A true story of 1930s Malaysia, of jungle operations, submarines and spies in WWII, and of the postwar Malayan Emergency, as experienced by an extraordinary man. Rubber planter Boris Hembry was a part of Freddy Spencer Chapman’s covert Stay Behind Party in Japanese-occupied Malaya, a member of the Secret Intelligence Service, and he formed the first Home Guard unit in Malaya during the Emergency. Required reading for this period of Southeast Asian history.

The Malayan Emergency of 1948–1960 has been scrutinised for 'lessons' about how to win counterinsurgencies from the Vietnam War to twenty-first century Afghanistan. This book brings our understanding of the conflict up to date by interweaving government and insurgent accounts and looking at how they played out at local level. Drawing on oral history, recent memoirs and declassified archival material from the UK and Asia, Karl Hack offers a comprehensive, multi-perspective account of the Malayan Emergency and its impact on Malaysia. He sheds new light on questions about terror and violence against civilians, how insurgency and decolonisation interacted and how revolution was defeated. He considers how government policies such as pressurising villagers, resettlement and winning 'hearts and minds' can be judged from the perspective of insurgents and civilians. This timely book is the first truly multi-perspective and in-depth study of anti-colonial resistance and counterinsurgency in the Malayan Emergency.

Dr Comber's account of General Templer's administration in Malaya as High Commissioner and Director of Operations (1952-54) during the Malayan Emergency departs from the usually accepted orthodox assessment of his time in Malaya by focusing on the political and socioeconomic aspects of his governance rather than the military. In doing so, Dr Comber has relied mainly on primary and other first-hand sources, including the confidential reports sent from Malaya by the Australian Commission to the Australian government in Canberra, and the private papers of some of the leading Malayan politicians of the time with whom Templer had dealings which have been deposited in the ISEAS Library, Singapore, many of which have not been used before.The evidence and facts that Dr Comber marshals in this study reflect well the reservations that were often felt about General Templer's authoritarian form of government. While he was a good general and had an impressive military record, his administration in Malaya was marred by a lack of understanding of the background to Malaya's history and the subtleties that are inherent in its culture and way of life which would have enabled him to come to terms more easily with the aspirations of the Malayan people for self-government and independence.

In 1942 a ship carrying 500 escapees from Japanese-occupied Singapore set sail for Ceylon. Halfway to safety she was torpedoed and sank. Only one lifeboat was launched—a lifeboat built to carry twenty-eight but to which 135 souls now looked to for salvation. For twenty-six days, cannibalism, murder, heroism, and self-sacrifice drifted with her. There were only four survivors.

Weakened by hunger, thirst and ill-treatment, author Charles McCormac, then a World War Two prisoner-of-war in Japanese-occupied Singapore, knew that if he did not escape he would die. With sixteen others he broke out of Pasir Panjang camp and began an epic two-thousand-mile escape from the island of Singapore, through the jungles of Indonesia to Australia. With no compass and no map, and only the goodwill of villagers and their own wits to rely on, the British and Australian POWs’ escape took a staggering five months and only two out of the original seventeen men survived. You’ll Die in Singapore is Charles McCormac’s compelling true account of one of the most horrifying and amazing escapes in World War Two. It is a story of courage, endurance and compassion, and makes for a very gripping read.

MALAYA 16th. June 1948. Early in the morning, 3 murders of Rubber Planters took place. All within the area of Taiping Perak North Malaya. The names of the Planters were: - Mr. Arthur Walker. Manager of the Elphin Rubber Estate. and Mr J.M. Allison, along with Mr. I.D. Christian of the Phin Soon Rubber Estate. The two gangs of Murderers all Chinese, were Members of the Malaya Communist Party, under the then Party Chairman Chin Peng. Chin Peng had been trained and fought alongside the British Special Operations Executive Force 136. During the Japanese Occupation of Malaya from 1942 until 1945. Chin Peng’s objective was, to create a Communist Dictatorship in Malaya, after the cessation of hostilities. Then take over from the British Government in Malaya, The Malaya Communist Party, began to cause unrest creating strikes and acts of murder amongst the law-abiding Malayan people, whose population was mainly of Chinese origin. In February 1947. Under a Treaty arranged by the British Government. The Federated and Unfederated States of Malaya became one. Much against the Malayan Communist Party’s wishes. Retaliating, they creating more havoc and unrest amongst the civilians, until finally decided to. ‘Take up Arms’ against the British Government. The murders of the three Planters, had the British High Commissioner Sir. Edward Gent forced to take action. Initiated a State of Emergency in Perak, quickly followed throughout other States. Chin Peng ‘Declared War’ against the British. Subsequently, the atrocities spread throughout Malaya. The Civil Police were unable to control the speeding violence and mayhem. Necessitating, the existing British and Gurkha Troops to take control. Nevertheless, the Communist had taken their fight into the jungles of Malaya. Where for the next 12 years, a Bloody War took place. It was called ‘THE EMERGENCY’ by the British Government, due to the possible Insurance claims from both the Rubber Plantation and Tin Mines Owners. It cost the lives of 1,818. Commonwealth Forces. & 1,026 Federation of Malaya Police. Over the following 12 years, it is estimated that in excess of 22,000, lost their lives consisting of, Commonwealth Forces of the three Service’s, Federation of Malaya Police. Civilians, including the Chinese Communist Terrorist. Chin Peng survived, escaped with the remains of his beaten Army, numbering less than 400 across the Malay border into Thailand to remain an exile.

The book commences with a discussion of the policy issues as to whether Australia needed submarines and then the decision to buy AE1 and AE2. It then goes through their coming to Australia, the tragic loss of AE1 in New Guinea on 14 September 1914 and the bravery and daring of the AE2 crew in penetrating the Dardanelles on Anzac Day in 1915. The history then goes on to deal with the J-Class submarines that came to Australia in 1919, the first Oxley and Otway (which went to the RN in the Depression in 1931), and the fact that in World War Two, Australia had no submarines except for the Dutch K IX whose career ended with a battery explosion in 1944. Then the period of the RN Fourth Submarine Squadron based in Sydney is dealt with, including some of the happy memories of those who served in it. The book sets out the story of the new RAN submarine arm from 1963. When Oxley (S 57) arrived in Neutral Bay, Sydney, in 1967, so began the new Australian era of submarines. The basic dates of the O Boats are outlined, along with the building and basic dates of the Collins class. The book deals with some of the issues about the intelligence patrols, about the Future Submarine and also records the numerous plaques, services, memorials and museums in Australia and overseas dedicated to Australian submarines and Australian and NZ submariners. There is a detailed chapter on special submarine craft such as the X-Craft in which some of the submarine heroes like Max Sheean, Henty Henty-Creer and Ken Briggs served, and in some cases died. The appendices to this book are numerous and detailed by a strong team from around the world, including Garry Mellon, Barrie Downer and Pat Heffernan. Numerous photographs have been collected and included in the book to fit in with the text from Darren Brown and others. The appendices also list all Australian submariners who have qualified and served up until mid-2014, including those who have died.

This book examines the full range of counterinsurgency intelligence during the Malayan Emergency. It explores the involvement of the Security Service, the Joint Intelligence Committee (Far East), the Malayan Security Service, Special Branch and wider police service, and military intelligence, to examine how British and Malayan authorities tackled the insurgent challenge posed by the Malayan Communist Party. This study assesses the nature of the intelligence apparatus prior to the declaration of emergency in 1948 and considers how officials attempted to reconstruct the intelligence structures in the Far East after the surrender of the Japanese in 1945. These plans were largely based upon the legacy of the Second World War but quickly ran into difficultly because of ill-defined remits and personality clashes. Nevertheless, officials did provide prescient warning of the existential threat posed by the Malayan Communist Party from the earliest days of British reoccupation of Malaya. Once a state of emergency had been declared, officials struggled to find the right combination of methods, strategy and management structures to eliminate the threat posed by the Communist insurgents. This book argues that the development of an effective counterinsurgency intelligence strategy involved many more organisations than just Special Branch. It was a multifaceted, dynamic effort that took far longer and was more problematic than previous accounts suggest. The Emergency remains central to counterinsurgency theory and thus this wide-ranging analysis sheds crucial light not only on the period, but on contemporary doctrine and security practices today.

During World War II, agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) infiltrated Japanese-occupied Malaya. There they worked with Malayan guerrilla groups, including the communist-sponsored Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), regarded as the precursor of the communist insurgent army of the Malayan Emergency. This book traces the development of SOE's Malayan operations, and analyses the interactions between SOE and the various guerrilla groups. It explores the reasons for and the extent of Malay disillusionment with Japanese rule, and demonstrates how guerrilla service acted as a training ground for some later Malay leaders of the independent nation. However, the reports written about the MPAJA by SOE operatives just after the war failed to draw out the likely future threat posed by the communists to the returning colonial administration. Rebecca Kenneison shows that the British possessed a wealth of local information, but failed to convert it into active intelligence in the period prior to the Malayan Emergency. In doing so she provides new insights into the impact of SOE on Malayan politics, the nature of Malayan communism's challenge to colonial rule, and British post-war intelligence in Malaya.