Forgotten Wars
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144. Cross and Gurung, Gurkhas at war, p. 204.
145. Daily Worker, 28 April 1952; see the discussion in CO1022/45, TNA.
CHAPTER 11 1949: THE CENTRE BARELY HOLDS
1. Central Intelligence Agency internal memo 208, 26 August 1949, p. 12, US declassified documents.
2. Ibid., p. 18.
3. ‘Review of Present Far East Defence Policy’ by chiefs of staff, January–February 1949, FO 371/75679, TNA.
4. Woodrow Wyatt to Cripps, 23 January 1949, CAB127/151, TNA.
5. Murray to Laithwaite, 23 June 1949, Laithwaite Papers, Mss Eur F138/74, OIOC.
6. CIA memo, 26 August 1949, p. 17, US declassified documents.
7. Bowker to Foreign Office, 27 January 1949, FO371/75679, TNA.
8. Attlee to Nu, 4 August 1949, following a series of complaints from Nu to Cripps, 20 April, 24 June 1949, CAB127/151, TNA.
9. Furnivall in Times of Burma, 10 April 1949.
10. Bowker to Foreign Office, 26 April 1949, FO371/75691, TNA.
11. Minute by B. R. Pearn on press cutting, ‘Establishment of National Economic Council by Burmese Government’, FO371/75691, TNA.
12. Nehru to Nu, 14 April 1949, in S. Gopal (ed.), Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, 2nd Series, vol. X (Delhi 1990), p. 410. This correspondence is located in the Jawaharlal Nehru Papers and the Krishna Menon Papers, Nehru Memorial Library, New Delhi.
13. Ibid., p. 413.
14. E.g., Hindustan Times, 9 January 1949.
15. Nehru to M. A. Rauf, 10 April 1949, in Gopal, Selected works of Nehru, X, p. 408.
16. Answer in Nehru’s Press Conference, 6 March 1949, ibid., p. 400.
17. Nehru to M. A. Rauf, 15 April 1949, ibid., pp 417–18.
18. Ibid. and fn.
19. Government of the Union of Burma, Burma and the insurrections (Rangoon, September 1949), p. 31.
20. Richard Butwell, U Nu of Burma (Stanford, 1963), p. 105.
21. Nehru to Commonwealth Relations Office, 21 February 1949, ‘Common-wealth Conference on Burma’, FO371/75686, TNA.
22. William C. Johnstone, Burma’s foreign policy: a study in neutralism (Cambridge, MA, 1963), pp. 59–60.
23. Uma Shankar Singh, Burma, 1948–1962 (Bombay, 1979), p. 57.
24. Nehru to M. A. Rauf, 15 April 1949, Gopal, Selected works of Nehru, X, p. 417.
25. Transcription of a speech to AFPFL conference by U Nu, 24 September 1955, enclosure in Rangoon to London, 12 October 1955, ‘Corruption in the Burma civil service, etc.’, FO371/117030, TNA.
26. Balwant Singh, Independence and democracy in Burma, 1945–52 (Ann Arbor, 1993), p. 106.
27. Ibid., p. 109.
28. Furnivall to Dunn, 14 August 1949, Furnivall Papers, PP/MS 23, vol. I, SOAS.
29. Furnivall to Dunn, 5 September 1949, ibid.
30. Ken Sutton, ‘A Guardman’s tale’, www.nmbava.co.uk/a–guardsmans%20man%20tale.hml; Kumar Ramakrishna, Emergency propaganda: the winning of Malayan hearts and minds, 1948–1958 (Richmond, 2002), p. 235.
31. The Times, 12 August 1953.
32. George Edinger, The twain shall meet (New York, 1960), p. 40.
33. Leslie Thomas, In my wildest dreams (London, 1984), p. 183.
34. Leslie Thomas, The virgin soldiers (London, 1967), pp. 13.
35. Ibid., p. 15.
36. J. N. McHugh, A handbook of spoken ‘bazaar’ Malay (Singapore, 1956 [1945]), p. 7.
37. J. P. Cross and Buddhiman Gurung, Gurkhas at war in their own words: the Gurkha experience, 1939 to the present (London, 2002), pp. 221–2.
38. Alan Sillitoe, Life without armour (London, 1995), p. 118.
39. Che Abdul Khalid, ‘Joget Modern in Kuala Lumpur’, 21 May 1952; minute, 2 June 1952, DCL Selangor/115/52, ANM.
40. Virginia Matheson Hooker, Writing a new society: social change through the novel in Malay (St Leonard’s, NSW, 2000), pp. 153–9.
41. H. B. M. Murphy, ‘The mental health of Singapore: part one – suicide’, Medical Journal of Malaya, 9, 1 (1954), p. 21.
42. Quoted in Cross and Buddhiman Gurung, Gurkhas at war, p. 186.
43. John Coates, Suppressing insurgency: an analysis of the Malayan Emergency, 1948–54 (Boulder, 1992), p. 62.
44. John Branchley, ‘The ambush of 4 Troop, A Squadron, 4th Hussars’, www.nmbva.c.uk/The%20ambush.htm.
45. This was mistranslated at the time as the Malayan Races Liberation Army. C. C. Chin and Karl Hack (eds.), Dialogues with Chin Peng: new light on the Malayan Communist Party (Singapore, 2004), p. 149.
46. ‘Translation of a printed MCP booklet entitled “Present day situation and duties”’, 1 November 1949, FO371/84481, TNA; Chin Peng, My side of history (Singapore, 2004), pp. 243–4, 253.
47. Federation of Malaya CID Intelligence Report, August–September 1952, appendix A: ‘MCP Auxiliary Organisation’, CO1022/187, TNA.
48. ‘Statement of ‘Liew Tian Choy’, 4 October 1949, B. P. Walker Taylor Papers, RHO.
49. Review of Chinese Affairs, May 1952, CO1022/151, TNA. Discussed in T. N. Harper, The end of empire and the making of Malaya (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 159–60.
50. P. B. Humphrey, ‘Some further items of psychological warfare intelligence as obtained from surrendered Communist terrorists in Malaya: I. Overt reasons’, 26 November 1953, WO291/1777, TNA.
51. P. B. Humphrey, ‘A preliminary study of entry behaviour among Chinese Communist terrorists in Malaya’, June 1953, WO291/1764, TNA.
52. Lucian W. Pye, Guerrilla communism in Malaya: its social and political meaning (Princeton, 1956), esp. pp. 133–90.
53. Huang Xue Ying, oral testimony in Agnes Khoo, Life as the river flows: women in the Malayan anti-colonial struggle (Petaling Jaya, 2004), p. 186. See also the discussion in Richard Stubbs, Hearts and minds in guerrilla warfare: the Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960 (Singapore, 1989), pp. 88–90.
54. This is a striking theme of the testimonies in Khoo, Life as the river flows:
55. This is extrapolated from a statement in papers found on a dead Johore commander; Anthony Short, In pursuit of mountain rats: the communist insurrection in Malaya (Singapore, 2000 [1975]), pp. 104–6.
56. Statement of ‘Liew Tian Choy’.
57. Coates, Suppressing insurgency, p. 150.
58. As described in Alan Hoe and Eric Morris, Re-enter the SAS: the SAS and the Malayan campaign (London, 1994), pp. 30–31.
59. BDCC (FE), 16th meeting, 28 January 1949, CO537/4773, TNA.
60. Brian Stewart, Smashing terrorism in the Malayan Emergency: the vital contribution of the police (Kuala Lumpur, 2004), pp. 24–5.
61. Gurney to Creech Jones, 6 October 1949, CO717/162/52745/19/49, TNA.
62. Karl Hack, ‘British intelligence and counter-insurgency in the era of decolonisation: the example of Malaya’, Intelligence and National Security, 14, 2 (1999), pp. 127–9.
63. A. J. Stockwell, ‘Policing during the Malayan Emergency, 1948–60: communism, communalism and decolonization’, in D. Anderson and D. Killingray, Policing and decolonization: politics, nationalism and the police (Manchester, 1992), pp. 105–28.
64. Emergency propaganda leaflets, RHO.
65. For this assessment see the important study by Ramakrishna, Emergency propaganda, pp. 72–84.
66. Chin Peng, My side of history, p. 4.
67. Pye, Guerrilla communism, p. 187.
68. J. N. McHugh, Anatomy of communist propaganda (Kuala Lumpur, 1949). See also the interesting essay by Rui Xiong Kee, ‘Exploring the “communist” in the communist insurrection in Malaya’, Standford University, Program in Writing and Rhetoric, The Boothe Prize essays, 2004 (Standford, 2004), pp. 37–49, http://pwr.stanford.edu/publications/Boothe%20book%202004.pdf.
69. ‘Third further statement of Liew Thian Choy’, 10 October 1949, B. P. Walker Taylor Papers, RHO.
70. ‘Surrender policy’, Arthur Young Papers, RHO.
71. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 383–4.
72. Simon C. Smith, British relation
s with the Malaya rulers from decentralization to independence, 1930–1957 (Kuala Lumpur, 1995), p. 125.
73. Charles Gamba, The origins of trade unionism in Malaya (Singapore, 1960), p. 418.
74. ‘Cabinet – Malaya Committee: Detention procedure, memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, 10 July 1950, CO717/199/1, TNA.
75. ‘Detention in the Federation of Malaya’; Straits Budget, 5 April 1950, CO717/199/1, TNA.
76. Federation of Malaya, monthly newsletter no. 36, 16 December 1951 to 15 January 1952, CO1022/132, TNA.
77. Frank Brewer, ‘Malaya – Administration of Chinese affairs, 1945–57’, in Heussler Papers, RHO.
78. Khatijah Sidek, Memoirs of Khatijah Sidek: puteri kesateria bangsa (Kuala Lumpur, 2001 [1960]), pp. 89–90.
79. Tom Driberg, ‘In detention’, Reynolds News, 12 November 1950.
80. Quoted in Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, p. 193.
81. F. D. Marrable, Officer Superintending Police Circle Klang to Superintending Klang Camp, 10 October 1950, CO717/199/2, TNA.
82. N. R. Hilton, ‘Detention camp – Tanjong Bruas, visited on 1 December 1951’, CO1022/326, TNA.
83. Sir Donald MacGillivray to Alan Lennox Boyd, 6 June 1955, CO1030/145, TNA; Straits Times, 16 June 1955, 16 July 1955.
84. Ramakrishna, Emergency propaganda, pp. 65–6.
85. Gurney to Sir Thomas Lloyd, 20 December 1948, in A. J. Stockwell, ed., British documents on the end of empire: Malaya, part II (London, 1995), p. 91.
86. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, p. 191.
87. Federation of Malaya, monthly newsletter, 16 January to 15 February 1951, CO717/199/2; ibid., 16 March to 15 April 1951, CO1022/137, TNA; A. H. P. Humphreys. ‘The communist insurrection in Malaya’, A. H. P. Humphreys Papers, RHO.
88. P. A. Collin, ‘Escorting banishees to China’, in Stewart, Smashing terrorism in the Malayan Emergency, p. 234.
89. ‘Malaya: detention, repatriation and resettlement of Chinese’, 31 January 1951, CO717/199/2, TNA.
90. Quoted in Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, p. 191.
91. British Embassy Peking to Foreign Office, 14 March 1951, CO717/199/2, TNA.
92. Nan Feng Jih Pao, 6 May 1951.
93. C. F. Yong, Tan Kah-Kee: the making of an overseas Chinese legend (Singapore, 1989), pp. 328–31. See also enclosures on FO371/84480, TNA.
94. Chui Kwei-chiang, The response of the Malayan Chinese to political and military developments in China, 1945–9 (Singapore, 1977), pp. 82–4.
95. McHugh, Anatomy of communist propaganda, p. 20.
96. Short, In pursuit of mountain rats, pp. 215–16.
97. Harper, The end of empire, pp. 203–4.
98. Chin and Hack, Dialogues with Chin Peng, p. 162.
99. Gurney to Creech Jones, 28 February 1949, CO537/4750, TNA.
100. Tan Cheng Lock, One country, one people, one government: Presidential address by Tan Cheng Lock at a meeting of the General Committee of the MCA held in Penang on 30 October, 1949 (Kuala Lumpur, 1949), p. 2.
101. K. G. Tregonning, ‘Tan Cheng Lock: a Malayan nationalist’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 10, 1 (1979), pp. 60–61.
102. Tan Liok Ee, The politics of Chinese education in Malaya, 1945–1961 (Kuala Lumpur 1997), pp. 104–5.
103. Gurney to J. D. Higham, 10 February 1949, CO/537/4242; Pan-Malayan Review of Political Intelligence, no. 5 of 1959, CO537/4671, TNA.
104. ‘Minutes of the Second Meeting of the Emergency Chinese Advisory Committee held at the Perak State Council Chamber, Ipoh on 11 June 1949’, SP13/A/21, ANM.
105. ‘Malayan Chinese Association’, PR/261/51, ANM.
106. ‘Minutes of the First Meeting of the Emergency Chinese Advisory Committee held at the Council Chamber, Kuala Lumpur on 5 April 1949’, SP13/A/21, ANM.
107. Heng Pek Koon, Chinese politics in Malaysia: a history of the Malaysian Chinese Association (Singapore, 1988), p. 89.
108. Gurney to Paskin, 4 April 1949, CO537/4761, TNA.
109. Monthly Review of Chinese Affairs, April 1949; Pan-Malayan Review of Political Intelligence, no. 11 of 1949, CO537/4671, TNA.
110. Khoo Salma Nusution and Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, Kinta Valley: pioneering Malaysia’s modern development (Ipoh, 2005), p. 308; McHugh, Anatomy of communist propaganda, p. 48.
111. Laurence K. L. Siaw, Chinese society in rural Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, 1983), pp. 93–103.
112. Tan Cheng Lock to Mentri Besar, Johore, 30 October 1951, CO1022/27, TNA.
113. The literature on resettlement is extensive. The key studies are, K. S. Sandhu, ‘Emergency resettlement in Malaya’, Journal of Tropical Geography, 18 (1964), pp. 157–83; ‘The saga of the “squatter” in Malaya: a preliminary survey of the causes, characteristics and consequences of the resettlement of rural dwellers during the Emergency between 1948 and 1960’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, 5 (1964), pp. 143–77; J. W. Humphrey, ‘Population resetlement in Malaya’ (PhD thesis, Northwestern University, 1971); Francis Loh Kok Wah, Beyond the tin mines: coolies, squatters and new villagers in the Kinta valley, c. 1880–1980 (Singapore, 1988). For a summary of the impact see Harper, The end of empire, pp. 176–92.
114. Keris Mas (trans. Harry Aveling), ‘A row of shophouses in our village’, in Blood and tears (Petaling Jaya, 1984), pp. 113–14.
115. Judith Strauch, ‘Chinese new Villages of the Malayan Emergency, a generation later: a case study’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 2 (1981), pp. 126–39; Siaw, Chinese society in rural Malaysia, pp. 108–16.
116. Protector of Aborigines to Asst Superintendent of Census, 9 May 1947, DO Temerloh/467/46, ANM.
117. For a fuller account, see Christopher Bayly, and Tim Harper, Forgotten armies: Britain’s Asian empire and the war with Japan (London, 2004), pp. 267–8, 348–50.
118. Tony Gould, Imperial warriors: Britain and the Gurkhas (London, 1999), p. 329–30.
119. For the search for Noone, see his brother’s account, Richard Noone, Rape of the dream people (London, 1972).
120. Reported in Malay Mail, 15 July 1949.
121. Malay Mail, 22 August 1949; for a discussion see John Leary, Violence and the dream people: the Orang Asli in the Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960 (Athens, OH, 1995), pp. 74–83.
122. Robert Knox Dentan, ‘Bad day at Bukit Pekan’, American Anthropologist, 97, 2 (1995), pp. 225–31.
123. Ivan Polunin, ‘The medical natural history of the Malayan aborigines’, Malayan Medical Journal, 8, 1 (1953), pp. 55–174; P. D. R. Williams-Hunt to Del Tufo, n.d., FS/12072/50, ANM.
124. P. D. R. Williams-Hunt, An introduction to the Malayan Aborigines (Kuala Lumpur, 1952), p. 93.
125. ‘Evacuating Malayan Aborigines’, Malayan Police Journal, March 1950, reprinted in Leary, Violence and the dream people, pp. 219–30.
126. Anthony Crockett, Green beret, red star (London, 1954), pp. 185–9.
127. Gamba, The origins of trade unionism, pp. 352–73.
128. Christopher Blake, A view from within: the last years of British rule in South-East Asia (Castle Cary, 1990), pp. 94–117.
129. Leong Yee Fong, Labour and trade unionism in colonial Malaya: a study of the socio-economic and political bases of the Malayan labour movement, 1930–1957 (Penang, 1999), pp. 236–45.
130. J. B. Perry Robinson, Transformation in Malaya (London, 1956), p. 79.
131. ‘Meeting of ministers on Malaya’, 2 April 1949; Creech Jones to Mac-Donald, CO537/4751, TNA.
132. Gurney to Creech Jones, 11 April 1949, CO537/4751, TNA.
133. Gurney to Creech Jones, 30 May 1949, CO537/4773, TNA.
134. ‘Minutes of the Fifteenth Conference held under the chairmanship of HE the Commissioner-General… on 7 June 1950 at Bukit Serene, Johore’, CO537/5970, TNA.
135. Appendix B, ‘The attitude of the Malay public towards the Malayan Communist Party’, 5 April 1949, CO537/4751, TNA.
136. Paskin to Gurney, 22 December 1948, CO537/3746, TNA.
137. Si
r Thomas Lloyd to Gurney, 5 January 1949, ibid.
138. Thio Chan Bee, The extraordinary adventures of an ordinary man (London, 1977), pp. 62, 66–7, 75–87; Malay Mail, 10 January 1949.
139. One of the few academic discussions is Heng, Chinese politics in Malaysia, pp. 147–56.
140. ‘Notes of discussions of the Communities’ Liaison Committee held at Kuala Lumpur, 18 and 19 February 1949’, TCL/23/2, ISEAS.
141. ‘Notes of discussions of the Communities’ Liaison Committee held at Kuala Lumpur 13 and 14 August 1949’, TCL/23/7, ISEAS.
142. ‘Notes of discussions of the Communities’ Liaison Committee held at Penang 29, 30 and 31 December 1949’, TCL/23/8, ISEAS.
143. The Times, 18 April 1949.
144. Malay Mail, 27 August 1949.
145. Tan Cheng Lock to Yong Shook Lin, 19 January 1950, Tan Cheng Lock Papers, SP13/1/19, ANM.
146. MSS/PIJ, 15 November 1947.
147. Tan Jing Quee, ‘Lim Chin Siong: a political life’, in Jomo K. S. and Tan Jing Quee (eds.), Comet in our sky: Lim Chin Siong in history (Kuala Lumpur, 2001), p. 61.
148. Sir John Nicoll to Alan Lennox-Boyd, 26 February 1955, CO1030/360, TNA.
149. A. J. Stockwell, ‘Knowledge and power; university and nation in the new Malaya of 1938–62’, paper delivered at ‘Asian Horizons’ conference, Singapore, 1–3 August 2005.
150. Patrick Anderson, Snake wine: a Singapore episode (Singapore, 1980 [1955]), p. 221.
151. Ibid., p. 155.
152. Yeo Kim Wah, ‘Student politics in University of Malaya, 1949–51’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 23, 2 (1992), pp. 346–80.
153. Malaya Tribune, 14 April 1947.
154. Anderson, Snake wine, p. 127.
155. G. I. Puthucheary, ‘Building the Malayan nation’, The Undergrad: unofficial organ of Raffles College Students’ Union, 1, 2 (24 January 1949), and other issues, 1, 3 (12 February 1949); 1, 4 (16 March 1949).
156. Cheah Boon Kheng (ed.), A. Samad Ismail: journalism and politics (Kuala Lumpur, 1987); Said Zahari, Dark clouds at dawn (Kuala Lumpur, 2001), p. 172.
157. Yeo Kim Wah, ‘Joining the communist underground: the conversion of English-educated radicals to communism in Singapore, June 1948–January 1951’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 67 (1994), pp. 29–59.