Malayan Emergency (7 results)

Third and final edition, scarce UK impression, printed in London six years after publication in Kuala Lumpur, perhaps with Vietnam in mind. This edition consolidated "the distilled knowledge and experience obtained during nine years of hard operations. That knowledge and experience will be wasted unless those members of the Security Forces who are new to this kind of operation read this book thoroughly. Do so!" (foreword). Over its three editions, this handbook was the guiding document for British counter-insurgency operations during the Malayan Emergency. Chapters introduce the region and the communist forces, the emergency regulations, and procedures for checkpoint searches, as well as offering guidance on patrolling, ambushing, artillery and air support, the "handling of aborigines by security forces", and "the employment of dogs on operations". In his foreword to the first edition, General Sir Gerald Templer, appointed by Churchill as High Commissioner to the Malayan Federation and dubbed the "Tiger of Malaya", stressed four key points: "the absolute necessity for the adoption of the immediate action drills laid down in this book"; "the vital importance of accurate and quick shooting"; "the need for offensive action"; and "the necessity in operations of this nature of discipline" (p. ix). The Kuala Lumpur printing, as with previous editions, was issued in green boards bound with chord. Octavo. Diagrams in text. Original blue card wrappers, wire-stitched as issued, front cover lettered in black, map on inner front cover. Wrappers lightly sunned and creased, small splits at spine ends, contents clean.

First edition, first impression, of this anthology of sympathetic newspaper articles on the conduct of British anticommunist operations in Malaya by the journalist Frank Allen. Allen shadowed the Loyals in the field for several months in early 1959, filing reports designed to "assure parents that their boys are doing a worthwhile job in Malaya and doing it well" (p. 2). We have traced only a single copy at the National Army Museum. Allen was a master of upbeat reportage, mixing discussions of day-to-day life with prophecies of victory. "Pushed back all the time they [Britain's enemies] are finding that the life of the Communist is hard and uncomfortable. Deserted by their companions, watching their numbers dwindling, they know the end is inevitable" (p. 6). The work opens with a foreword by Brigadier Geoffrey Acworth Rimbault (1908-1991), the regiment's colonel. Octavo, pp. 24. With 25 photographic half-tones. Original green limp card wrappers, wire-stitched as issued, front cover lettered in black with regimental coat of arms. Wrappers lightly sunned, small closed tear on front cover professionally repaired with tissue, internally clean. A near-fine copy.

First edition, first printing, of this prospectus on the British empire's most important post-war cash cow, issued to reassure potential British investors and trading partners during the Malayan Emergency. In the late 1940s and 1950s, "the Malaya region was the dollar earner par excellence of the sterling area" (White, p. 173) and central to Britain's economic recovery. Amid the breakdown of British control and the declaration of a state of emergency (ensuring that London-based insurers would pay out on damage to colonial assets), the message of this publication is that business can nonetheless continue as usual. It advertises the region's abundant natural resources and industrious population, the promising future expected for the pineapple canning industry after years of neglect under the Japanese, as well as year-on-year growth in Malaya's most important export - rubber - "despite the attempts by the terrorists to interfere" with production (p. 3). Nicholas J. White, "'Complementarity', decolonization and the Cold War: British responses to Japan's economic revival in Southeast Asia during the 1950s and 1960s", in Antony Best, ed., The International History of East Asia, 1900-1968: Trade, Ideology and the Quest for Order, 2009. Landscape octavo, pp. [i, 16, 5]. With 19 half-tone plates, 5 colour charts, colour map of Malay Peninsula (prepared by the Federation of Malaya survey department) tipped in on rear inside wrapper, 4 colour graphs in text. Original illustrated wrappers, stitched as issued, front cover lettered in black in front of a map of south-east Asia. Hint of soiling to wrappers, contents clean, map without tears. A fine copy.

First edition, classified "secret", copy number 1 of an unstated but small printing. The front cover is marked "C in C" in red pencil, likely designating Air Marshal Sir Francis Joseph Fogarty, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Far East Air Force, 1949-52. We have traced only one other copy (National Archives, AIR 23/8699). Following the declaration of the Malayan Emergency, the RAF, under the day-to-day command of Air Vice-Marshal Robert Stewart Blucke, launched Operation Firedog, providing support to ground forces via strategic bombing and airstrikes, photographic reconnaissance, supply drops, and medical evacuation. This report opens with a survey of Malayan National Liberation Army strength, organization, and tactics, followed by information on the progress of the Briggs counterinsurgency resettlement plan. Sections list the strike and transport aircraft available for Firedog, the results of recent trials on the effectiveness of bombs and rockets in jungle terrain, and the conduct of major ground/air operations. Concluding recommendations include providing authorization for attacks without any delay to clear civilians ("The population should be warned in general, and must learn, that to be in the same areas as terrorists is to risk air attack" - p. 16) and prioritizing the improvement of ground-to-air radio communication in jungle areas. Graphical appendices visualize the tonnage of bombs dropped, ammunition and rocket expenditures, and the number of leaflet drops and escort sorties. Foolscap quarto, ff. 35. With 14 photostats, including map, diagrams, and charts (map folding, several others with edges slightly folded in). Original blue card wrappers, wire-stitched as issued, front cover lettered in black. Covers and photostats lightly toned, general creasing: very good.

First edition of this publication issued to new police officers, including a substantial section on the emergency. "A dead terrorist is a cause for general satisfaction. But a surrendered terrorist is of much greater interest" (p. 39). The guide locates the origins of the post-war troubles in China's long tradition of secret societies. "The Min Yuen is the latest in the long list of Chinese secret societies in Malaya. Before the Emergency it had a public front and an underground movement. Its leaders appeared on public Party platforms; gave press interviews; directed the labour federations; opposed the new constitutions for Singapore and the Federation. Behind this front the Party planted agents in the unions and fomented strikes, and kept, hidden and greased, the weapons the M.P.A.J.A. [Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army] had failed to surrender at the end of the war" (p. 32). Quarto. Colour frontispiece map of Malay Peninsula, folding chart of police organizational structure, illustrations in text. Original blue boards, front cover lettered in black, arms of Federation of Malaya Police in silver. Contemporary ownership inscription of Malaya police officer on front cover. Spine and edges of boards toned, bumping, contents fresh: near-fine.

First edition of this handbook issued during a period of transformation for the police. By the mid-1950s, the force had evolved from an unpopular paramilitary group into a professionalized service and was adept at cultivating relationships with ordinary Malayans to gather intelligence for counter-insurgency operations. This handbook combines an April 1952 printing of the ordinance (4,020 copies) and a November 1952 printing of the regulations (3,000 copies). Neither are found in institutional collections. Loosely inserted are three office copies of government receipts concerning 1953 payments from the Earl Haig Fund to one Yussof bin Abid, a constable with the police force, and his family. Octavo, pp. vi, 41, [1] (blank), 14. Tables in text, title page for Police Regulations printed on blue paper. Original blue linen boards, tied through punch-holes with black chord as issued, front cover lettered in white, white insignia of Federation of Malaya Police. Light marking and bumping to boards, final leave with some foxing: very good.

A progressively more shocking record of the violent and coercive underpinnings of British control in postwar Malaya, including many photographs taken by a young private tasked with stamping out communist resistance. Private Edward Allen was deployed with the Fourth Queen's Own Hussars at the beginning of the Malayan Emergency. Between 1948 and 1951, the regiment undertook counter-terrorist operations. His album opens with images of himself and army comrades in the field and posing in front of their armoured car, such jocularity masking the destructive control exercised by the British in the region. Further images show them in camp and armoured cards patrolling deserted streets. After some time off in Singapore, they return to Penang, affording an opportunity for further photography in the field. At this point in the album, Allen arranges several leaves of photographs of local and Western women. The latter are clearly acquaintances, but the former, many of whom are photographed with their breasts exposed, offers a discomforting insight into the attitude of British soldiers. In the final portion, posed shots of soldiers are joined by more sinister visuals, including a derailed train, dead enemy combatants afforded little dignity, and, most disturbingly, a British soldier posing with the heads of two executed soldiers. An album that began with frivolity has ended with violence being normalized and lionized in equal measure. Accompanying this album is a selection of printed material used during the emergency. The Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya (third edition, 1958) was the guiding document for British operations. Copies were distributed to British and Commonwealth battalions, including Malay, Fijian, and Gurkha units. Chapters cover an introduction to the region, communist forces, general characteristics of operations, platoon organization, weapons and equipment, patrol bases, patrol formation and patrolling, jungle navigation, "immediate action drills", ambushes, wireless communications, air support, operational rations, and first aid and preventative medicine. The foreword to the third edition notes that "it is quite essential that when a contact is made all that is humanly possible is done to turn it into a kill" (p. xiii). Also present is a copy of J. N. McHugh's A Handbook of Spoken 'Bazaar' Malay (first edition, 1945), a work compiled at the end of the Second World War for Allied forces involved in the restoration of British control in Malaya. Finally, two propaganda leaflets urging communist insurgents to lay down their arms - beneath a picture of a dead fighter, one advises that "this person is called Zhou Mu, and he is a communist bandit. If he had surrendered, he could have avoided death". Together, 5 items: landscape quarto black morocco-grain leatherette album (195 x 270 mm), tied with black chord through punch holes, blind frame on front cover, boards with black paper inner linings, 20 stiff black card leaves, 173 photographs (c.86 x 140 mm to c. 65 x 90 mm), mostly gelatin silver prints, a couple captioned in pencil; octavo handbook, original green cloth post-binder, front cover lettered in black, map laid down on inner front cover; landscape duodecimo handbook, card covers with red linen backstrip, front cover lettered in black, map of Malaya on inner rear cover; 2 loose printed propaganda leaflets (260 x 180 mm and 175 x 85 mm). With a few duplicate studio shots of Allen and his 6 sides of manuscript notes on the album. Album with light wear, photographs mostly bright and fresh, post-binder with one screw sometime replaced by treasury tag, leaflets with old creasing where folded; a generally well-preserved grouping.