Abstract
While the British had suffered a humiliating defeat in Palestine, the conflict that was developing in Malaya was to later be seen as a model for the conduct of counterinsurgency operations. Indeed, for a while, the Malayan experience was put forward quite explicitly as an example to be emulated by the United States in Vietnam. One leading British counterinsurgency specialist, Sir Robert Thompson, who served in Malaya throughout the Emergency, eventually becoming Secretary for Defence in Kuala Lumpur, argued that ‘the countermeasures developed and proved in Malaya … would have succeeded in the early stages in Vietnam if they had been suitably adapted and consistently and intelligently employed.1 Thompson was to head the British Advisory Mission to Vietnam from September 1961 to March 1965 and later became a special adviser to President Richard Nixon.2
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Notes
Robert Thompson, ‘Foreword’ to Richard Clutterbuck, The Long Long War, London 1966, p. VIII.
For an interesting comparative discussion of Malaya and Vietnam see Robert Tilman, ‘The Non-Lessons of the Malayan Emergency’, Asian Survey, 6 (8), 1966.
For Thompson and Vietnam see ‘Robert Thompson and the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam 1961–1965’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 8 (3), Winter 1997.
J.J. McCuen, The Art of Counter-Revolutionary Warfare, London 1966, p. 320.
Martin Gilbert, Never Despair: Winston Churchill 1945–1965, London 1988, p. 934.
J.H. Brimmell, Communism in South East Asia, London 1959, p. 96.
Rene Onraet, Singapore — A Police Background, London 1947, pp. 116–17.
F. Spencer Chapman, The Jungle is Neutral, London 1949, p. 18.
See also Brian Moynahan, Jungle Soldier: The True Story of Freddy Spencer Chapman, London 2009.
Charles Cruikshank, SOE in the Far East, London 1983, pp. 63–64.
Lee Tong Foong, ‘The MPAJA and the Revolutionary Struggle 1939–1945’, in Mohamed Amin and Malcolm Caldwell, Malaya: The Making of a Neo-Colony, Nottingham 1977, pp. 99–100.
See also Brian Montgomery, Shenton of Singapore, London 1984, p. 161.
For other accounts by British soldiers and civilians living with the Communist guerrillas see Robert Cross and Dorothy Thatcher, Pai Naa, London 1959;
John Cross, Red Jungle, London 1958;
and Robert Hamond, A Fearful Freedom, London 1984.
See also Joseph Kennedy, British Civilians and the Japanese War in Malaya and Singapore, London 1987, pp. 104–21.
For the effectiveness of the MPAJA see Cheah Boon Kheng, Red Star Over Malaya, Singapore 1983, pp. 63–64.
See also Paul H. Kratoska, Malaya and Singapore During the Japanese Occupation, Singapore 1995.
Michael R. Stenson, Repression and Revolt, Athens, Ohio 1969, p. 1.
Edgar O’Ballance, Malaya: The Communist Insurgent War, London 1966, pp. 62–63.
See also Leon Comber, ‘“Traitor of all Traitors” — Secret Agent Extraordinaire: Lai Tek, Secretary General, Communist Party of Malaya 1939–1947’, Journal of the Malaysian of Branch the Royal Asiatic Society, 80 (2), 2010.
For industrial conflict see Michael R. Stenson, Industrial Conflict in Malaya, London 1970.
See also T.N. Harper, The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya, Cambridge 1999, p. 80.
Hua Wu Yin, Class and Communalism in Malaya, London 1983, pp. 76–85.
His conclusion was that there ‘has been a Labour Government in Britain but not in Malaya’: Woodrow Wyatt, Southwards from China, London 1952, p. 157.
For useful discussions of this question see in particular Ruth T. McVey, The Calcutta Conference and the Southeast Asian Uprisings, New York 1958;
Charles B. McLane, Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia, New Jersey 1966;
Michael R. Stenson, The 1948 Communist Revolt in Malaya: A Note on Historical Sources and Interpretation, Singapore 1971;
Frank Furedi, Colonial Wars and the Politics of Third World Nationalism, London 1994.
Ritchie Ovendale, ‘Britain and the Cold War in Asia’, from Ritchie Ovendale (ed.), The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Governments 1945–1951, Leicester 1984, p. 125.
Lee Kam Hing, ‘Malaya: New State and Old Elites’, from Robin Jeffrey (ed.), Asia: The Winning of Independence, London 1981, p. 234.
D.K. Fieldhouse review of D.J. Morgan, The Official History of Colonial Development Vols 1–5, in English Historical Review 97 (2), April 1982, pp. 386–94.
See also A.J. Stockwell, ‘British Imperial Policy and Decolonization in Malaya 1943–1952’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 13 (1), October 1984.
Nicholas J. White, Business, Governments and the End of Empire: Malaya 1942–1952, Kuala Lumpur 1996, p. 5.
See also Tilman Remme, Britain and Regional Cooperation in South-East Asia 1945–19, London 1995, pp. 11–12.
Cheah Boon Kheng, The Masked Comrades, Singapore 1979, pp. 63–72.
Sir Robert Thompson, Make for the Hills, London 1989, p. 94.
J.B. Perry Robinson, Transformation in Malaya, London 1956, pp. 118–22.
For the influence of Maoist ideas on the MCP see Khong Kim Hoong, Merdeka! British Rule and the Struggle of Independence in Malaya 1945–1957, Selanger 1984, p. 138.
See also E.D. Smith, Malaya and Borneo, London 1985, pp. 7–8 and
Gene Z. Hanrahan, The Communist Struggle in Malaya, New York 1994, p. 63.
Norton Ginsburg and Chester Roberts, Malaya, Seattle 1958, pp. 54, 87.
See Michael Stenson, ‘The Ethnic and Urban Bases of Communist Revolt in Malaya’, from John Wilson Lewis (ed.), Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia, Stanford 1974.
For ‘divide and rule’ in Malaya see Frank Furedi, ‘Britain’s Colonial Wars: Playing the Ethnic Card’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Studies, 28 (1), March 1990.
Noel Barber, The Running Dog War, London 1971, p. 53.
Michael Carver, War Since 1945, London 1980, pp. 17–18.
David French, The British Way in Counterinsurgency 1945–1967, Oxford 2011, p. 110.
One account describes the scene in Port Swettenham where deportees were assembled: ‘its main street echoes to their revolutionary songs and their shouted insults. They have the satisfaction of shaking their fists at the police’: Vernon Bartlett, Report from Malaya, London 1954, p. 48.
Anthony Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya 1948–1960, London 1975, pp. 383–85.
Lawrence James, Imperial Rearguard, London 1988, p. 137.
David A. Charters, ‘From Palestine to Northern Ireland: British Adaptations to Low-Intensity Operations’, from David A. Charters and Maurice Tugwell (eds), Armies in Low-Intensity Conflict, London 1989, pp. 190–92.
Huw Bennett, ‘“A very salutary effect”: The Counter-Terror Strategy in the Early Malayan Emergency, June 1948 to December 1949’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32 (3), 2009, p. 417.
Harry Miller, Menace in Malaya, London 1954, p. 89.
For the Batang Kali massacre see Ian Ward and Norma Miraflor, Slaughter and Deception at Batang Kali, Singapore 2008 and
Christopher Hale, Massacre in Malaya: Exposing Britain’s My Lai, Stroud 2013.
Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain’s Asian Empire, London 2007, p. 455.
Susan Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency, London 1995, p. 100.
Richard Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare, London 1989, pp. 66, 73.
Charles Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars, London 1986, p. 159.
Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, London 1966, pp. 51, 116.
For recent discussions of the relevance of Thompson’s thinking to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan see Andrew Mumford, ‘Sir Robert Thompson’s Lessons for Iraq’, Defence Studies 10 (1–2), 2010 and
James Pritchard and MLR Smith, ‘Thompson in Helmand’, Civil Wars 12 (1–2), 2010.
Geoffrey Fairbairn, Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare, London 1974, p. 139.
See also Francis Loh Kok Wah, Beyond the Tin Mines, Oxford 1988, for the impact of resettlement in the Kinta Valley.
E.D. Smith, East of Katmandu, London 1976, p. 19.
See Michael Tracey, A Variety of Lives, London 1983.
Chin Peng, Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History, Singapore 2003, p. 299.
See also A.J. Stockwell, ‘Chin Peng and the Struggle for Malaya’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 16 (3), 2006.
John Coates, Suppressing Insurgency: An Analysis of the Malayan Emergency 1948–1954, Boulder, Colorado 1992, p. 118 and
Karl Hack, Defence and Decolonisation in Southeast Asia: Britain, Malaya and Singapore 1941–1968, Richmond 2001, pp. 124–25.
For a strong urging of Templer’s importance see Kumar Ramakrishna, ‘“Transmogrifying” Malaya: The Impact of Sir Gerald Pempler 1952–1954’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 32 (1), 2001.
Michael Carver, Out of Step, London 1989, pp. 280–81, 283.
For the development of British tactics see in particular Sir William Jackson, Withdrawal from Empire, London 1986, pp. 91–92, 120–21;
Raffi Gregorian, ‘“Jungle Bashing” in Malaya: Towards a Formal Tactical Doctrine’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 5 (3), Winter 1994.
There is a large body of memoir literature available: Richard Miers, Shoot to Kill, London 1959;
Oliver Crawford, The Door Marked Malaya, London 1958;
A.E.C. Bredin, Happy Warriors, Gillingham 1961;
J.P. Cross, In Gurkha Company, London 1986;
J.W.G. Moran, Spearhead in Malaya, London 1959;
Arthur Campbell, Jungle Green, London 1953;
Roy Follows with Hugh Popham, Jungle Beat, London 1990, among others.
For a more critical view of the British performance by another participant see Frank Kitson, A Bunch of Five, London 1977.
For a number of accounts by British conscripts, among them Neil Ascherson, see Adrian Walker, Six Campaigns, London 1977.
Also see F.A. Godfrey, The History of the Suffolk Regiment, London 1988, pp. 46–54.
Harry Miller, Jungle War in Malaya, London 1972, p. 90.
There are accounts of the intelligence war in Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, London 1983, pp. 71–74;
Nigel West, The Friends: Britain’s Post-War Secret Intelligence Operations, London 1988, pp. 41–50;
Richard J. Aldrich, Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley (eds), The Clandestine Cold War in Asia 1954–1965, London 2000;
Karl Hack, ‘Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency: The Example of Malaya’, Intelligence and National Security, 14 (2), Summer 1999;
and Leon Comber Malaya’s Secret Police 1945–1960: The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency, Monash 2008.
For an interesting overview of intelligence and counterinsurgency see Keith Jeffrey, ‘Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency Operations: Some Reflections on the British Experience’, Intelligence and National Security, 28 (1), January 1987.
Calder Walton, Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire, London 2013, pp. 188–93.
Philip Anthony Towle, Pilots and Rebels, London 1989, p. 86.
Andrew Mumford, ‘Unnecessary or unsung? The utilization of airpower in Britain’s colonial counterinsurgencies’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 20 (3–4), 2009, p. 640.
See also Malcolm Postgate, Operation Firedog, London 1992.
John Cloake, Templer: Tiger of Malaya, London 1985, pp. 254–55.
See also Paul Frederick Cecil, Herbicidal Warfare, New York 1986, p. 17: Cecil argues that ‘the positive aspects of the British experience in Malaya would form the basis for future American involvement in herbicidal warfare in Southeast Asia’.
For the SAS in Malaya see Alan Hoe and Eric Morris, Re-Enter the SAS, London 1994 and
John Strawson, A History of the SAS Regiment, London 1986. See also my Dangerous Men: The SAS and Popular Culture, London 1997.
See Richard Stubbs, ‘The United Malays National Organization, the Malayan Chinese Association, and the early years of the Malayan Emergency 1948–1955’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 10 (1), March 1979 and
A.J. Stockwell, ‘Insurgency and Decolonisation during the Malayan Emergency’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 25 (1), March 1987.
Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya, A History of Malaysia, London 1982, pp. 261–63.
Gregory Blaxland, The Regiments Depart, London 1971, pp. 115–30;
and Tom Pocock, Fighting General, London 1973, pp. 101–06.
See also Kumar Ramakrishna, ‘Anatomy of a Collapse: Explaining the Malayan Communist Mass Surrenders of 1958’, War and Society, 21 (2), 2003.
For the MCP decision to demobilise see Aloysius Chin, The Communist Party of Malaya: The Inside Story, Kuala Lumpur 1995, p. 50.
Victor Purcell, Malaya: Communist or Free?, London 1954, p. 146.
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© 2015 John Newsinger
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Newsinger, J. (2015). The Running Dog War: Malaya. In: British Counterinsurgency. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316868_3
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