, II/19, RCS, CUL.
59. Jean Falconer, Woodsmoke and temple flowers: memories of Malaya (Edinburgh, 1992), p. 136.
60. Quoted in Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, p. 346.
61. ‘Interrogation of a Perak prisoner, MCP area representative, political’, supplement no. 7 to MSS/PIJ, 15 July 1948.
62. C. C. Chin and Karl Hack (eds.), Dialogues with Chin Peng: new light on the Malayan Communist Party (Singapore, 2004), p. 136.
63. Chin Peng, My side of history, p. 238.
64. Ibid., pp. 209–22.
65. The Times, 16 July 1948.
66. ‘Document B.12: Translation of a diary found among the papers of Lau Yiew’, supplement no. 7 to MSS/PIJ, 15 July 1948.
67. ‘Document B.18: Translation from a pocket book in the possession of Lau Yiew’, ibid.
68. Noel Barber, The war of the running dogs: how Malaya defeated the communist guerrillas, 1948–1960 (London, 1971), pp. 56–7.
69. Ahmad Khan interview, OHD, SNA.
70. Kumar Ramakrishna, Emergency propaganda: the winning of Malayan hearts and minds, 1948–1958 (Richmond, 2002), p. 30.
71. J. N. McHugh, Anatomy of communist propaganda (Kuala Lumpur, 1949), p. 12.
72. Shamsiah Fakeh, Memoir Shamsiah Fakeh, p. 59.
73. Ishak Haji Muhammad to Chief Secretary, 28 June 1949, Tan Cheng Lock Papers, TCL/3/187, ISEAS.
74. Ahmad Boestamam (trans. William R. Raff), Carving the path to the summit (Athens, OH, 1979), p. 144. Ali Mohamed, ‘PAS’ platform: development and change, 1951–1986’, PhD thesis, Universiti Malaya, 1989, p. 27.
75. For example, Said Zahari, Dark clouds at dawn (Kuala Lumpur, 2001), pp. 280–81.
76. Dominic Puthucheary and Jomo K. S. (eds.), No cowardly past: James J. Puthucheary, writings, poems, commentaries (Kuala Lumpur 1998), pp. 5–6, 162.
77. Lim Hong Bee, Born into war: autobiography of a barefoot colonial boy who grew up to face the challenge of the modern world (London, 1994), p. 368.
78. Philip Hoalim, The Malayan Democratic Union: Singapore’s first democratic political party (Singapore, 1973), pp. 25–6.
79. Stockwell, ‘“A widespread and long-concocted plot to overthrow government in Malaya”’; Philip Deery, ‘The terminology of terrorism: Malaya, 1948–52’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34, 2 (2003), pp. 231–47.
80. Andrew Gilmour, My role in the rehabilitation of Singapore, 1946–53 (Singapore, 1973), p. 29; Nicholas J. White, Business, government and the end of empire, Malaya, 1945–1957 (Kuala Lumpur, 1996), p. 116; J. D. Higham, minute, November 1948, CO537/4762, TNA.
81. J. P. Cross and Buddhiman Gurung, Gurkhas at war in their own words: the Gurkha experience, 1939 to the present (London, 2002), p. 178.
82. Sir Thomas Lloyd to Gimson and Newboult, 23 August 1948, CO537/3758, TNA.
83. Ashton Wade, A life on the line (Tunbridge Wells, 1988), pp. 147–9.
84. Cabinet Defence Committee meeting, 3 November 1948, CO537/3643, TNA.
85. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 124–33.
86. Yong and McKenna, The Kuomintang movement, p. 217.
87. Datuk Mohd Yusoff Hj. Ahmad, Decades of change (Malaysia – 1910s–1970s) (Kuala Lumpur, 1983), p. 341.
88. Brian Stewart, Smashing terrorism in the Malayan Emergency: the vital contribution of the police (Kuala Lumpur, 2004), pp. 189–90.
89. R. Cole, ‘It aint ’arf ’ot’, http://members.tripod.com/Askari–MB/id47.htm.
90. Norman Cleaveland, Bang! Bang! in Ampang (San Pedro, CA, 1973) pp. 55–63.
91. Stewart, Smashing terrorism in the Malayan Emergency, pp. 49–50.
92. John Strawson, A history of the SAS Regiment (London, 1984), p. 160.
93. ‘Planters in Malaya’, The Times, 9 October 1951.
94. The Times, 9 August 1948.
95. Chui Kwei-chiang, The response of the Malayan Chinese to political and military developments in China, 1945–9 (Singapore, 1977), pp. 71–2; Richard Stubbs, Hearts and minds in guerrilla warfare: the Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960 (Singapore, 1989), p. 77.
96. The Times, 26 July 1948.
97. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 142–3.
98. J. B. Williams, minute, 19 August 1948, in CO537/3746, TNA.
99. A. J. Stockwell, ‘Gurney, Sir Henry Lovell Goldsworthy (1898–1951)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33611, accessed 12 Sept. 2005.
100. Quoted in Barber, The war of the running dogs, p. 36.
101. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 136–9.
102. Quoted in Charles Allen, Tales from the South China Seas (London, 1983), p. 294.
103. Broome to Heussler, 27 August 1981, Heussler Papers, RHO.
104. Note by W. L. Blythe, Heussler Papers, RHO.
105. Gurney to Creech Jones, 8 October 1948, CO537/3758, TNA.
106. Memorandum by T. P. F. McNeice, G. C. S. Atkins and G. W. Webb, in Gimson to Sir Thomas Lloyd, 8 December 1948, in A. J. Stockwell (ed.), British documents on the end of empire: Malaya, part II (London, 1995), pp. 83–87. See Stubbs, Hearts and minds in guerrilla warfare, p. 78.
107. Gurney to Creech Jones, 26 November 1948, CO537/3758, TNA.
108. Stubbs, Hearts and minds in guerrilla warfare, p. 69, and more generally the discussion on pp. 69–77.
109. R. Cole, ‘A signalman remembers’, http://members.tripod.com/Askari–MB/id51.htm.
110. Chin Peng, My side of history, pp. 230–31.
111. Gurney to Creech Jones, 30 October 1948, CO717/152/52146/73/49, TNA.
112. Yuen Yuet Leng, Operation Ginger (Kuala Lumpur, 1998), pp. 8–9. We are grateful to Dato Seri Yuen – a Special Branch Officer in Perak at the time of the Emergency – for making this available to us.
113. S. M. Middlebrook, ‘Pulai: an early Chinese settlement in Kelantan’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, II, 2 (1933), pp. 151–6.
114. Yuen, Operation Ginger, p. 8
115. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 102–4.
116. Gurney to Creech Jones, 26 November 1948, CO537/3758, TNA.
117. McHugh, Anatomy of communist propaganda, pp. 46–47.
118. Gurney to Creech Jones, 2 December 1948, CO537/4240, TNA.
119. ‘Perak State Intelligence Sitrep for 24hrs ending 9am’, 5 November 1948, 16 November 1948, Pk. Sec3216/48, ANM.
120. Harry Fang, ‘Who are the squatters?’, Malaya Tribune, 5 February 1949; ‘The eviction at Sungei Siput’, Malaya Tribune, 7 February 1949; DSW/ER/4159/1/53, ANM.
121. Gurney to Creech Jones, 3 Ja
nuary 1949, CO537/4750, TNA.
122. Consul General of China to the Chief Secretary, 5 November 1948, ibid.
123. Tan Cheng Lock to Lord Listowel, 24 July 1948, Tan Cheng Lock Papers, SP13/A/12, ANM.
124. Federation of Malaya, Dept of Public Relations, Communist banditry in Malaya: the Emergency, June 1948–December 1949 (Kuala Lumpur, 1950), p. 7.
125. The Times, 4 January 1948.
126. Barber, The war of the running dogs, pp. 80–81.
127. Gurney to Creech Jones, 3 January 1949, CO537/4750, TNA.
128. See the account in Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 167–9, and also Stubbs, Hearts and minds in guerrilla warfare, p. 74.
129. Transcript: ITN, News at ten, 3 February 1970, DEFE13/843, TNA.
130. Transcript: Radio 4, The world this weekend, 1 February 1970, ibid.
131. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, p. 168.
132. Lt.-Col. A. Fletcher, ‘2SG Malaya – December 1948’, 17 February 1970; Fletcher to HQ London District, 4 March 1970, DEFE70/101.
133. Ibid.
134. Newboult to Higham 1 January 1949, WO296/41, TNA.
135. Transcript: Radio 4, World at one, 2 February 1970, ibid.
136. DPP to Sir James Dunnett, MoD, 29 June 1970, DEFE13/843, TNA.
137. For the paper chase described here, see Tony Stockwell, ‘Colonial atrocities: uncovering cover-ups’, PROphile, 16, 1 (April 2005), pp. 1–6. We are grateful to Professor Stockwell for making this available to us.
138. Jonathan Kent, ‘Past lessons for occupying forces’, 17 July 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/fromourowncorrespondent/3897147.stm.
139. ‘MCA Ministers should honour the MCA pledge a decade ago to secure justice for the 56-year Batang Kali Massacre by asking Cabinet to make public the finding of police investigations into the massacre completed in 1997’, Media statement by Lim Kit Siang, 17 July 2004, http://www.dapmalaysia.org/all-archive/English/2004/ju104/lks/lks3143.htm.
140. Kurt Bayer and Graham Ogilvy, ‘Veterans’ fury at “Malay massacre” claim’, Scotland on Sunday, 14 December 2003.
141. Reuters wire report, 4 February 1970, DEFE13/843, TNA.
142. Gurney to Creech Jones, 19 December 1948, CO537/3758, TNA.
143. Quoted in Stubbs, Hearts and minds in guerrilla warfare, p. 75; Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 168–9.