Police casualties in the Malayan 'Emergency', as the long struggle
between 1948 and 1960 is still officially called, outnumbered military
casualties by nearly two to one. Subsequent accounts of the campaign
have more than redressed this balance. Books describing aspects of the
military effort are numerous: books on the police effort are confined to
a handful of personal accounts. Mr Brian Stewart, formerly a member of
the Malayan Civil Service who was closely associated with the Malayan
Police, has put this to rights by editing a book which does justice to a
police force which won its royal title in a hard, sustained fight which
cost it over 1300 killed in action.
Brian Stewart set out not to write a
history of the police effort but to collect and edit the memories of
those junior officers of all races who served at the sharp end in that
'subaltern's war'. He wanted readers to taste the flavour of the time
and of the many varieties of action in which young policemen were
involved. He has certainly succeeded. The reader will learn exactly what
it felt like to be trapped in the wreck of an ambushed car waiting to be
killed; or to lead an attack on a terrorist camp in thick jungle; or to
suffer the frustrations of lack of proper training, weapons, equipment,
or realistic guidance - and being expected to communicate in an unknown
foreign language immediately you arrive in a strange country. He will
also learn what it feels like to be spat on by a cobra, stung by
hornets, and - while converting Hearts and Minds - to share a meal with
jungle folk whose flaking and diseased skin often falls into the
communal eating pot.
But there was more to life than a succession of
ambushes and jungle horrors and the book keeps these episodes in
proportion. Due attention is given to the patient, skilful, long-term
Special Branch operations that culminated in the surrender or capture of
senior terrorists. Recruitment and training are well covered and there
are some good vignettes of the lighter side of life. There was the
prisoner who withstood five days of questioning but eventually began to
talk - 'moved by pity' for the strain that round-the-clock interrogation
had put on the three teams assigned to his case. There was the wife who
responded to her husband's urgent request as he prepared, Sten gun at
the ready, to defend their bungalow, to 'Bring the magazines!', by
producing The Times and Newsweek. The saga of the ludicrously
incompetent 'locally recruited' tracker dogs makes amusing reading.
There are ghosts, farewell parties, a police mutiny, the defence of
rubber estates, an awkward encounter in court... One could fill a page
with the bare listing of the stories selected and presented so
attractively.
The editor has provided a wealth of background material
including a useful glossary of contemporary expressions, some apposite
Malay proverbs, bibliography, a chronological record; his own brief
account of the rise and fall of the Malayan Communist Party and a good
note on the statistical background of the campaign. Professor Anthony
Short, foremost historian of Twentieth Century Malayan history, has
contributed a commendable Foreword.
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