Malayan Emergency
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{{Infobox Military Conflict
|conflict=Malayan Emergency
|partof=Cold War and British decolonisation
|image=
|caption=
|date=1948–1960
|place=Southeast Asia
|territory=
|result=• Defeat of Communist guerrillas
• Establishment of an independent Federation of Malaya
|combatant1=United Kingdom
Australia
East Africa (King's African Rifles)
Fiji
Federation of Malaya
New Zealand
Rhodesia
|combatant2=Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA)
Min Yuen
|commander1=
|commander2=
|strength1=250,000 Malayan Home Guard troops
40,000 regular Commonwealth personnel
37,000 Special Constables
24,000 Federation Police
|strength2=up to 80,000 MRLA (12,000 likely)
up to 150,000 Min Yuen (30,000 to 40,000 likely)
|casualties1=Killed: 1,346 Malayan troops, 519 British military personnel
Wounded: ?
Civilian casualties: 2,478 killed, 810 missing
|casualties2=Killed: 6710
Wounded: ?
Captured: 1,287
Surrendered: 2,702
|notes=
}}
The Malayan Emergency was an insurrection and guerrilla war of the Malayan Races Liberation Army against the British and Malayan administration from 1948-1960 in what is now Malaysia.
Contents |
Origins
The Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA in this text) was a guerrilla force created by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and, to some extent, led and dominated by ethnic Chinese communists. It was a successor of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), another guerrilla force which the British had secretly trained and equipped with arms during World War II in the fight against the Japanese Occupation. The Communist Party, which had been banned in the pre-war years, was thereafter granted legal recognition by the British after the war as a reward for its wartime effort, but had secretly kept most of the MPAJA's weapons for future clandestine use.
The actual conflict began when the MCP disagreed with the British post-war policy of a Malayan Federation, mainly because the plan was part of a wider strategy of anti-communism. The party's new leader, Chin Peng, decided that an armed conflict would be the only way to bring the communist revolution to Malaya and to dispel the threat to its communist ideals.
MRLA guerrillas killed three British rubber planters at Sungai Siput, Perak on June 16, 1948. The British declared a state of emergency to deal with the insurgents. The enemy was nicknamed "Charlie Tango" - "communist terrorists", or "terrs" for short. This term would later be used again in Rhodesia to describe ZANU or ZAPU guerrillas.
Guerrilla War
Despite the usage of the term "emergency" it was in actuality a full-scale guerrilla war between the MRLA and British, Commonwealth, and Malayan armed forces. The rubber plantations and tin mining industries had pushed for the use of the term "emergency" since their losses would not have been covered by Lloyds insurers if it had been termed a "war". The MRLA commonly employed hit and run guerrilla tactics, sabotaging installations, attacking rubber plantations and destroying transportation and infrastructure.
Support for the MRLA was mainly based on around 500,000 ethnic Chinese then living in Malaya (there were 3.12 million Chinese in total); the ethnic Malay population for the most part did not support them. The MRLA raised the support of the Chinese because they were denied the equal right to vote in elections, had no land rights to speak of, and were usually very poor. The MRLA's agents within the Chinese community were known as "Min Yuen."
The MRLA had its hideouts in the rather inaccessible tropical jungle with limited infrastructure. Most MRLA guerrillas were ethnic Chinese, though there were some Malays and Indonesians among its members. They were organized into communist political regiments with political sections, commissars, instructors and secret service. They also had lectures about Marxism-Leninism and had political newsletters to be distributed to the locals. MRLA also stipulated that their soldiers had to get official permission for any romantic involvement with local women.
In the international scene, the emerging Korean War eclipsed the developing conflict in Malaya. Part of the British attempt at resolving the situation was the implementation of the so-called "Briggs' Plan" which meant the resettlement of people - especially 400,000 Chinese - living in jungle areas to the relative safety of new, partially fortified villages with full round-the-clock armed sentries. People resented this at first but some soon became content with the better living standards in the villages. They were given money and ownership of the land they lived on. Removing a population which might be sympathetic to guerrillas was a counter-insurgency technique which the British had used before, notably against the Boer Commandos in the Second Boer War (1899-1902).
The British also brought in soldiers from units like the Worcester regiment and Royal Marines. Another effort was a re-creation of Special Air Service as a jungle commando unit in 1950. The Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya was Sir Robert Thompson who had served as an officer in the Chindits during World War II which meant that his vast experience in jungle warfare may have proved invaluable during these times.
In 1951 some British army units began a "hearts and minds campaign" by giving medical and food aid to Malays and indigenous Sakai tribes. At the same time, they put pressure on MRLA by patrolling the jungle. Units such as the SAS, the Royal Marines and Gurkha Brigades drove MRLA guerrillas deeper into the jungle and denied them resources. The MRLA had to extort food from the Sakai and earned their enmity. Many of the captured guerrillas changed sides. In comparison, the MRLA never released any Britons alive.
In the end the conflict involved some 35,000 British and 60,000 Commonwealth troops against a possible army of 30,000 communist guerrillas.
Resolving the Emergency
On October 7, 1951, the MRLA ambushed and killed the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney. Gurney's successor, Lieutenant General Gerald Templer pushed for immediate measures to give ethnic Chinese residents the right to vote. He also pursued the Briggs's plan, installed Malay executives and sped up the formation of a Malayan army. His most important deal was a promise of independence once the insurrection was over. He also instituted financial rewards for detecting guerrillas by any civilians and expanded the intelligence network.
Australia was willing to send troops to help a SEATO ally and the first group of Australian troops arrived in 1955. Realising that his conflict has not come to any fruition, Chin Peng sought a referendum with the ruling British government alongside many Malayan officials at Baling in 1955. The meeting was clearly intended to pursue a mutual end to the conflict but with the British government strongly dismissing all of Chin Peng's demands, the conflict would appear to have been heightened and in response, New Zealand sent NZSAS soldiers No. 14 Squadron RNZAF and later No. 75 Squadron RNZAF, and other Commonwealth members also sent troops to aid the British.
With the independence of Malaya under Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman on August 31, 1957, the insurrection lost its rationale as a war of colonial liberation. The last serious resistance from MRLA guerrillas ended with a surrender in the Telok Anson marsh area in 1958. The remaining MRLA forces fled to the Thai border and further east.
On July 31, 1960, the Malayan government declared the Emergency was over and Chin Peng fled to China.
During the conflict security forces killed 6,710 MRLA guerrillas and captured 1,287. Of the total number of guerrillas, 2,702 surrendered during the conflict and about 500 at the end of the conflict. There were 1346 Malayan troops and 519 British military personnel killed. 2,478 civilians were killed and 810 recorded missing as a result of the conflict.
Comparisons
Although the conflicts in Malaya and Vietnam differed on many points in so far as the details of their wars, it has been asked time and again by historians as to how a British force of 35,000 succeeded where over a half million soldiers of the U.S. and others failed. One of the main points that differentiated the two was that the MLRA never had a dependable ally close at hand like the Viet Cong did with the North Vietnamese Army.
The MLRA was also, as mentioned above, a political movement almost entirely limited to ethnic Chinese; support among Muslim Malayans and smaller tribes was scattered if existent at all. The British war effort never suffered from anything approaching the criticism that hammered the U.S. in Vietnam, and the USSR and China were too involved in Korea to give serious aid to the MLRA. Also, many Malayans had fought side by side with the British against the Japanese occupation in World War II, including Chin Peng. This is in contrast to Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) where French colonial officials often operated as proxies and collaborators to the Japanese. This factor of trust between the locals and the colonials was what gave the British an advantage over the French and later, the Americans in Vietnam; Commonwealth troops saw ordinary civilians as allies, not enemies.
Legacy
In the late 1960s the coverage of the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War prompted the initiation of investigations in the U.K. concerning alleged war crimes perpetrated by British forces during the Emergency. One of such allegations is the Batang Kali massacre. No charges arose however, and it has been suggested that the incoming government of Edward Heath acted improperly in terminating the investigations.
In literature
- The Emergency provided the subject and setting for the novel ... And the Rain My Drink by Han Suyin published in 1954.
- Author Leslie Thomas used his experiences as a conscripted British soldier during the emergency as the basis for his novel, The Virgin Soldiers.
- Anthony Burgess wrote a trilogy of novels known as The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy based on his experiences as an education officer in Malaysia at the time of the emergency.
- The stage production (and later movie) Privates On Parade, starring John Cleese and Simon Jones is set during the Malayan Emergency and relates to the members of SADUSEA- the Song And Dance Unit, South-East Asia during the conflict.