Old page wikitext, before the edit (old_wikitext) | '{{EngvarB|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2014}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict = Malayan Emergency<br />{{lang|ms|Darurat Malaya}}<br />{{lang|zh-hant|馬來亞緊急狀態}}<br />{{lang|ta|மலாயன் அவசரநிலை}}
| partof = the [[decolonization of Asia]] and the [[Cold War]]
| image = {{multiple image|border=infobox|perrow=2/2/2|total_width=300
|image1=RAAFAvroLincolnMalaya1950.jpg
|alt1=
|image2=Outdoor portrait of Lee Min, leader of the communist Kepayang Gang in the Ipoh district in 1951 (AWM 4281801).JPG
|alt2=
|image3=Briggs' Plan civilians - IWM GOV 3821.png
|alt3=
|image4=OPERATIONS OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN MALAYA MAY 1950 IWM GOV 2267A.png
|alt4=
|image5=King's African Rifles in Malaya - IWM K 14004.png
|alt5=}}
Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist|
* Australian [[Avro Lincoln]] bomber dropping 500lb bombs
* Communist leader [[Lee Meng]] in 1952
* RAF staff loads bombs to be used against communist rebels
* [[King's African Rifles]] search abandoned hut
* Civilians forcefully evicted from their land by the British as part of the [[Briggs Plan]]
}}
| image_upright = 1.35
| date = 16 June 1948 – 31 July 1960<br />({{Age in years, months, weeks and days|month1=06|day1=16|year1=1948|month2=07|day2=31|year2=1960}})
| place = [[Malay Peninsula]], [[Southeast Asia]]
| territory = Independence of the [[Federation of Malaya]] on [[Hari Merdeka|31 August]] 1957
| result = Commonwealth military victory but diplomatic failure
| combatant1 = '''[[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] forces:'''<br />{{flag|United Kingdom}}
* {{flagicon|Malaya}} [[Federation of Malaya]]
* {{flagcountry|Singapore}}
* {{flagicon|Kenya|colonial}} [[Kenya Colony|Kenya]]
* {{flag|Southern Rhodesia}}<br />(until 1953)
* {{flag|Rhodesia and Nyasaland|name=Rhodesia and Nyasaland}}<br />(after 1953)
* {{flagicon|Fiji|colonial}} [[Colonial Fiji|Fiji]]
{{flagicon|Australia}} [[Australia]]<br />{{flagicon|New Zealand}} [[New Zealand]]<br />'''Supported by:'''<br />{{flag|Republic of China}} (Taiwan)<br />{{flag|Thailand}}<br />(Thai–Malaysian border)<br />{{flag|United States|1912}}
| combatant2 = '''[[Communism|Communist]] forces:'''<br />{{flagicon image|Flag of the Communist Party of Malaya.svg}} [[Malayan Communist Party]]<!-- Please do not add foreign supporters here without either, (1) citing a reliable source directly, or (2) checking that the addition is supported elsewhere in the article as per WP:INFOBOXCITE -->
* {{flagicon image|Flag of the Malayan National Liberation Army.svg}} [[Malayan National Liberation Army]]
| commander1 = {{flagdeco|UK}} United Kingdom:
* [[Clement Attlee]]<br />(until 1951)
* [[Winston Churchill]] (1951–1955)
* [[Anthony Eden]] (1955–1957)
* [[Harold Macmillan]] (1957–1960)
* [[Harold Rawdon Briggs|Harold Briggs]]
* [[Robert Elliot Urquhart|Roy Urquhart]]
* [[Edward Gent]]
* [[Henry Gurney]]{{KIA|Assassination of Sir Henry Gurney}}
* [[Gerald Templer]]
* [[William Allmond Codrington Goode|William Goode]]
{{flagdeco|Malaya}} Malaya
* [[Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan]]
* [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]]
* [[Abdul Razak Hussein|Tun Razak]]
* [[Ismail Abdul Rahman|Tun Ismail]] <br />
{{flagdeco|Singapore}} Singapore
* [[David Saul Marshall|David Marshall]]
* [[Lim Yew Hock]]
* [[Yusof Ishak]]
* [[Lee Kuan Yew]]<br />
{{flagdeco|Australia}} Australia
* [[Robert Menzies]]
* [[Henry Wells (general)|Henry Wells]]<br />
{{flagdeco|New Zealand}} New Zealand
* [[Sidney Holland]]<br />(1951–1957)
* [[Walter Nash]]<br />(1957–1960)
| commander2 = {{flagicon image|Flag of the Communist Party of Malaya.svg}} Malayan Communist Party
* [[Chin Peng]]<br />
{{flagicon image|Flag of the Malayan National Liberation Army.svg}} Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA)
* [[Abdullah CD]]
* [[Rashid Maidin]]
* [[Shamsiah Fakeh]]
* [[S. A. Ganapathy]]{{Executed}}
* [[Lau Yew]]{{KIA|Death of Lau Yew}}
* [[Yeung Kwo]]{{KIA}}
* [[Muhammad Indera|Mat Indera]]{{Executed}}
* [[Lee Meng]]
* Lau Lee
| strength1 = Over 451,000 troops.
* 250,000 [[Royal Malay Regiment|Malayan Home Guard]] (Malayan Regiment) troops
* 40,000 regular [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] personnel
* [[King's African Rifles]]
* [[Gurkha|Gurkha regiments]]
* 37,000 [[Special Constable]]s
* 24,000 Federation Police
* Unknown number of [[Iban people|Iban]] (Dayak) headhunters
| strength2 = Over 7,000 troops.
* + 7,000 [[Malayan National Liberation Army|MNLA]] full-time troops (1951).
* + Estimated 1,000,000 sympathisers.
* Unknown number of [[Orang Asli]] allies.
* Unknown number of [[Min Yuen]] civilian supporters.
| casualties1 = {{flagdeco|Malaya}} 1,346 killed<br />{{flagdeco|UK}} 519 killed<br />{{flagdeco|UK}}{{flagdeco|Malaya}} 2,406 wounded
| casualties2 = 6,710 killed<br />1,289 wounded<br />1,287 captured<br />2,702 surrendered
| casualties3 = Civilian casualties: 5,000+
| notes =
| campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Malayan Emergency}}
}}
{{History of Malaysia}}
{{History of Singapore}}
The '''Malayan Emergency''', also known as the '''Anti–British National Liberation War''' (1948–1960), was a [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla war]] fought in [[British Malaya]] between communist pro-independence fighters of the [[Malayan National Liberation Army]] (MNLA) against the military forces of the [[British Empire]] and [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]]. The communists fought to win independence for Malaya from the British Empire and to establish a socialist economy, while the Commonwealth forces fought to combat communism and protect British economic and colonial interests.<ref>Deery, Phillip. "Malaya, 1948: Britain's Asian Cold War?" Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 1 (2007): 29–54.</ref><ref name="Siver, Christi L 2009. p.36">Siver, Christi L. "The other forgotten war: understanding atrocities during the Malayan Emergency." In APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper. 2009., p.36</ref>{{sfn|Newsinger|2013|p=217}} The conflict was called the "Anti–British National Liberation War" by the MNLA,<ref>{{cite book|first=Mohamed |last= Amin |editor-first= Malcolm |editor-last=Caldwell |title=The Making of a Neo Colony|year=1977|publisher=Spokesman Books, UK|page=216}}</ref> but an "Emergency" by the British, as London-based insurers would not have paid out in instances of civil wars.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World 1945–1965 |last=Burleigh |first=Michael |publisher=Viking – Penguin Group |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-670-02545-9 |location=New York|page=164}}</ref>
On 17 June 1948, Britain declared a [[state of emergency]] in Malaya following attacks on [[plantations]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Small Wars Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World 1945–1965|last=Burleigh|first=Michael|publisher=Viking – Penguin Group|year=2013|isbn=978-0-670-02545-9|location=New York|pages=163–164}}</ref> which in turn were revenge attacks for the killing of left-wing activists.{{sfn|Newsinger|2013|p=216–217}} Leader of the [[Malayan Communist Party]] (MCP) [[Chin Peng]] and his allies fled into the jungles and formed the MNLA to wage a war for [[national liberation]] against British colonial rule. Many MNLA fighters were former members of the [[Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army]] (MPAJA), a communist guerrilla army previously trained, armed and funded by the British to fight against [[Imperial Japanese Army|Japan]] during [[World War II]].<ref name=":2">{{cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=Everyone Lived in Fear: Malaya and the British way of Counterinsurgency |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2012.709764 |journal=Small Wars and Insurgencies |volume=23 |issue=4–5 |page=672 |date=28 September 2012 |s2cid=143847349 |doi=10.1080/09592318.2012.709764 |via=Taylor and Francis Online}}</ref> The communists enjoyed strong support from the ethnic [[Straits Chinese]] population, most of whom lived in dire poverty, suffered [[Bumiputera (Malaysia)|racial persecution]], and were barred from voting.<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc">Datar, Rajan (host), with author Sim Chi Yin; academic Show Ying Xin (Malaysia Institute, [[Australian National University]]); and academic Rachel Leow ([[University of Cambridge]]): [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1rm2 "The Malayan Emergency: A long Cold War conflict seen through the eyes of the Chinese community in Malaya,"] November 11, 2021, ''[[The Forum (BBC World Service)]],'' (radio program) [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]], retrieved November 11, 2021</ref> The communists' belief in [[class consciousness]], and both ethnic and gender equality, inspired many indigenous people and women to join both the MNLA and its undercover supply network the [[Min Yuen]].
After establishing a series of jungle bases the MNLA began raiding British colonial police and military installations. Tin mines and rubber plantations were attacked by the MNLA to gain independence for Malaya by bankrupting the British occupation. Under the [[Briggs Plan]] the British created a system of 400 internment camps called "[[New village]]s" to imprison over 400,000 civilians in an attempt to separate the MNLA guerrillas from the civilian population. The British then attempted to starve the communist guerrillas by implementing a food denial campaign which saw the enforcement of food rationing, the killing livestock and aerial spraying of chemical herbicides to destroy rural farmland.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=52}} Early in the conflict attempts to defeat the communists included the execution of unarmed villagers, the most infamous case being the [[Batang Kali massacre]] which is often referred to as "Britain's [[My Lai Massacre|My Lai]]". British military experiences during the Emergency would lay the groundwork for future anti-insurgency operations, most famously in the [[Vietnam War]] as American forces (largely unsuccessfully) attempted to replicate British strategies used in Malaya.
Although the emergency was declared over in 1960, communist leader [[Chin Peng]] renewed the insurgency against the Malaysian government in 1967. This [[Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–89)|second phase of the insurgency]] lasted until 1989.
==Origins==
{{See also|Circumstances prior to the Malayan Emergency}}
===Socioeconomic issues===
At the end of World War II, the withdrawal of Japan left the [[British Malaya]]n economy disrupted with widespread unemployment, low wages, and high levels of food inflation. The weak economy was a factor in the growth of trade union movements and caused a rise in communist party membership, with considerable labour unrest and a large number of strikes occurred between 1946 and 1948.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} Malayan communists organised a successful 24-hour general strike on 29 January 1946,<ref name="Eric Stahl 2003">Eric Stahl, "Doomed from the Start: A New Perspective on the Malayan Insurgency" (master's thesis, 2003)</ref> before organising 300 strikes in 1947.<ref name="Eric Stahl 2003" /> To combat rising trade union activity the British used police and soldiers as strikebreakers, and employers enacted mass dismissals, forced evictions of striking workers from their homes, legal harassement, and began cutting the wages of their workers.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} Colonial police responded to rising trade union activity through arrests, deportations, and beating striking workers to death.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} Responding to the attacks against trade unions, communist militants began assassinating strikebreakers, and attacking anti-union estates.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} These attacks were used by the colonial occupation as a pretence to conduct mass arrests of left-wing activists.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} On 12 June the British colonial occupation banned Malaya's largest trade union the PMFTU.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}}
Malaya's rubber and tin resources were used by the British to pay war debts to the United States and to recover from the damage of the second world war.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} Malaysian rubber exports to the United States were of greater value than all domestic exports from Britain to America, causing Malaya to be viewed by the British as a vital asset.<ref>Deery, Phillip. "Malaya, 1948: Britain's Asian Cold War?." Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 1 (2007): 29-54.</ref><ref name="Siver, Christi L 2009. p.36" /> Britain had prepared for Malaya to become an independent state, but only by handing power to a government which would be subservient to Britain and allow British businesses to keep control of Malaya's natural resources.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=43}}
===The Sungai Siput incident===
The first shots of the Malayan Emergency during the [[Sungai Siput incident]], fired at 8:30 am on 16 June 1948, in the office of the Elphil Estate twenty miles east of the [[Sungai Siput|Sungai Siput town]], [[Perak]]. Three European [[plantation]] managers, Arthur Walker, John Allison and, Ian Christian, were killed by three young Chinese men. Another attack was planned on a fourth European estate nearby, however this failed because the target's jeep broke down making him late for work. More gunmen were sent to kill him but left after failing to find him.<ref>Souchou Yao. 2016. ''The Malayan Emergency A small, Distant War''. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph series, no. 133. pp. 40–41.</ref> The British enacted emergency measures into law in response to the Sungai Siput incident. Under these measures the colonial occupation outlawed the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and began mass arresting thousands of trade union and left-wing activists.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=43}}
=== Formation of the MNLA ===
Although the Malayan communists had begun preparations for a guerrilla war against the British, the emergency measures and mass arrest of communists and left-wing activists took them by surprise.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=44}} Led by [[Chin Peng]] the remaining Malayan communists retreated to rural areas and formed the [[Malayan National Liberation Army]] (MNLA), although their name has commonly been mistranslated as the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA) or the Malayan People's Liberation Army (MPLA). The MNLA was partly a re-formation of the [[Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army]] (MPAJA), the MCP-led guerrilla force which had been the principal resistance in Malaya against the [[Japanese occupation of Malaya]]. The British had secretly helped form the MPAJA in 1942 and trained them in the use of explosives, firearms and radios.<ref name="book_the_malayan_emergency_2008_jackson">{{cite book|last=Jackson|first=Robert|title=The Malayan Emergency|year=2008|publisher=Pen & Sword Aviation|location=London|page=10}}</ref> Chin Peng was a veteran anti-fascist and trade unionist who had played an integral role in the MPAJA's resistance.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bayly |first1=Christopher |last2=Harper |first2=Tim |title=Forgotten Armies: Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan |location=New York, NY |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWURxfct6SgC&pg=PA1929 |date= 2005 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-192719-0 |pages=344-345, 347-348, 350-351}}
</ref>
The MNLA began their war for Malayan independence by targeting the colonial [[natural resource|resource]] extraction industries, namely the tin mines and rubber plantations which were the main sources of income for the British occupation of Malaya. The MNLA attacked these industries in the hopes of bankrupting the British and winning independence by making the colonial administration too expensive to maintain. The MNLA launched their first guerrilla attacks in the Gua Musang district.{{Citation needed|date=March 2020}}
Disbanded in December 1945, the MPAJA officially turned in its weapons to the [[British Military Administration (Malaya)|British Military Administration]], although many MPAJA soldiers secretly hid stockpiles of weapons in jungle hideouts. Members who agreed to disband were offered economic incentives. Around 4,000 members rejected these incentives and went underground.<ref name="book_the_malayan_emergency_2008_jackson" />
==Guerrilla war==
[[File:Malayan Emergency Bren Gun.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Leaflet dropped on Malayan insurgents, urging them to come forward with a [[Bren light machine gun|Bren]] gun and receive a [[Malayan dollar|$]]1,000 reward]]
The MNLA commonly employed guerrilla tactics, sabotaging installations, attacking rubber plantations and destroying transportation and infrastructure.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rashid|first=Rehman|year=1993|title=A Malaysian Journey|page=27|isbn=983-99819-1-9}}</ref>
Support for the MNLA mainly came from around 500,000 of the 3.12 million [[Malaysian Chinese|ethnic Chinese]] then living in Malaya. There was a particular component of the Chinese community referred to as 'squatters', farmers living on the edge of the jungles where the MNLA were based. This allowed the MNLA to supply themselves with food, in particular, as well as providing a source of new recruits.<ref name="O. Tilman 1966 407–419">{{cite journal|last=Tilman|first=Robert O.|title=The non-lessons of the Malayan emergency|journal=Asian Survey|date=August 1966|volume=6|issue=8|pages=407–419|doi=10.2307/2642468 |jstor=2642468|url=https://online.ucpress.edu/as/article-abstract/6/8/407/24029/The-Non-Lessons-of-the-Malayan-Emergency?redirectedFrom=fulltext |url-access=subscription}}</ref> The [[ethnic Malay]] population supported them in smaller numbers. The MNLA gained the support of the Chinese because the Chinese were denied the equal right to vote in elections, had no land rights to speak of, and were usually very poor.{{sfnp|Christopher|2013|p=53}} The MNLA's supply organisation was called the [[Min Yuen]] (People’s Movement). It had a network of contacts within the general population. Besides supplying material, especially food, it was also important to the MNLA as a source of intelligence.{{sfnp|Christopher|2013|p=58}}
The MNLA's camps and hideouts were in the inaccessible tropical jungle and had limited infrastructure. Most 90% of MNLA guerrillas were ethnic Chinese, though there were some Malays, Indonesians and Indians among its members.<ref name=":2" /> The MNLA was organised into regiments, although these had no fixed establishments and each included all communist forces operating in a particular region. The regiments had political sections, [[commissar]]s, instructors and secret service. In the camps, the soldiers attended lectures on [[Marxism–Leninism]], and produced political newsletters to be distributed to civilians.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=7}} The MNLA also stipulated that their soldiers needed official permission for any romantic involvement with civilian women.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}
In the early stages of the conflict, the guerrillas envisaged establishing control in "liberated areas" from which the government forces had been driven, but did not succeed in this.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=9}}
===British response===
[[File:SC protection team.jpg|thumb|left|Workers on a rubber plantation in Malaya travel to work under the protection of [[Special Constable]]s, whose function was to guard them throughout the working day against attack by communist forces, 1950.]]
During the first couple of years of the war, the British forces responded with a terror campaign characterised by high levels of state coercion against the civilian population.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Hack|first=Karl|date=28 September 2012|title=Everyone Lived in fear: Malaya and the British way of counter-insurgency|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|journal=Small Wars & Counterinsurgencies|volume=23|issue=4–5|pages=682|doi=10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|s2cid=143847349|via=Taylor & Francis Online}}</ref> Police corruption and the British military's widespread destruction of farmland and burning of homes belonging to villagers rumored to be helping communists, led to a sharp increase in civilians joining the communist forces.<ref name=":3" />
On the military front, the security forces did not know how to fight an enemy moving freely in the jungle and enjoying support from the Chinese rural population. British planters and miners, who bore the brunt of the communist attacks, began to talk about government incompetence and being betrayed by Whitehall.<ref>Souchou Yao. 2016. The Malayan Emergency A Small Distant War. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph series, no. 133. p. 43.</ref>
The initial government strategy was primarily to guard important economic targets, such as mines and plantation estates. Later, in April 1950, General Sir [[Harold Rawdon Briggs|Harold Briggs]], the British Army's Director of Operations was appointed to Malaya. The central tenet of the Briggs Plan was that the best way to defeat an insurgency, such as the government was facing, was to cut the insurgents off from their supporters amongst the population. The Briggs Plan also recognised the inhospitable nature of the Malayan jungle. A major part of the strategy involved targeting the MNLA food supply, which Briggs recognised came from three main sources: camps within the Malayan jungle where land was cleared to provide food, aboriginal jungle dwellers who could supply the MNLA with food gathered within the jungle, and the MNLA supporters within the 'squatter' communities on the edge of the jungle.<ref name="O. Tilman 1966 407–419" />
[[File:Terrorist in Malaya.jpg|thumb|A wounded insurgent being held and questioned after his capture in 1952]]
The Briggs Plan was multifaceted but one aspect has become particularly well known: the forced relocation of some 500,000 rural Malayans, including 400,000 Chinese civilians into internment camps called "[[new village]]s". These villages were surrounded by barbed wire, police posts, and floodlit areas, designed to stop the inmates from being able to contact communist MNLA guerrillas in the jungles.
At the start of the Emergency, the British had 13 infantry battalions in Malaya, including seven partly formed [[Gurkha]] battalions, three British battalions, two battalions of the [[Royal Malay Regiment]] and a British [[Royal Artillery]] Regiment being used as infantry.<ref name="Hack:113">Karl Hack, ''Defense & Decolonization in South-East Asia'', p. 113.</ref> This force was too small to fight the insurgents effectively, and more infantry battalions were needed in Malaya. The British brought in soldiers from units such as the [[Royal Marines]] and [[King's African Rifles]]. Another element in the strategy was the re-formation of the [[Special Air Service]] in 1950 as a specialised reconnaissance, raiding, and [[counter-insurgency]] unit.
The Permanent Secretary of Defence for [[Federation of Malaya|Malaya]], Sir [[Robert Grainger Ker Thompson]], had served in the [[Chindits]] in Burma during World War II. Thompson's in-depth experience of [[jungle warfare]] proved invaluable during this period as he was able to build effective civil-military relations and was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency plan in Malaya.<ref>Joel E. Hamby. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070219203036/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KNN/is_32/ai_105853016 "Civil-military operations: joint doctrine and the Malayan Emergency"], ''Joint Force Quarterly'', Autumn 2002, Paragraph 3,4</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Peoples |first=Curtis |url=http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/2002_Symposium/2002Papers_files/peoples.htm |title=The Use of the British Village Resettlement Model in Malaya and Vietnam, 4th Triennial Symposium (April 11–13, 2002), The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071226023950/http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/2002_Symposium/2002Papers_files/peoples.htm |archive-date=26 December 2007}}</ref>
On 6 October 1951, the British High Commissioner in Malaya, Sir [[Henry Gurney]], was assassinated during an MNLA ambush. General [[Gerald Templer]] was chosen to become the new High Commissioner in January 1952. During Templer's two-year command, "two-thirds of the guerrillas were wiped out and lost over half their strength, the incident rate fell from 500 to less than 100 per month and the civilian and security force casualties from 200 to less than 40."<ref>{{cite book | last=Clutterbuck | first=Richard | title=Conflict and violence in Singapore and Malaysia 1945–83 | year=1985 | publisher=Graham Brash | location=Singapore}}</ref> Orthodox historiography suggests that Templer changed the situation in the Emergency and his [[The Templer Plan|actions and policies]] were a major part of British success during his period in command. Revisionist historians have challenged this view and frequently support the ideas of [[Victor Purcell]], a Sinologist who as early as 1954 claimed that Templer merely continued policies begun by his predecessors.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ramakrishna |first=Kumar |date=February 2001 |title='Transmogrifying' Malaya: The Impact of Sir Gerald Templer (1952–54) |journal=Journal of Southeast Asian Studies |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=79–92 |doi=10.1017/S0022463401000030 |jstor=20072300|s2cid=159660378 }}</ref>
The MNLA was vastly outnumbered by the British forces and their Commonwealth and colonial allies in terms of regular full-time soldiers. Siding with the British occupation were a maximum of 40,000 British and other Commonwealth troops, 250,000 Home Guard members, and 66,000 police agents. Supporting the communists were 7,000+ communist guerrillas (1951 peak), an estimated 1,000,000 million sympathisers, and an unknown number of civilian [[Min Yuen]] supporters and [[Orang Asli]] sympathisers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hack|first=Karl|date=2012|title=Everyone lived in fear: Malaya and the British way of counter-insurgency|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|journal=Small Wars and Insurgencies|volume=23|issue=4–5|pages=671–699|doi=10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|s2cid=143847349|via=Taylor & Francis Online}}</ref>
===Control of anti-guerrilla operations===
[[File:Police in Malayan Emergency.jpg|thumb|Police officers question a civilian during the Malayan Emergency.]]
At all levels of the Malayan government (national, state, and district levels), the military and civil authority was assumed by a committee of military, police and civilian administration officials. This allowed intelligence from all sources to be rapidly evaluated and disseminated and also allowed all anti-guerrilla measures to be co-ordinated.<ref name="conduct_1958_chap_3">Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya, Director of Operations, Malaya, 1958, Chapter III: Own Forces</ref>
Each of the Malay states had a State War Executive Committee which included the State Chief Minister as chairman, the Chief Police Officer, the senior military commander, state home guard officer, state financial officer, state information officer, executive secretary, and up to six selected community leaders. The Police, Military, and Home Guard representatives and the Secretary formed the operations sub-committee responsible for the day-to-day direction of emergency operations. The operations subcommittees as a whole made joint decisions.<ref name="conduct_1958_chap_3" />
===Nature of warfare===
[[File:The Malayan Emergency 1948-1960 MAL35.jpg|thumb|Malayan Police conducting a patrol around the [[Belum-Temengor|Temenggor]], 1953]]
The British Army soon realised that clumsy sweeps by large formations were unproductive.{{sfnp|Nagl|2002|pp=67–70}} Instead, platoons or sections carried out patrols and laid ambushes, based on intelligence from various sources, including informers, surrendered MNLA personnel, aerial reconnaissance and so on. A typical operation was "Nassau", carried out in the [[Kuala Langat]] swamp (excerpt from the Marine Corps School's ''The Guerrilla – and how to Fight Him''):
{{Quote|After several assassinations, a British battalion was assigned to the area. Food control was achieved through a system of rationing, convoys, gate checks, and searches. One company began operations in the swamp, about 21 December 1954. On 9 January 1955, full-scale tactical operations began; artillery, mortars, and aircraft began harassing fires in the South Swamp. Originally, the plan was to bomb and shell the swamp day and night so that the terrorists would be driven out into ambushes; but the terrorists were well prepared to stay indefinitely. Food parties came out occasionally, but the civil population was too afraid to report them.
Plans were modified; harassing fires were reduced to night-time only. Ambushes continued and patrolling inside the swamp was intensified. Operations of this nature continued for three months without results. Finally on 21 March, an ambush party, after forty-five hours of waiting, succeeded in killing two of eight terrorists. The first two red pins, signifying kills, appeared on the operations map, and local morale rose a little.
Another month passed before it was learned that the terrorists were making a contact inside the swamp. One platoon established an ambush; one terrorist appeared and was killed. May passed without contact. In June, a chance meeting by a patrol accounted for one killed and one captured. A few days later, after four fruitless days of patrolling, one platoon en route to camp accounted for two more terrorists. The No. 3 terrorist in the area surrendered and stated that food control was so effective that one terrorist had been murdered in a quarrel over food.
On 7 July, two additional companies were assigned to the area; patrolling and harassing fires were intensified. Three terrorists surrendered and one of them led a platoon patrol to the terrorist leader's camp. The patrol attacked the camp, killing four, including the leader. Other patrols accounted for four more; by the end of July, twenty-three terrorists remained in the swamp with no food or communications with the outside world.
This was the nature of operations: 60,000 artillery shells, 30,000 rounds of mortar ammunition, and 2,000 aircraft bombs for 35 terrorists killed or captured. Each one represented 1,500 man-days of patrolling or waiting in ambushes. "Nassau" was considered a success for the end of the emergency was one step nearer.<ref>Taber, ''The War of the Flea'', pp.140–141. Quote from Marine Corps Schools, "Small Unit Operations" in ''The Guerrilla – and how to Fight Him''</ref>}}
==Commonwealth contribution==
In addition to British and Malayan units and personnel, a range of Commonwealth forces were also involved, including troops from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Kenya, [[Nyasaland]], and [[Northern Rhodesia|Northern]] and [[Southern Rhodesia]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Malayan Campaign 1948–60 |last=Scurr |first=John |publisher=Osprey Publishing |location=Oxford |year=2005 |orig-year=1981 |isbn=978-0-85045-476-5}}</ref>
===Australia===
{{Main|Military history of Australia during the Malayan Emergency}}
The first Australian ground forces, the [[2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment]] (2 RAR), arrived in 1955.<ref name="awm.gov.au">{{cite web|title=Malayan Emergency, 1950–60|url=http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/emergency.asp|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080503033039/http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/emergency.asp|archive-date=3 May 2008|access-date=23 October 2011|publisher=Australian War Memorial}}</ref> The battalion was later replaced by [[3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment|3 RAR]], which in turn was replaced by [[1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment|1 RAR]]. The [[Royal Australian Air Force]] contributed [[No. 1 Squadron RAAF|No. 1 Squadron]] ([[Avro Lincoln]] bombers) and [[No. 38 Squadron RAAF|No. 38 Squadron]] ([[C-47 Skytrain|C-47]] transports), operating out of Singapore, early in the conflict. In 1955, the RAAF extended [[RAAF Base Butterworth|Butterworth air base]], from which [[English Electric Canberra|Canberra]] bombers of [[No. 2 Squadron RAAF|No. 2 Squadron]] (replacing No. 1 Squadron) and [[CAC Sabre]]s of [[No. 78 Wing RAAF|No. 78 Wing]] carried out ground attack missions against the guerillas. The [[Royal Australian Navy]] destroyers {{HMAS|Warramunga|I44|2}} and {{HMAS|Arunta|I30|2}} joined the force in June 1955. Between 1956 and 1960, the aircraft carriers {{HMAS|Melbourne|R21|2}} and {{HMAS|Sydney|1944|2}} and destroyers {{HMAS|Anzac|D59|2}}, {{HMAS|Quadrant|G11|2}}, {{HMAS|Queenborough|G30|2}}, {{HMAS|Quiberon|G81|2}}, {{HMAS|Quickmatch|G92|2}}, {{HMAS|Tobruk|D37|2}}, {{HMAS|Vampire|D11|2}}, {{HMAS|Vendetta|D08|2}} and {{HMAS|Voyager|D04|2}} were attached to the [[Commonwealth Strategic Reserve]] forces for three to nine months at a time. Several of the destroyers fired on communist positions in [[Johor]] State.
===New Zealand===
{{Main|Military history of New Zealand in Malaysia}}
A total of 1,300 New Zealanders served in the Malayan Emergency between 1948 and 1964, and fifteen lost their lives.
New Zealand's first contribution came in 1949, when [[C-47 Skytrain|C-47 Dakotas]] of [[No. 41 Squadron RNZAF|RNZAF No. 41 Squadron]] were attached to the [[Royal Air Force]]'s [[RAF Far East Air Force|Far East Air Force]]. New Zealand became more directly involved in the conflict in 1955; from May, RNZAF [[de Havilland Vampire]]s and [[de Havilland Venom|Venoms]] began to fly strike missions. In November 1955 133 soldiers of what was to become the [[Special Air Service of New Zealand]] arrived from Singapore, for training in-country with the British SAS, beginning operations by April 1956. The [[Royal New Zealand Air Force]] continued to carry out strike missions with Venoms of [[No. 14 Squadron RNZAF|No. 14 Squadron]]<ref>Ian McGibbon (Ed.), (2000). ''The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History.'' p.294.</ref> and later [[No. 75 Squadron RNZAF|No. 75 Squadron]] [[English Electric Canberra]]s, as well as supply-dropping operations in support of anti-guerrilla forces, using the [[Bristol Freighter]].
===Rhodesia===
{{Main|Southern Rhodesian military involvement in the Malayan Emergency}}
[[File:C Squadron (Rhodesian) SAS, 1953.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Rhodesian Special Air Service|"C" Squadron]], the all-Southern Rhodesian unit of the Special Air Service (SAS), in Malaya in 1953|alt=A formative black-and-white photograph of military personnel. The men wear khaki shirts and shorts with long, dark-coloured socks. They all wear dark berets.]]
[[Southern Rhodesia]] and its successor, the [[Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland]], contributed two units to Malaya. Between 1951 and 1953, white Southern Rhodesian volunteers formed [[Rhodesian Special Air Service|"C" Squadron]] of the [[Special Air Service]].<ref>{{cite book
|title=Masodja: The History of the Rhodesian African Rifles and its forerunner the Rhodesian Native Regiment
|last=Binda
|first=Alexandre
|editor-last=Heppenstall
|editor-first=David
|location=Johannesburg
|publisher=30° South Publishers
|date=November 2007
|isbn=978-1920143039
|page=127}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book
|title=The Special Air Service
|url=https://archive.org/details/specialairservic00libg
|url-access=limited
|last1=Shortt
|first1=James
|author-link1=
|others=illustrated by Angus McBride
|publisher=Osprey Publishing
|series=Men-at-arms 116
|location=Oxford
|year=1981
|isbn=0-85045-396-8
|pages=[https://archive.org/details/specialairservic00libg/page/n19 19]–20}}</ref> The [[Rhodesian African Rifles]], comprising black soldiers and [[warrant officer]]s but led by white officers, served in [[Johor]]e state for two years from 1956.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Masodja: The History of the Rhodesian African Rifles and its forerunner the Rhodesian Native Regiment
|last=Binda
|first=Alexandre
|editor-last=Heppenstall
|editor-first=David
|location=Johannesburg
|publisher=30° South Publishers
|date=November 2007
|isbn=978-1920143039
|pages=127–128}}</ref>
===Fiji===
During the four years of Fijian involvement, from 1952 to 1956, some 1,600 Fijian troops served. The first to arrive were the 1st Battalion, [[Fiji Infantry Regiment]]. Twenty-five Fijian troops died in combat in Malaya.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Center/Press-Releases/DOCUMENTARY-TO-EXPLORE-RELATIONSHIP-BETWEEN-MALAYS.aspx|work=Fiji Government Online Portal|title=Documentary to Explore the Relationship Between Malaysia and Fiji During the Malayan Emergency|access-date=13 September 2014|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183747/https://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Centre/News/DOCUMENTARY-TO-EXPLORE-RELATIONSHIP-BETWEEN-MALAYS|url-status=live}}</ref> Friendships on and off the battlefield developed between the two nations; the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], became a friend and mentor to Ratu Sir [[Edward Cakobau]], who was a commander of the Fijian Battalion, and who later went on to become the Deputy PM of Fiji and whose son Brigadier General [[Epeli Nailatikau|Ratu Epeli]] was a future President of Fiji.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.fijisun.com.fj/2014/01/30/documentary-to-explore-fijian-malaysian-links/|title=Documentary To Explore Fijian, Malaysian Links |access-date=13 September 2014 |work=Fiji Sun |date=30 January 2014|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183752/https://fijisun.com.fj/2014/01/30/documentary-to-explore-fijian-malaysian-links/|url-status=live }}</ref> The experience was captured in the documentary, ''Back to Batu Pahat''.
===Kenya, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland===
The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions of the [[King's African Rifles]] from [[Nyasaland]], [[Northern Rhodesia]] and [[Kenya]] respectively also served there suffering 23 losses.
==Resolution==
On 6 October 1951, the MNLA ambushed and killed the British High Commissioner, Sir [[Henry Gurney]]. The killing has been described as a major factor in causing the Malayan population to roundly reject the MNLA campaign, and also as leading to widespread fear due to the perception that "if even the High Commissioner was no longer safe, there was little hope of protection and safety for the man-in-the-street in Malaya."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ongkili|first=James P.|year=1985|title=Nation-building in Malaysia 1946–1974|page=79|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-582681-7}}</ref> Later, MNLA leader Chin Peng stated that the killing had little effect and that the communists were already altering their strategy, according to new guidelines enshrined in the so-called "October Resolutions".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_aPdeJinXGwC&pg=PA298 |title=Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party |authors= Chin, C. C. Chin; Hack, Karl |publisher=NUS Press|year= 2004|isbn=9789971692872 }}</ref>
The October Resolutions, a response to the Briggs Plan, involved a change of tactics by the MPLA by reducing attacks on economic targets and civilians, increasing efforts to go into political organisation and subversion, and bolstering the supply network from the [[Min Yuen]] as well as jungle farming.
[[File:Chin Peng wanted by Malaya.jpg|thumb|Headline on page 1 of ''[[The Straits Times]]'' of 1952. [[Chin Peng]]: Public Enemy No.1]]
Gurney's successor, Lieutenant General [[Gerald Templer]], was instructed by the British government to push for immediate measures to give Chinese ethnic residents the right to vote.
===Amnesty declaration===
On 8 September 1955, the Government of the Federation of Malaya issued a declaration of amnesty to the communists.<ref>Memorandum from the Chief Minister and Minister for Internal and Security, No. 386/17/56, 30 April 1956. CO1030/30</ref> The Government of Singapore issued an identical offer at the same time. [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], as Chief Minister, made good the offer of an amnesty but promised there would be no negotiations with the MNLA. The terms of the amnesty were:
* Those of you who come in and surrender will not be prosecuted for any offence connected with the Emergency, which you have committed under Communist direction, either before this date or in ignorance of this declaration.
* You may surrender now and to whom you like including to members of the public.
* There will be no general "ceasefire" but the security forces will be on alert to help those who wish to accept this offer and for this purpose local "ceasefire" will be arranged.
* The Government will conduct investigations on those who surrender. Those who show that they are genuinely intent to be loyal to the Government of Malaya and to give up their Communist activities will be helped to regain their normal position in society and be reunited with their families. As regards the remainder, restrictions will have to be placed on their liberty but if any of them wish to go to China, their request will be given due consideration.<ref name="ReferenceA">Prof Madya Dr. Nik Anuar Nik Mahmud, Tunku Abdul Rahman and His Role in the Baling Talks</ref>
Following the declaration, an intensive publicity campaign on an unprecedented scale was launched by the government. Alliance Ministers in the Federal Government travelled extensively up and down the country exhorting the people to call upon the communists to lay down their arms and take advantage of the amnesty. Despite the campaign, few Communists surrendered to the authorities. Some critics in the political circles commented that the amnesty was too restrictive and little more than a restatement of the surrender terms which had been in force for a long period. The critics advocated a more realistic and liberal approach of direct negotiations with the MCP to work out a settlement of the issue. Leading officials of the [[Labour Party of Malaya|Labour Party]] had, as part of the settlement, not excluded the possibility of recognition of the MCP as a political organisation. Within the Alliance itself, influential elements in both the [[Malaysian Chinese Association|MCA]] and [[United Malays National Organisation|UMNO]] were endeavouring to persuade the Chief Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, to hold negotiations with the MCP.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
===Baling talks and their consequences===
{{Main|Baling Talks}}
[[File:Malya Emergency British Artillery.jpg|thumb|right|British artillery firing on an insurgent hide-out in the Malayan jungle, 1955]]
Realising that the tide of the war was turning against him, Chin Peng indicated that he would be ready to meet with British officials alongside senior Malayan politicians in 1955. The talks took place in the Government English School at [[Baling]] on 28 December. Chin Ping walked out from the jungle and tried to negotiate with the leader of the Federation, [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], but the British Intelligence Service worried that the MCP would regain influence in society. The MCP was represented by [[Chin Peng]], the Secretary-General, [[Rashid Maidin]] and [[Chen Tien]], head of the MCP's Central Propaganda Department. On the other side were three elected national representatives, [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], Dato' [[Tan Cheng Lock|Tan Cheng-Lock]] and [[David Marshall (Singaporean politician)|David Saul Marshall]], the Chief Minister of Singapore. The meeting was intended to design an end to the conflict but the Malayan government representatives, led by Tunku Abdul Rahman, dismissed all of Chin Peng's demands. As a result, the conflict heightened, and, in response, [[New Zealand]] sent NZSAS soldiers, [[No. 14 Squadron RNZAF]], [[No. 41 Squadron RNZAF|No. 41 (Bristol Freighter) Squadron RNZAF]] and, later, [[No. 75 Squadron RNZAF]]; other [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] members also sent troops to aid the British.
Following the failure of the talks, Tunku decided to withdraw the amnesty on 8 February 1956, five months after it had been offered, stating that he would not be willing to meet the Communists again unless they indicated beforehand their desire to see him with a view to making "a complete surrender".<ref>MacGillivray to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 15 March 1956, CO1030/22</ref> Despite the failure of the talks, the MCP made every effort to resume peace talks with the Malayan government, without success. Meanwhile, discussions began in the new Emergency Operations Council to intensify the "People's War" against the guerillas. In July 1957, a few weeks before independence, the MCP made another attempt at peace talks, suggesting the following conditions for a negotiated peace:
* its members should be given privileges enjoyed by citizens
* a guarantee that political as well as armed members of the MCP would not be punished
The failure of the talks affected MCP policy. At the same time, the strength of the MNLA and 'Min Yuen' declined to only 1830 members in August 1957. Those who remained faced going into exile, or death in the jungle. Tunku Abdul Rahman, however, did not respond to the MCP's proposals. With the independence of Malaya under Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman on 31 August 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 [[Thailand|Thai border]] and further east. On 31 July 1960 the Malayan government declared the state of emergency was over, and Chin Peng left south Thailand for Beijing where he was accommodated by the Chinese authorities in the International Liaison Bureau, where many other Southeast Asian Communist Party leaders were housed.{{cn|date=November 2021}}
==Casualties==
During the conflict, security forces killed 6,710 MRLA guerrillas and captured 1,287, while 2,702 guerrillas surrendered during the conflict, and approximately 500 more did so at its conclusion. 1,345 Malayan troops and police were killed during the fighting,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/my_polic.html |title=Royal Malaysian Police (Malaysia) |publisher=Crwflags.com |access-date=3 January 2014 |archive-date=14 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814232634/https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/my_polic.html |url-status=live }}</ref> as well as 519 Commonwealth personnel.<ref name="Smith">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IY9MDAAAQBAJ&q=519+Commonwealth+2,478+civilians&pg=PT52|title=Long Tan: The Start of a Lifelong Battle|last=Smith|first=Harry|date=2015-08-01|publisher=Big Sky Publishing|isbn=9781922132321|language=en|access-date=1 November 2020|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183715/https://books.google.com/books?id=IY9MDAAAQBAJ&q=519+Commonwealth+2%2C478+civilians&pg=PT52|url-status=live}}</ref> 2,478 civilians were killed, with another 810 recorded as missing.<ref name="Smith"/><!-- No page numbers?
The citation includes a link to a google books site which shows me where the casualty numbers are, but this strange book appears to have no page numbers.
How are we supposed to cite a book with no page numbers? -->
==War crimes==
===Commonwealth===
{{Main|List of war crimes#1948.E2.80.931960:_Malayan_Emergency|l1=List of war crimes § 1948-1960: Malayan Emergency|Bukit Kepong incident}}
[[War crimes]] have been broadly defined by the [[Nuremberg Principles]] as "violations of the [[laws or customs of war]]," which includes [[massacres]], [[bomb]]ings of civilian targets, [[terrorism]], [[mutilation]], [[torture]], and the murder of [[detainees]] and [[prisoners of war]]. Additional common crimes include [[theft]], [[arson]], and the destruction of [[property]] not warranted by [[military necessity]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Gary D. Solis|title=The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FKf0ocxEPAC&pg=PA301|date=15 February 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-48711-5|pages=301–303|access-date=27 June 2015|archive-date=16 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016051735/https://books.google.com/books?id=6FKf0ocxEPAC&pg=PA301|url-status=live}}</ref>
====Torture====
During the Malayan conflict, there were instances during operations to find insurgents where British troops detained and [[torture]]d villagers who were suspected of aiding the insurgents. Brian Lapping said that there was "some vicious conduct by the British forces, who routinely beat up Chinese [[Squatting|squatters]] when they refused, or possibly were unable, to give information" about the insurgents.{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}} [[The Scotsman|''The'' ''Scotsman'']] newspaper lauded these tactics as a good practice since "simple-minded peasants are told and come to believe that the communist leaders are invulnerable".{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}} Some civilians and detainees were also shot, either because they attempted to flee from and potentially aid insurgents or simply because they refused to give intelligence to British forces.{{cn|date=December 2021}}
Widespread use of arbitrary detention, punitive actions against villages, and use of torture by the police, "created animosity" between Chinese squatters and British forces in Malaya and "were therefore counterproductive in generating the one resource critical in a counterinsurgency, good intelligence".<ref name="MAY">{{citation |last=Siver |first=Christi |title=The Other Forgotten War: Understanding Atrocities during the Malayan Emergency |date=2009 |work=Political Science Faculty Publications. 8 |url=http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=polsci_pubs |publisher=College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University |quote=<!-- Prepared for delivery at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 3-6, 2009 -->}} </ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}} <!--p38-39 -->
British troops were often unable to tell the difference between enemy [[combatant]]s and [[civilian]]s while conducting [[military operations]] through the jungles, due to the fact that many Min Yuen wore civilian clothing and had support from sympathetic civilian populations.
====Batang Kali Massacre====
During the [[Batang Kali massacre]], 24 unarmed civilians were executed by the [[Scots Guard]]s near a rubber plantation at Sungai Rimoh near [[Batang Kali]] in [[Selangor]] in December 1948. All the victims were male, ranging in age from young teenage boys to elderly men.{{sfn|Hack|2018|p=210}} Many of the victims' bodies were found to have been mutilated and their village of Batang Kali was burned to the ground. No weapons were found when the village was searched. The only survivor of the killings was a man named Chong Hong who was in his 20s at the time. He fainted and was presumed dead.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup|title=New documents reveal cover-up of 1948 British 'massacre' of villagers in Malaya|newspaper=The Guardian|date=9 April 2011|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-date=30 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930043116/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thesundaily.my/news/868710|title=Batang Kali massacre families snubbed|newspaper=The Sun Daily|date=29 October 2013|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211224000/http://www.thesundaily.my/news/868710|archive-date=11 December 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/18/malaysia-petition-batang-kali-massacre|title=UK urged to accept responsibility for 1948 Batang Kali massacre in Malaya|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=18 June 2013|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183747/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/18/malaysia-petition-batang-kali-massacre|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19473258|title=Malaysian lose fight for 1948 'massacre' inquiry|website=BBC News|date=4 September 2012|access-date=13 January 2014|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183737/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-19473258|url-status=live}}</ref> Soon afterwards the British colonial occupation staged a coverup of British military abuses which served to obfuscate the exact details of the massacre.{{sfn|Hack|2018|p=212}}
The massacre later became the focus of decades of legal battles between the UK government and the families of the civilians executed by British troops.
According to Christi Silver, Batang Kali was notable in that it was the only incident of mass killings by Commonwealth forces during the war, which Silver attributes to the unique subculture of the Scots Guards and poor enforcement of discipline by junior officers.<ref>Siver, Christi L. "The other forgotten war: understanding atrocities during the Malayan Emergency." In APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper. 2009.</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}}
==== Destruction of villages ====
====Decapitations and mutilation====
During the war British and Commonwealth forces hired [[Iban people|Iban]] headhunters from Borneo to decapitate suspected MNLA members, arguing that this was done so for identification purposes.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Harrison|first=Simon|title=Dark Trophies: Hunting and the Enemy Body in Modern War|publisher=Berghahn|year=2012|isbn=978-1-78238-520-2|location=Oxford|pages=158|language=English}}</ref> However in practice this led to British troops taking the decapitated heads of Malayan people as trophies.<ref name=":1" /> Proof of this practice was first leaked to the public in 1952 when the [[Communist Party of Great Britain|British communist]] the [[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]] published multiple photographs of British soldiers posing with decapitated heads as trophies.<ref name=":1" /> Initially British government spokespersons belonging to the [[Admiralty (United Kingdom)|Admiralty]] and the [[Colonial Office]] claimed the photographs were fake. However, Colonial Secretary [[Oliver Lyttelton]] (after confirmation from Gerald Templer) confirmed to parliament that the photos were indeed genuine.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History|last1=Peng|first1=Chin|last2=Ward|first2=Ian|last3=Miraflor|first3=Norma|publisher=Media Masters|year=2003|isbn=981-04-8693-6|location=Singapore|pages=302}}</ref> The Colonial Office privately noted that "there is no doubt that under [[international law]] a similar case in wartime would be a war crime".<ref name="MAL">{{cite book |title=Malaysian Chinese & China: Conversion in Identity Consciousness, 1945–1957 |pages=61–65 |author=Fujio Hara |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |date=December 2002}}</ref><ref name="Mark Curtis 61–71">{{cite book |title=The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 |pages=61–71 |author=Mark Curtis |date=15 August 1995}}</ref> After the ''Daily Worker'' articles exposing the decapitating MNLA suspects the practice was banned by Winston Churchill who feared that such photographs would give ammunition to communist propaganda.<ref name=":1" /> After the war, one of the trophy heads was found within a British regimental museum.<ref name=":1" />
There were also cases of dead guerrillas being exhibited in public for identification, and to potentially entrap grieving associates.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}
====Internment camps====
As part of the [[Briggs Plan]] devised by British General Sir [[Harold Rawdon Briggs|Harold Briggs]], 500,000 people (roughly ten percent of Malaya's population) were forced from their homes by British forces. Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed, and many people were imprisoned in British [[Internment Camp]]s called "[[new village]]s". The policy aimed to inflict [[collective punishment]] on villages where people were thought to be support communism, and also to isolate civilians from guerrilla activity. Many of the forced evictions involved the destruction of existing settlements which went beyond the justification of [[military necessity]]. This practice was prohibited by the [[Geneva Conventions]] and [[customary international law]], which stated that the destruction of property must not happen unless rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.<ref name="MAY"/><ref name="MAL"/><ref name="Pamela Sodhy 1991 284–290">{{cite book |title=The US-Malaysian Nexus: Themes in Superpower-Small State Relations |pages=284–290 |publisher=Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia |author=Pamela Sodhy |year=1991}}</ref>
====Deportations====
{{more detail needed|date="November 2021}}
Over the course of the war, some 30,000 mostly ethnic Chinese were deported by the British authorities to mainland China.<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc" /><ref>Chin, C. (2012). Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party. Chinese Edition.</ref>
==Comparisons with Vietnam==
===Differences===
[[Image:Jungle service dress.JPG|thumb|upright=0.8|Jungle service dress of the [[Somerset Light Infantry|1st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry]] used in the emergency]]
The conflicts in Malaya and [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]] have often been compared,<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc" /> with historians asking how a British force of 35,000 succeeded to quell a communist insurgency in Malaya, while over half a million U.S. and allied soldiers failed in the comparably sized Vietnam. The two conflicts differ in the following ways:
* The MNLA never numbered more than about 8,000 insurgents, but the [[People's Army of Vietnam|People's Army of (North) Vietnam]] fielded over a quarter-million soldiers, in addition to roughly 100,000 [[Viet Cong|National Liberation Front (or Vietcong)]] guerillas.
* The Soviet Union, North Korea,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1427367.stm |title=N Korea admits Vietnam war role |work=BBC News |author=Gluck, Caroline |access-date=7 July 2001 |archive-date=3 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183714/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1427367.stm |url-status=live }}</ref> Cuba<ref>Bourne, Peter G. ''Fidel: A Biography of Fidel Castro'' (1986) p. 255; Coltman, Leycester ''The Real Fidel Castro'' (2003) p. 211</ref> and the People's Republic of China (PRC) provided large amounts of the latest military hardware, logistical support, personnel and training to North Vietnam, whereas the MNLA received no material support, weapons or training from any foreign government or party.
* North Vietnam's shared border with its ally China (PRC) allowed for continuous assistance and resupply, but Malaya's only land border is with non-communist Thailand.
* Britain did not approach the Emergency as a conventional conflict and quickly implemented an effective intelligence strategy, led by the Malayan Police Special Branch, and a systematic [[Winning hearts and minds|hearts and minds]] operation, both of which proved effective against the largely ''political'' aims of the guerrilla movement.<ref>Comber (2006), ''Malaya's Secret Police 1945–60. The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency''</ref><ref name="Clutterbuck">{{cite book|last=Clutterbuck|first=Richard|title=The long long war: The emergency in Malaya, 1948–1960|publisher=Cassell|year=1967}} Cited at length in Vietnam War essay on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency [https://web.archive.org/web/20071020064959/http://ehistory.osu.edu/vietnam/essays/insurgency/0006.cfm Lessons from Malaya], eHistory, Ohio State University.</ref>
* Vietnam was less ethnically fragmentated than Malaya. During the Emergency, most of MNLA members ethnically [[Malaysian Chinese|Chinese]] and drew support from sections of the Chinese community.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=53}} However, most of the more numerous indigenous Malays, many of whom were animated by anti-Chinese sentiments, remained loyal to the government and enlisted in high numbers into the security services.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=13}}
* Many Malayans had fought side by side with the British against the [[Japanese occupation of Malaya]], including the future leader of the MPLA, Chin Peng. That contrasted with Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), where colonial officials of Vichy France had been subordinate to the conquering Japanese forces, which fostered Vietnamese nationalism against France.
* The British military recognised that in a [[low-intensity conflict|low-intensity war]], individual soldiers' skill and endurance are of far greater importance than overwhelming firepower (artillery, air support, etc.). Even though many British soldiers were [[Conscription in the United Kingdom#After 1945|conscripted National Servicemen]], the necessary skills and attitudes were taught at a Jungle Warfare School, which also developed the optimum tactics based on experience gained in the field.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/historic/hist_c3_pt1.pdf |title=Analysis of British tactics in Malaya |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080911061212/http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/historic/hist_c3_pt1.pdf |archive-date=11 September 2008}}</ref>
* In Vietnam, soldiers and supplies passed through external countries such as [[CIA activities in Laos|Laos]] and [[Cambodian Campaign|Cambodia]], where US forces were not legally permitted to enter. That allowed Vietnamese communist troops a safe haven from US ground attacks. The MNLA had only a border with [[Thailand]], where they were forced to take shelter near the end of the conflict.
===Similarities===
Many tactics used by the Americans in Vietnam were similar to those used by the British in Malaya. Some examples are listed below.
====Agent Orange====
{{Main|Agent Orange}}
During the Malayan Emergency, Britain was the first nation to employ the use of [[herbicides]] and [[defoliants]] to destroy bushes, food crops, and trees to deprive the insurgents of cover and as part of the food denial campaign in the early 1950s. The [[2,4,5-T]] and [[2,4-D]] (Agent Orange) were used to clear [[lines of communication]] and wipe out food crops as part of this strategy and in 1952, [[trioxone]], and mixtures of the aforementioned herbicides, were sent along a number of key roads. From June to October 1952, 1,250 acres of roadside vegetation at possible ambush points were sprayed with defoliant, described as a policy of "national importance." The British reported that the use of herbicides and defoliants could be effectively replaced by removing vegetation by hand and the spraying was stopped. However, after that strategy failed, the use of herbicides and defoliants in effort to fight the insurgents was restarted under the command of British General Sir [[Gerald Templer]] in February 1953 as a means of destroying food crops grown by communist forces in jungle clearings. [[Helicopters]] and [[fixed-wing aircraft]] despatched [[Trichloroacetic acid|STCA]] and Trioxaone, along with pellets of [[(2-Chlorophenyl)thiourea|chlorophenyl]] [[N,N-Dimethyl-1-naphthylamine]] onto crops such as [[sweet potatoes]] and [[maize]]. Many Commonwealth personnel who handled and/or used Agent Orange during the conflict suffered from serious exposure to dioxin and Agent Orange. An estimated 10,000 civilians and insurgents in Malaya also suffered from the effects of the defoliant, but many historians think that the number is much larger since Agent Orange was used on a large scale in the Malayan conflict and, unlike the US, the British government limited information about its use to avoid negative world public opinion). The prolonged absence of vegetation caused by defoliation also resulted in major [[soil erosion]] to areas of Malaya.<ref>{{cite book |title=Pesticide Dilemma in the Third World: A Case Study of Malaysia |pages=23 |publisher=Phoenix Press |year=1984}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Dioxins and Health |url=https://archive.org/details/dioxinshealth00sche_546 |url-access=limited |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dioxinshealth00sche_546/page/n157 145]–160 |author=Arnold Schecter, Thomas A. Gasiewicz |date=4 July 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Reference Handbook |pages=178–180 |author=Albert J. Mauroni |date=July 2003}}</ref>
After the Malayan Conflict ended in 1960, the US used the British precedent in deciding that the use of defoliants was a [[law of war|legally-accepted tactic of warfare]]. [[US Secretary of State]] [[Dean Rusk]] advised [[US President]] [[John F. Kennedy]] that the precedent of using herbicide in warfare had been established by the British through their use of aircraft to spray herbicide and thus destroy enemy crops and thin the thick jungle of northern Malaya.<ref name="USE">{{cite book |title=The Global Politics of Pesticides: Forging Consensus from Conflicting Interests |page=61 |author=Bruce Cumings |year=1998 |publisher=[[Earthscan]]}}</ref><ref name="Pamela Sodhy 1991 284–290"/>
====Aerial bombardment====
Like the [[US Air Force]] in Vietnam, widespread [[saturation bombardment]] was used by the [[Royal Air Force]] throughout the conflict in Malaya. Britain conducted 4,500 airstrikes in the first five years of the Malayan war. Mapping was poor, communications were abysmal, the meteorology was unfavourable and airfields were few. Buzzing likely enemy positions was used (the modern '[[show of force]]'), and the bombing of potential escape routes was also occasionally practised. The author Robert Jackson said, "During 1956, some 545,000 lb. of bombs had been dropped on a supposed guerrilla encampment. but a lack of accurate pinpoints had nullified the effect. The camp was again attacked at the beginning of May 1957, dropping a total of 94,000 lb. of bombs, but because of inaccurate target information, this weight of explosive was 250 yards off target. Then, on 15 May. 70,000 lb. of bombs were dropped". "The attack was entirely successful", Jackson declares, since "four terrorists were killed". He also notds that a 500 lb. nose-fused bomb was employed from August 1948 and had a mean area of effectiveness of 15,000 square feet. "Another very viable weapon" was the 20 lb. [[Fragmentation (weaponry)|fragmentation bomb]], a forerunner of [[cluster bombs]]. "Since a [[Short Sunderland|Sunderland]] could carry a load of 190, its effect on terrorist morale was considerable", Jackson states. "Unfortunately, it was not used in great numbers, despite its excellent potential as a harassing weapon". On one occasion a [[Avro Lincoln|Lincoln]] bomber "dropped its bombs 600 yards short. killing twelve civilians and injuring twenty-six others". The British reported that bombing jungles was largely a waste of effort because of inaccurate targeting and the inability to confirm if a target was hostile or not. Throughout the 12-year conflict, between 670 and 995 [[non-combatants]] were killed by British RAF bombers.<ref name="MAY" /><ref name="Mark Curtis 61–71"/><ref>{{cite book |title=The Malayan Emergency |pages=28–34 |author=Robert Jackson |date=August 2008}}</ref>
====Resettlement programme====
Britain also set up a "[[population transfer|resettlement]]" programme, which provided a model for the Americans' [[Strategic Hamlet Program]] in Vietnam. During the Malayan Emergency, 450 [[new village]]s were created and it is estimated that 470,509 people, 400,000 of whom were Chinese, were [[interned]] in the resettlement program. A key British war measure was inflicting [[collective punishments]] on villages whose people were deemed to be aiding the insurgents. At [[Tanjung Malim|Tanjong Malim]] in March 1952, Templer imposed a twenty-two-hour house [[curfew]], banned everyone from leaving the village, closed the schools, stopped bus services, and reduced the rice rations for 20,000 people. The last measure prompted the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to write to the Colonial Office to note that the "chronically undernourished Malayan" might not be able to survive as a result. "This measure is bound to result in an increase, not only of sickness but also of deaths, particularly amongst the mothers and very young children". Some people were fined for leaving their homes to use external latrines. In another collective punishment, at [[Sungai Pelek|Sengei Pelek]] the following month, measures included a house curfew, a reduction of 40 percent in the rice ration and the construction of a chain-link fence 22 yards outside the existing barbed wire fence around the town. Officials explained that the measures were being imposed upon the 4,000 villagers "for their continually supplying food" to the insurgents and "because they did not give information to the authorities".<ref>{{cite book |title=The US-Malaysian nexus: Themes in superpower-small state relations |pages=356–365 |author=Pamela Sodhy |publisher=Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia |year=1991}}</ref>
[[File:Malayan Police patrol.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|Two suspected guerillas after capture by Jungle Squad officers]]
====Search and destroy====
As the Americans later did in Vietnam, British troops sometimes set fire to villages whose inhabitants were accused of supporting the insurgents, detained thousands of suspected collaborators, and denied the insurgents cover. British units that discovered civilians providing assistance to insurgents were to detain and interrogate them by using torture and the threat of violence against family members to discover the location of insurgent camps. Insurgents had numerous advantages over British forces since they lived in closer proximity to villagers, they sometimes had relatives or close friends in the village, and they were not afraid to threaten violence or torture and murder village leaders as an example to the others, which forced them to assist them with food and information. British forces thus faced a dual threat: the insurgents and the silent network in villages who supported them. British troops often described the terror of jungle patrols. In addition to watching out for insurgent fighters, they had to navigate difficult terrain and avoid dangerous animals and insects. Many patrols would stay in the jungle for days, even weeks, without encountering the MNLA guerrillas. That strategy led to the infamous [[Batang Kali massacre]] in which 24 unarmed villagers were executed by British troops.<ref name="MAY" /><ref name="MAL"/>
==Legacy==
[[File:Tugu Negara.jpg|thumb|The [[Tugu Negara|National Monument]] commemorating those who died in Malaysia's struggle for freedom, including the Malayan Emergency]]
The [[Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation]] of 1963–66 arose from tensions between Indonesia and the new British backed [[Malaysia|Federation of Malaysia]] that was conceived in the aftermath of the Malayan Emergency.
In the late 1960s, the coverage of the [[My Lai massacre]] during the [[Vietnam War]] prompted the initiation of investigations in the UK concerning war crimes perpetrated by British forces during the Emergency, such as the [[Batang Kali massacre]]. No charges have yet been brought against the British forces involved and the claims have been repeatedly dismissed by the British government as propaganda, despite evidence suggestive of a cover-up.<ref>{{cite news |last=Townsend |first=Mark |title=New documents reveal cover-up of 1948 British 'massacre' of villagers in Malaya |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup |work=The Guardian |access-date=15 April 2011 |location=London |date=9 April 2011 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930043116/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup |url-status=live }}</ref>
Following the end of the Malayan Emergency in 1960, the predominantly [[Malaysian Chinese|ethnic Chinese]] [[Malayan National Liberation Army]], the armed wing of the MCP, retreated to the Malaysian-Thailand border where it regrouped and retrained for future offensives against the Malaysian government. A new phase of [[communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–89)|communist insurgency]] began in 1968. It was triggered when the MCP ambushed security forces in [[Kroh|Kroh–Betong]], in the northern part of [[Peninsular Malaysia]], on 17 June 1968. The new conflict coincided with renewed tensions between ethnic [[Malay people|Malays]] and [[Malaysian Chinese|Chinese]] following the [[13 May Incident]] of 1969, and the ongoing conflict of the [[Vietnam War]].{{sfnp|Nazar bin Talib|pp=16–17}}
Communist leader [[Chin Peng]] spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s working to promote his perspective of the Emergency. In a collaboration with Australian academics, he met with historians and former Commonwealth military personnel at a series of meetings which led to the publication of ''Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party.''<ref>{{Cite web|title=Dialogues with Chin Peng – New Light on the Malayan Communist Party|url=https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/dialogues-with-chin-peng|website=National University of Singapore|access-date=17 May 2020|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183651/https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/dialogues-with-chin-peng|url-status=live}}</ref> Peng also travelled to England and teamed up with conservative journalist Ian Ward and his wife Norma Miraflor to write his autobiography ''Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History''.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UaluAAAAMAAJ&q=alias+chin+peng|isbn = 9789810486938|access-date = 17 May 2020|last1 = Chin|first1 = Peng|last2 = Ward|first2 = Ian|last3 = Miraflor|first3 = Norma O.|year = 2003|archive-date = 3 January 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183734/https://books.google.com/books?id=UaluAAAAMAAJ&q=alias+chin+peng|url-status = live}}</ref>
Many colonial documents, possibly relating to British atrocities in Malaya, were either destroyed or hidden by the British colonial authorities as a part of [[Operation Legacy]]. Traces of these documents were rediscovered during a legal battle in 2011 involving the victims of rape and torture by the British military during the [[Mau Mau Uprising]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sato|first=Shohei|date=2017|title='Operation Legacy': Britain's Destruction and Concealment of Colonial Records Worldwide|journal=The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History|volume=45|issue=4|pages=698, 697–719|doi=10.1080/03086534.2017.1294256|s2cid=159611286|issn=0308-6534|doi-access=free}}</ref>
==In popular culture==
{{Category see also|Works about the Malayan Emergency}}
In popular Malaysian culture, the Emergency has frequently been portrayed as a primarily Malay struggle against the Communists. This perception has been criticised by some, such as Information Minister [[Zainuddin Maidin]], for not recognising [[Malaysian Chinese|Chinese]] and [[Malaysian Indians|Indian]] efforts.<ref>Kaur, Manjit (16 December 2006). [http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/12/16/nation/16341437&sec=nation "Zam: Chinese too fought against communists"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604031429/http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=%2F2006%2F12%2F16%2Fnation%2F16341437&sec=nation |date=4 June 2011 }}. ''The Star''.</ref>
A number of films were set against the background of the Emergency, including:
* ''[[The Planter's Wife (1952 film)|The Planter's Wife]]'' (1952)
* ''[[Windom's Way]]'' (1957)
* ''[[The 7th Dawn]]'' (1964)
* ''[[The Virgin Soldiers (film)|The Virgin Soldiers]]'' (1969)
* ''[[Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers]]'' (1977)
* ''[[Bukit Kepong (film)|Bukit Kepong]]'' (1981)
* [[The Garden of Evening Mists (film)|''The Garden of Evening Mists'']] (2019)
Other media:
* [[Mona Brand]]'s stage production ''Strangers in the Land'' (1952) was created as political commentary to criticise the occupation, depicting plantation owners as burning down villiages and collecting the heads of murdered Malayans as trophies.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Lanstrum|first=Erik|date=2017|title=Facts About Atrocity: Reporting Colonial Violence in Postwar Britain|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbx032|journal=History Workshop Journal|volume=84|pages=108–127|doi=10.1093/hwj/dbx032|via=Oxford Academic}}</ref> The play was only performed in the UK at the tiny activist run Unity Theater because the British government had banned the play from commercial stages.<ref name=":0" />
*In ''[[The Sweeney]]'' episode "The Bigger They Are" (series 4, episode 8; 26 October 1978), the tycoon Leonard Gold is being blackmailed by Harold Collins, who has a photo of him present at a massacre of civilians in Malaya when he was in the British Army twenty-five years earlier.
* Throughout the series ''[[Porridge (1974 TV series)|Porridge]]'', there are references to Fletcher having served in Malaya, probably as a result of [[Conscription in the United Kingdom|National Service]]. He regales his fellow inmates with stories of his time there, and in one episode it is revealed that Prison Officer Mackay had also served in Malaya.
* ''[[The Malayan Trilogy]]'' series of novels (1956–1959) by [[Anthony Burgess]] is set during the Malayan Emergency.
==See also==
* [[Cold War in Asia]]
* [[Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–89)]]
* [[British Far East Command]]
* [[List of weapons in Malayan Emergency]]
* [[Far East Strategic Reserve|Far East Strategic Reserve (FESR)]]
* [[Chin Peng]]
* [[Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army]]
* [[Briggs Plan]]
* [[New village]]
* [[Batang Kali massacre]]
* [[Bukit Kepong incident]]
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
===Sources===
* {{cite book|last=Christopher|first=Paul|chapter=Malaya, 1948–1955: Case Outcome: COIN Win|title=Paths to Victory: Detailed Insurgency Case Studies|publisher=|year=2013|isbn=|location=|pages=51–63}}
* {{cite book |last=Komer|first=R.W|date=February 1972|title=The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect: Organisation of a Successful Counterinsurgency Effort |publisher=Rand Corporation|isbn=|location=|pages=|url=https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R957.pdf|access-date=12 May 2019|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183706/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R957.pdf|url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Newsinger |first=John |title=The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire|edition= 2nd |publisher=Bookmarks Publications |year=2013 |isbn=9781909026292 |location=London }}
* {{Cite book |last=Newsinger |first=John |title=British Counterinsurgency |edition=2nd |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-230-29824-8|location=Basingstoke }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |date=2018 |title='Devils that suck the blood of the Malayan People': The Case for Post-Revisionist Analysis of Counter-insurgency Violence |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0968344516671738 |journal=War in History |volume=25|issue=2 |doi=10.1177/0968344516671738 |s2cid=159509434 |via=Sage Journals |pages=202–226 |url-access=subscription}}
* {{cite book|last=Taber|first=Robert|year=2002|title=War of the flea: the classic study of guerrilla warfare|publisher=Brassey's|isbn=978-1-57488-555-2|location=|url=https://archive.org/details/waroffleaclassic00tabe}}
==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book|last=Director of Operations|first=Malaya|year=1958|title=The Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya|publisher=Director of Operations Malaya|location=Federation of Malaya|pages=|isbn=1907521747}}
* {{cite journal|last=Comber|first=Leon|title=The Malayan Security Service (1945–1948) |journal=Intelligence and National Security |issue=3|year=2003|pages=128–153 |volume=18 |doi=10.1080/02684520412331306950|s2cid=154320718|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684520412331306950 }}
* {{cite journal|last=Comber|first=Leon|title=The Malayan Special Branch on the Malayan-Thai Frontier during the Malayan Emergency|journal=Intelligence and National Security |volume=21 |issue=1|date=February 2006|pages=77–99|doi=10.1080/02684520600568352|s2cid=153496939}}
* {{cite book|last=Comber|first=Leon|year=2006|isbn=|chapter=Malaya's Secret Police 1945–60. The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency|title=PhD dissertation, Monash University|location=Melbourne|pages=|publisher=ISEAS (Institute of SE Asian Affairs, Singapore) and MAI (Monash Asia Institute)}}
* {{cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |date=1999 |title='Iron claws on Malaya': the historiography of the Malayan Emergency |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-southeast-asian-studies/article/abs/iron-claws-on-malaya-the-historiography-of-the-malayan-emergency1/14AB9D441A3E75DF21C96AE1FA223C59 |journal=Journal of Southeast Asian Studies |volume=30|issue=1|pages=99–125 |doi=10.1017/S0022463400008043 |url-access=subscription}}
* {{cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |year=1999 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684529908432578 |url-access=subscription|pages=211–241|title=Corpses, Prisoners of War and Captured documents: British and Communist Narratives of the Malayan Emergency, and the Dynamics of Intelligence Transformation|journal=Intelligence and National Security |issn=0268-4527 |volume=14 |issue=4 |doi=10.1080/02684529908432578}}
*{{cite book |last=Jackson |first=Robert |year=2011 |title=The Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation: The Commonwealth's Wars 1948–1966 |publisher= Pen and Sword |isbn= 9781848845558}}
* {{cite book|last=Jumper|first=Roy|year=2001|title=Death Waits in the Dark: The Senoi Praaq, Malaysia's Killer Elite |publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=0-313-31515-9|location=|pages=}}
* {{cite journal |last=Keo |first= Bernard Z. |title=A small, distant war? Historiographical reflections on the Malayan Emergency |journal=History Compass |date=March 2019 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hic3.12523 |doi=10.1111/hic3.12523 |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages= e12523 |s2cid= 150617654 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183725/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hic3.12523 |archive-date=3 January 2021 }}
* {{cite web|last=Mitchell|first=David F.|date=2016|title=The Malayan Emergency: How to Fight a Counterinsurgency War|work=Warfare History Network|url=http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/the-malayan-emergency-how-to-fight-a-counterinsurgency-war/|access-date=5 July 2018|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183710/https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2016/10/27/the-malayan-emergency-how-to-fight-a-counterinsurgency-war/|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book|last=Nagl|first=John A.|year=2002|title=Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam|publisher=University of Chicago|isbn=0-226-56770-2|location=|pages=|url=https://archive.org/details/learningtoeatsou00john}}
* Newsinger, John. (2016) ''British counterinsurgency'' (Springer, 2016) compares British measures in Mayaya, Palestine, Kenya, Cyprus, South Yemen, Dhofar, & Northern Ireland
* Short, Anthony (1975). ''The Communist Insurrection in Malaya 1948–1960''. London and New York: Frederick Muller. Reprinted (2000) as ''In Pursuit of Mountain Rats''. Singapore.
* {{cite book|last=Stubbs|first=Richard|year=2004|title=Hearts and Minds in Guerilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency 1948–1960|publisher=Eastern University|isbn=981-210-352-X|location=|pages=}}
* Sullivan, Michael D. "Leadership in Counterinsurgency: A Tale of Two Leaders" ''Military Review'' (Sep/Oct 2007) 897#5 pp 119–123.
* {{cite journal|last=Th'ng|first=Bee Fu|year=2019|title=Forbidden Knowledge: Response from Chinese-Malay Intellectuals to Leftist-Books Banning During the Emergency Period|journal=Sun Yat-sen Journal of Humanities|volume=|pages=|url=https://www.academia.edu/40326023|access-date=15 September 2019|via=|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183717/https://www.academia.edu/40326023/%E6%96%B9%E7%BE%8E%E5%AF%8C_%E8%A2%AB%E7%A6%81%E6%AD%A2%E7%9A%84%E7%9F%A5%E8%AD%98_%E9%A6%AC%E4%BE%86%E4%BA%9E%E7%B7%8A%E6%80%A5%E7%8B%80%E6%85%8B%E4%B8%8B%E7%9F%A5%E8%AD%98%E4%BA%BA%E5%B0%8D%E6%8A%84%E6%AA%A2%E5%B7%A6%E6%B4%BE%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E7%9A%84%E5%9B%9E%E6%87%89_Thng_Bee_Fu_Forbidden_Knowledge_Response_from_Chinese_Malay_Intellectuals_to_Leftist_Books_Banning_During_the_Emergency_Period|url-status=live |lang=zh}}
* {{cite book|last=Thompson|first=Sir Robert|year=1966|title=Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam|publisher=F. A. Praeger|location=London|pages=|isbn=0-7011-1133-X}}
* {{cite journal|last=Ucko|first=David H.|year=2019|title=Counterinsurgency as armed reform: The political history of the Malayan Emergency|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2017.1406852|journal=Journal of Strategic Studies|volume=42|issue=3–4|pages=448–479|doi=10.1080/01402390.2017.1406852|s2cid=158297553 |url-access=subscription}}
{{Refend}}
==External links==
{{Library resources box
|onlinebooks=no
|by=no
}}
{{Commons category}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20010807010636/http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/emergency.htm Australian War Memorial] ''(Malayan Emergency 1950–1960)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928083748/http://fesrassociation.com/archives/toc.htm Far East Strategic Reserve Navy Association (Australia) Inc.] ''(Origins of the FESR – Navy)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060712043107/http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/malaya/malayamain.html Malayan Emergency] ''(AUS/NZ Overview)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060620092600/http://www.britains-smallwars.com/malaya/index.html Britain's Small Wars] ''(Malayan Emergency)''
* [http://www.psywar.org/malaya.php PsyWar.Org] ''(Psychological Operations during the Malayan Emergency)''
* [http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Databases/MalayaPostWW2/index.html www.roll-of-honour.com] ''(Searchable database of Commonwealth Soldiers who died)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120402140726/http://brigandboys.org.uk/index.php A personal account of flying the Bristol Brigand aircraft with 84 Squadron RAF during the Malayan Emergency – Terry Stringer]
*[https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/malayan-emergency-1948-1960 The Malayan Emergency 1948 to 1960] Anzac Portal
{{Communism in Malaysia}}
{{British colonial campaigns}}
{{Cold War}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Malayan Emergency| ]]
[[Category:1948 in military history]]
[[Category:Cold War conflicts]]
[[Category:Wars involving pre-independence Malaysia]]
[[Category:Communism in Malaysia]]
[[Category:Communism in Singapore]]
[[Category:History of the Royal Marines]]
[[Category:Insurgencies in Asia]]
[[Category:Rebellions against the British Empire]]
[[Category:Wars involving Australia]]
[[Category:Cold War history of Australia]]
[[Category:Wars involving Rhodesia]]
[[Category:Wars of independence]]
[[Category:Civil wars in Malaysia]]
[[Category:British Empire]]' |
New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext) | '{{Short description|1948–1960 conflict in the Malayan Peninsula and surroundings}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2014}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict = Malayan Emergency<br />{{lang|ms|Darurat Malaya}}<br />{{lang|zh-hant|馬來亞緊急狀態}}<br />{{lang|ta|மலாயன் அவசரநிலை}}
| partof = the [[decolonization of Asia]] and the [[Cold War]]
| image = {{multiple image|border=infobox|perrow=2/2/2|total_width=300
|image1=RAAFAvroLincolnMalaya1950.jpg
|alt1=
|image2=Outdoor portrait of Lee Min, leader of the communist Kepayang Gang in the Ipoh district in 1951 (AWM 4281801).JPG
|alt2=
|image3=Briggs' Plan civilians - IWM GOV 3821.png
|alt3=
|image4=OPERATIONS OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN MALAYA MAY 1950 IWM GOV 2267A.png
|alt4=
|image5=King's African Rifles in Malaya - IWM K 14004.png
|alt5=}}
Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist|
* Australian [[Avro Lincoln]] bomber dropping 500lb bombs
* Communist leader [[Lee Meng]] in 1952
* RAF staff loads bombs to be used against communist rebels
* [[King's African Rifles]] search abandoned hut
* Civilians forcefully evicted from their land by the British as part of the [[Briggs Plan]]
}}
| image_upright = 1.35
| date = 16 June 1948 – 31 July 1960<br />({{Age in years, months, weeks and days|month1=06|day1=16|year1=1948|month2=07|day2=31|year2=1960}})
| place = [[Borneo]], [[Malay Peninsula]], [[Singapore]], [[Southern Thailand]]
| territory = Independence of the [[Federation of Malaya]] on [[Hari Merdeka|31 August]] 1957
| result = Commonwealth military victory but diplomatic failure
| combatant1 = '''[[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] forces:'''<br />{{flag|United Kingdom}}
* {{flagicon|Malaya}} [[Federation of Malaya]]
* {{flagcountry|Singapore}}
* {{flagicon|Kenya|colonial}} [[Kenya Colony|Kenya]]
* {{flag|Southern Rhodesia}}<br />(until 1953)
* {{flag|Rhodesia and Nyasaland|name=Rhodesia and Nyasaland}}<br />(after 1953)
* {{flagicon|Fiji|colonial}} [[Colonial Fiji|Fiji]]
{{flagicon|Australia}} [[Australia]]<br />{{flagicon|New Zealand}} [[New Zealand]]<br />'''Supported by:'''<br />{{flag|Republic of China}} (Taiwan)<br />{{flag|Thailand}}<br />(Thai–Malaysian border)<br />{{flag|United States|1912}}
| combatant2 = '''[[Communism|Communist]] forces:'''<br />{{flagicon image|Flag of the Communist Party of Malaya.svg}} [[Malayan Communist Party]]<!-- Please do not add foreign supporters here without either, (1) citing a reliable source directly, or (2) checking that the addition is supported elsewhere in the article as per WP:INFOBOXCITE -->
* {{flagicon image|Flag of the Malayan National Liberation Army.svg}} [[Malayan National Liberation Army]]
| commander1 = {{flagdeco|UK}} United Kingdom:
* [[Clement Attlee]]<br />(until 1951)
* [[Winston Churchill]] (1951–1955)
* [[Anthony Eden]] (1955–1957)
* [[Harold Macmillan]] (1957–1960)
* [[Harold Rawdon Briggs|Harold Briggs]]
* [[Robert Elliot Urquhart|Roy Urquhart]]
* [[Edward Gent]]
* [[Henry Gurney]]{{KIA|Assassination of Sir Henry Gurney}}
* [[Gerald Templer]]
* [[William Allmond Codrington Goode|William Goode]]
{{flagdeco|Malaya}} Malaya
* [[Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan]]
* [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]]
* [[Abdul Razak Hussein|Tun Razak]]
* [[Ismail Abdul Rahman|Tun Ismail]] <br />
{{flagdeco|Singapore}} Singapore
* [[David Saul Marshall|David Marshall]]
* [[Lim Yew Hock]]
* [[Yusof Ishak]]
* [[Lee Kuan Yew]]<br />
{{flagdeco|Australia}} Australia
* [[Robert Menzies]]
* [[Henry Wells (general)|Henry Wells]]<br />
{{flagdeco|New Zealand}} New Zealand
* [[Sidney Holland]]<br />(1951–1957)
* [[Walter Nash]]<br />(1957–1960)
| commander2 = {{flagicon image|Flag of the Communist Party of Malaya.svg}} Malayan Communist Party
* [[Chin Peng]]<br />
{{flagicon image|Flag of the Malayan National Liberation Army.svg}} Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA)
* [[Abdullah CD]]
* [[Rashid Maidin]]
* [[Shamsiah Fakeh]]
* [[S. A. Ganapathy]]{{Executed}}
* [[Lau Yew]]{{KIA|Death of Lau Yew}}
* [[Yeung Kwo]]{{KIA}}
* [[Muhammad Indera|Mat Indera]]{{Executed}}
* [[Lee Meng]]
* Lau Lee
| strength1 = Over 451,000 troops.
* 250,000 [[Royal Malay Regiment|Malayan Home Guard]] (Malayan Regiment) troops
* 40,000 regular [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] personnel
* [[King's African Rifles]]
* [[Gurkha|Gurkha regiments]]
* 37,000 [[Special Constable]]s
* 24,000 Federation Police
* Unknown number of [[Iban people|Iban]] (Dayak) headhunters
| strength2 = Over 7,000 troops.
* + 7,000 [[Malayan National Liberation Army|MNLA]] full-time troops (1951).
* + Estimated 1,000,000 sympathisers.
* Unknown number of [[Orang Asli]] allies.
* Unknown number of [[Min Yuen]] civilian supporters.
| casualties1 = {{flagdeco|Malaya}} 1,346 killed<br />{{flagdeco|UK}} 519 killed<br />{{flagdeco|UK}}{{flagdeco|Malaya}} 2,406 wounded
| casualties2 = 6,710 killed<br />1,289 wounded<br />1,287 captured<br />2,702 surrendered
| casualties3 = Civilian casualties: 5,000+
| notes =
| campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Malayan Emergency}}
}}
{{History of Malaysia}}
{{History of Singapore}}
The '''Malayan Emergency''', also known as the '''Anti–British National Liberation War''' (1948–1960), was a [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla war]] fought in [[British Malaya]] between communist pro-independence fighters of the [[Malayan National Liberation Army]] (MNLA) against the military forces of the [[British Empire]] and [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]]. The communists fought to win independence for Malaya from the British Empire and to establish a socialist economy, while the Commonwealth forces fought to combat communism and protect British economic and colonial interests.<ref>Deery, Phillip. "Malaya, 1948: Britain's Asian Cold War?" Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 1 (2007): 29–54.</ref><ref name="Siver, Christi L 2009. p.36">Siver, Christi L. "The other forgotten war: understanding atrocities during the Malayan Emergency." In APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper. 2009., p.36</ref>{{sfn|Newsinger|2013|p=217}} The conflict was called the "Anti–British National Liberation War" by the MNLA,<ref>{{cite book|first=Mohamed |last= Amin |editor-first= Malcolm |editor-last=Caldwell |title=The Making of a Neo Colony|year=1977|publisher=Spokesman Books, UK|page=216}}</ref> but an "Emergency" by the British, as London-based insurers would not have paid out in instances of civil wars.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Small Wars, Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World 1945–1965 |last=Burleigh |first=Michael |publisher=Viking – Penguin Group |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-670-02545-9 |location=New York|page=164}}</ref>
On 17 June 1948, Britain declared a [[state of emergency]] in Malaya following attacks on [[plantations]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Small Wars Faraway Places: Global Insurrection and the Making of the Modern World 1945–1965|last=Burleigh|first=Michael|publisher=Viking – Penguin Group|year=2013|isbn=978-0-670-02545-9|location=New York|pages=163–164}}</ref> which in turn were revenge attacks for the killing of left-wing activists.{{sfn|Newsinger|2013|p=216–217}} Leader of the [[Malayan Communist Party]] (MCP) [[Chin Peng]] and his allies fled into the jungles and formed the MNLA to wage a war for [[national liberation]] against British colonial rule. Many MNLA fighters were former members of the [[Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army]] (MPAJA), a communist guerrilla army previously trained, armed and funded by the British to fight against [[Imperial Japanese Army|Japan]] during [[World War II]].<ref name=":2">{{cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=Everyone Lived in Fear: Malaya and the British way of Counterinsurgency |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2012.709764 |journal=Small Wars and Insurgencies |volume=23 |issue=4–5 |page=672 |date=28 September 2012 |s2cid=143847349 |doi=10.1080/09592318.2012.709764 |via=Taylor and Francis Online}}</ref> The communists enjoyed strong support from the ethnic [[Straits Chinese]] population, most of whom lived in dire poverty, suffered [[Bumiputera (Malaysia)|racial persecution]], and were barred from voting.<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc">Datar, Rajan (host), with author Sim Chi Yin; academic Show Ying Xin (Malaysia Institute, [[Australian National University]]); and academic Rachel Leow ([[University of Cambridge]]): [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1rm2 "The Malayan Emergency: A long Cold War conflict seen through the eyes of the Chinese community in Malaya,"] November 11, 2021, ''[[The Forum (BBC World Service)]],'' (radio program) [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]], retrieved November 11, 2021</ref> The communists' belief in [[class consciousness]], and both ethnic and gender equality, inspired many indigenous people and women to join both the MNLA and its undercover supply network the [[Min Yuen]].
After establishing a series of jungle bases the MNLA began raiding British colonial police and military installations. Tin mines and rubber plantations were attacked by the MNLA to gain independence for Malaya by bankrupting the British occupation. The British attempted to starve the MNLA using [[scorched earth]] policies through food rationing, the killing of livestock, and the aerial spraying of [[herbicides]] including [[Agent Orange]].{{sfn|Newsinger|2013|p=220}}{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=52}} British attempts to defeat the communists included [[extrajudicial killings]] of unarmed villagers, the most infamous case being the [[Batang Kali massacre]], often referred to as "Britain's [[Mỹ Lai massacre|Mỹ Lai]]".{{sfn|Newsinger|2013|p=219}} Furthermore, the [[Briggs Plan]] was enacted to imprison 400,000 to 500,000 civilians into [[internment camps]] called "[[New village]]s", depriving civilians of all their civil rights and violating the [[Geneva Conventions]].{{sfnm|Hack|2018|1p=203|Newsinger|2013|2pp=218, 219|Newsinger|2015|3p=52}} Many [[Orang Asli]] indigenous communities were also targeted for internment because the British believed that they were supporting the communists.<ref>{{cite book |title=Violence and the Dream People: The Orang Asli in the Emergency 1948–1960|last=Leary |first=John D. |publisher=Ohio University Press|year=1995|isbn=0-89680-186-1|location=Athens|pages=42–43}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://en.wikipedia.org/&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=polsci_pubs |title=The Other Forgotten War: Understanding Atrocities during the Malayan Emergency Malayan Emergency|last=Siver|first=Christi|date=2009|url-status=live|access-date=25 January 2020}}</ref>
The Malayan Emergency heavily influenced many future anti-insurgency wars, most famously the [[Vietnam War]] as American forces (unsuccessfully) attempted to replicate British strategies.<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc" /><ref>{{cite journal|last=Tilman|first=Robert O.|date=1966|title=The Non-Lessons of the Malayan Emergency|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2642468|journal=Asian Survey |volume=6 |issue=8 |pages=407–419|doi=10.2307/2642468|jstor=2642468|issn=0004-4687}}</ref>{{sfnm|Newsinger|2013|1p=221|Newsinger|2015|2p=33}} The war formally ended in 1960; however, the communists later fought against the Malaysian government during the [[Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–89)|second phase of the insurgency]] (1968–1989).<ref name="The Long Nightmare">{{cite book |last=Zahari |first=Said |title=The Long Nightmare: My 17 Years as a Political Prisoner |location=Cheras, Kuala Lumpur |publisher=Utusan Publications & Distributors |page=102 |date=2007 |isbn=9789676119391}}</ref>
==Origins==
{{See also|Circumstances prior to the Malayan Emergency}}
===Socioeconomic issues===
At the end of World War II, the withdrawal of Japan left the [[British Malaya]]n economy disrupted with widespread unemployment, low wages, and high levels of food inflation. The weak economy was a factor in the growth of trade union movements and caused a rise in communist party membership, with considerable labour unrest and a large number of strikes occurred between 1946 and 1948.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} Malayan communists organised a successful 24-hour general strike on 29 January 1946,<ref name="Eric Stahl 2003">Eric Stahl, "Doomed from the Start: A New Perspective on the Malayan Insurgency" (master's thesis, 2003)</ref> before organising 300 strikes in 1947.<ref name="Eric Stahl 2003" /> To combat rising trade union activity the British used police and soldiers as strikebreakers, and employers enacted mass dismissals, forced evictions of striking workers from their homes, legal harassement, and began cutting the wages of their workers.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} Colonial police responded to rising trade union activity through arrests, deportations, and beating striking workers to death.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} Responding to the attacks against trade unions, communist militants began assassinating strikebreakers, and attacking anti-union estates.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} These attacks were used by the colonial occupation as a pretence to conduct mass arrests of left-wing activists.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} On 12 June the British colonial occupation banned Malaya's largest trade union the PMFTU.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}}
Malaya's rubber and tin resources were used by the British to pay war debts to the United States and to recover from the damage of the second world war.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} Malaysian rubber exports to the United States were of greater value than all domestic exports from Britain to America, causing Malaya to be viewed by the British as a vital asset.<ref>Deery, Phillip. "Malaya, 1948: Britain's Asian Cold War?." Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 1 (2007): 29-54.</ref><ref name="Siver, Christi L 2009. p.36" /> Britain had prepared for Malaya to become an independent state, but only by handing power to a government which would be subservient to Britain and allow British businesses to keep control of Malaya's natural resources.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=43}}
===The Sungai Siput incident===
The first shots of the Malayan Emergency during the [[Sungai Siput incident]], fired at 8:30 am on 16 June 1948, in the office of the Elphil Estate twenty miles east of the [[Sungai Siput|Sungai Siput town]], [[Perak]]. Three British [[plantation]] managers, Arthur Walker, John Allison and, Ian Christian, were killed by three young Chinese men. Another attack was planned on a fourth British estate nearby, however this failed because the target's jeep broke down making him late for work. More gunmen were sent to kill him but left after failing to find him.<ref>Souchou Yao. 2016. ''The Malayan Emergency A small, Distant War''. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph series, no. 133. pp. 40–41.</ref> The British enacted emergency measures into law in response to the Sungai Siput incident. Under these measures the colonial occupation outlawed the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and began mass arresting thousands of trade union and left-wing activists.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=43}}
=== Formation of the MNLA ===
Although the Malayan communists had begun preparations for a guerrilla war against the British, the emergency measures and mass arrest of communists and left-wing activists took them by surprise.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=44}} Led by [[Chin Peng]] the remaining Malayan communists retreated to rural areas and formed the [[Malayan National Liberation Army]] (MNLA), although their name has commonly been mistranslated as the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA) or the Malayan People's Liberation Army (MPLA). The MNLA was partly a re-formation of the [[Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army]] (MPAJA), the MCP-led guerrilla force which had been the principal resistance in Malaya against the [[Japanese occupation of Malaya]]. The British had secretly helped form the MPAJA in 1942 and trained them in the use of explosives, firearms and radios.<ref name="book_the_malayan_emergency_2008_jackson">{{cite book|last=Jackson|first=Robert|title=The Malayan Emergency|year=2008|publisher=Pen & Sword Aviation|location=London|page=10}}</ref> Chin Peng was a veteran anti-fascist and trade unionist who had played an integral role in the MPAJA's resistance.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bayly |first1=Christopher |last2=Harper |first2=Tim |title=Forgotten Armies: Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan |location=New York, NY |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWURxfct6SgC&pg=PA1929 |date= 2005 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-192719-0 |pages=344-345, 347-348, 350-351}}
</ref>
The MNLA began their war for Malayan independence by targeting the colonial [[natural resource|resource]] extraction industries, namely the tin mines and rubber plantations which were the main sources of income for the British occupation of Malaya. The MNLA attacked these industries in the hopes of bankrupting the British and winning independence by making the colonial administration too expensive to maintain. The MNLA launched their first guerrilla attacks in the Gua Musang district.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}
Disbanded in December 1945, the MPAJA officially turned in its weapons to the [[British Military Administration (Malaya)|British Military Administration]], although many MPAJA soldiers secretly hid stockpiles of weapons in jungle hideouts. Members who agreed to disband were offered economic incentives. Around 4,000 members rejected these incentives and went underground.<ref name="book_the_malayan_emergency_2008_jackson" />
==Guerrilla war==
[[File:Malayan Emergency Bren Gun.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Leaflet dropped on Malayan insurgents, urging them to come forward with a [[Bren light machine gun|Bren]] gun and receive a [[Malayan dollar|$]]1,000 reward]]
The MNLA commonly employed guerrilla tactics, sabotaging installations, attacking rubber plantations and destroying transportation and infrastructure.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rashid|first=Rehman|year=1993|title=A Malaysian Journey|page=27|isbn=983-99819-1-9}}</ref>
Support for the MNLA mainly came from around 500,000 of the 3.12 million [[Malaysian Chinese|ethnic Chinese]] then living in Malaya. There was a particular component of the Chinese community referred to as 'squatters', farmers living on the edge of the jungles where the MNLA were based. This allowed the MNLA to supply themselves with food, in particular, as well as providing a source of new recruits.<ref name="O. Tilman 1966 407–419">{{cite journal|last=Tilman|first=Robert O.|title=The non-lessons of the Malayan emergency|journal=Asian Survey|date=August 1966|volume=6|issue=8|pages=407–419|doi=10.2307/2642468 |jstor=2642468|url=https://online.ucpress.edu/as/article-abstract/6/8/407/24029/The-Non-Lessons-of-the-Malayan-Emergency?redirectedFrom=fulltext |url-access=subscription}}</ref> The [[ethnic Malay]] population supported them in smaller numbers. The MNLA gained the support of the Chinese because the Chinese were denied the equal right to vote in elections, had no land rights to speak of, and were usually very poor.{{sfnp|Christopher|2013|p=53}} The MNLA's supply organisation was called the [[Min Yuen]] (People’s Movement). It had a network of contacts within the general population. Besides supplying material, especially food, it was also important to the MNLA as a source of intelligence.{{sfnp|Christopher|2013|p=58}}
The MNLA's camps and hideouts were in the inaccessible tropical jungle and had limited infrastructure. Most 90% of MNLA guerrillas were ethnic Chinese, though there were some Malays, Indonesians and Indians among its members.<ref name=":2" /> The MNLA was organised into regiments, although these had no fixed establishments and each included all communist forces operating in a particular region. The regiments had political sections, [[commissar]]s, instructors and secret service. In the camps, the soldiers attended lectures on [[Marxism–Leninism]], and produced political newsletters to be distributed to civilians.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=7}} The MNLA also stipulated that their soldiers needed official permission for any romantic involvement with civilian women.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=8}}
In the early stages of the conflict, the guerrillas envisaged establishing control in "liberated areas" from which the government forces had been driven, but did not succeed in this.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=9}}
===British response===
[[File:SC protection team.jpg|thumb|left|Workers on a rubber plantation in Malaya travel to work under the protection of [[Special Constable]]s, whose function was to guard them throughout the working day against attack by communist forces, 1950.]]
During the first couple of years of the war, the British forces responded with a terror campaign characterised by high levels of state coercion against the civilian population.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Hack|first=Karl|date=28 September 2012|title=Everyone Lived in fear: Malaya and the British way of counter-insurgency|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|journal=Small Wars & Counterinsurgencies|volume=23|issue=4–5|pages=682|doi=10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|s2cid=143847349|via=Taylor & Francis Online}}</ref> Police corruption and the British military's widespread destruction of farmland and burning of homes belonging to villagers rumored to be helping communists, led to a sharp increase in civilians joining the communist forces.<ref name=":3" />
On the military front, the security forces did not know how to fight an enemy moving freely in the jungle and enjoying support from the Chinese rural population. British planters and miners, who bore the brunt of the communist attacks, began to talk about government incompetence and being betrayed by Whitehall.<ref>Souchou Yao. 2016. The Malayan Emergency A Small Distant War. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph series, no. 133. p. 43.</ref>
The initial government strategy was primarily to guard important economic targets, such as mines and plantation estates. Later, in April 1950, General Sir [[Harold Rawdon Briggs|Harold Briggs]], the British Army's Director of Operations was appointed to Malaya. The central tenet of the Briggs Plan was that the best way to defeat an insurgency, such as the government was facing, was to cut the insurgents off from their supporters amongst the population. The Briggs Plan also recognised the inhospitable nature of the Malayan jungle. A major part of the strategy involved targeting the MNLA food supply, which Briggs recognised came from three main sources: camps within the Malayan jungle where land was cleared to provide food, aboriginal jungle dwellers who could supply the MNLA with food gathered within the jungle, and the MNLA supporters within the 'squatter' communities on the edge of the jungle.<ref name="O. Tilman 1966 407–419" />
[[File:Terrorist in Malaya.jpg|thumb|A wounded insurgent being held and questioned after his capture in 1952]]
The Briggs Plan was multifaceted but one aspect has become particularly well known: the forced relocation of some 500,000 rural Malayans, including 400,000 Chinese civilians into internment camps called "[[new village]]s". These villages were surrounded by barbed wire, police posts, and floodlit areas, designed to stop the inmates from being able to contact communist MNLA guerrillas in the jungles.
At the start of the Emergency, the British had 13 infantry battalions in Malaya, including seven partly formed [[Gurkha]] battalions, three British battalions, two battalions of the [[Royal Malay Regiment]] and a British [[Royal Artillery]] Regiment being used as infantry.<ref name="Hack:113">Karl Hack, ''Defense & Decolonization in South-East Asia'', p. 113.</ref> This force was too small to fight the insurgents effectively, and more infantry battalions were needed in Malaya. The British brought in soldiers from units such as the [[Royal Marines]] and [[King's African Rifles]]. Another element in the strategy was the re-formation of the [[Special Air Service]] in 1950 as a specialised reconnaissance, raiding, and [[counter-insurgency]] unit.
The Permanent Secretary of Defence for [[Federation of Malaya|Malaya]], Sir [[Robert Grainger Ker Thompson]], had served in the [[Chindits]] in Burma during World War II. Thompson's in-depth experience of [[jungle warfare]] proved invaluable during this period as he was able to build effective civil-military relations and was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency plan in Malaya.<ref>Joel E. Hamby. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070219203036/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KNN/is_32/ai_105853016 "Civil-military operations: joint doctrine and the Malayan Emergency"], ''Joint Force Quarterly'', Autumn 2002, Paragraph 3,4</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Peoples |first=Curtis |url=http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/2002_Symposium/2002Papers_files/peoples.htm |title=The Use of the British Village Resettlement Model in Malaya and Vietnam, 4th Triennial Symposium (April 11–13, 2002), The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071226023950/http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/2002_Symposium/2002Papers_files/peoples.htm |archive-date=26 December 2007}}</ref>
On 6 October 1951, the British High Commissioner in Malaya, Sir [[Henry Gurney]], was assassinated during an MNLA ambush. General [[Gerald Templer]] was chosen to become the new High Commissioner in January 1952. During Templer's two-year command, "two-thirds of the guerrillas were wiped out and lost over half their strength, the incident rate fell from 500 to less than 100 per month and the civilian and security force casualties from 200 to less than 40."<ref>{{cite book | last=Clutterbuck | first=Richard | title=Conflict and violence in Singapore and Malaysia 1945–83 | year=1985 | publisher=Graham Brash | location=Singapore}}</ref> Orthodox historiography suggests that Templer changed the situation in the Emergency and his [[The Templer Plan|actions and policies]] were a major part of British success during his period in command. Revisionist historians have challenged this view and frequently support the ideas of [[Victor Purcell]], a Sinologist who as early as 1954 claimed that Templer merely continued policies begun by his predecessors.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ramakrishna |first=Kumar |date=February 2001 |title='Transmogrifying' Malaya: The Impact of Sir Gerald Templer (1952–54) |journal=Journal of Southeast Asian Studies |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=79–92 |doi=10.1017/S0022463401000030 |jstor=20072300|s2cid=159660378 }}</ref>
The MNLA was vastly outnumbered by the British forces and their Commonwealth and colonial allies in terms of regular full-time soldiers. Siding with the British occupation were a maximum of 40,000 British and other Commonwealth troops, 250,000 Home Guard members, and 66,000 police agents. Supporting the communists were 7,000+ communist guerrillas (1951 peak), an estimated 1,000,000 million sympathisers, and an unknown number of civilian [[Min Yuen]] supporters and [[Orang Asli]] sympathisers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hack|first=Karl|date=2012|title=Everyone lived in fear: Malaya and the British way of counter-insurgency|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|journal=Small Wars and Insurgencies|volume=23|issue=4–5|pages=671–699|doi=10.1080/09592318.2012.709764|s2cid=143847349|via=Taylor & Francis Online}}</ref>
===Control of anti-guerrilla operations===
[[File:Police in Malayan Emergency.jpg|thumb|Police officers question a civilian during the Malayan Emergency.]]
At all levels of the Malayan government (national, state, and district levels), the military and civil authority was assumed by a committee of military, police and civilian administration officials. This allowed intelligence from all sources to be rapidly evaluated and disseminated and also allowed all anti-guerrilla measures to be co-ordinated.<ref name="conduct_1958_chap_3">Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya, Director of Operations, Malaya, 1958, Chapter III: Own Forces</ref>
Each of the Malay states had a State War Executive Committee which included the State Chief Minister as chairman, the Chief Police Officer, the senior military commander, state home guard officer, state financial officer, state information officer, executive secretary, and up to six selected community leaders. The Police, Military, and Home Guard representatives and the Secretary formed the operations sub-committee responsible for the day-to-day direction of emergency operations. The operations subcommittees as a whole made joint decisions.<ref name="conduct_1958_chap_3" />
===Nature of warfare===
[[File:The Malayan Emergency 1948-1960 MAL35.jpg|thumb|Malayan Police conducting a patrol around the [[Belum-Temengor|Temenggor]], 1953]]
The British Army soon realised that clumsy sweeps by large formations were unproductive.{{sfnp|Nagl|2002|pp=67–70}} Instead, platoons or sections carried out patrols and laid ambushes, based on intelligence from various sources, including informers, surrendered MNLA personnel, aerial reconnaissance and so on. A typical operation was "Nassau", carried out in the [[Kuala Langat]] swamp (excerpt from the Marine Corps School's ''The Guerrilla – and how to Fight Him''):
{{Quote|After several assassinations, a British battalion was assigned to the area. Food control was achieved through a system of rationing, convoys, gate checks, and searches. One company began operations in the swamp, about 21 December 1954. On 9 January 1955, full-scale tactical operations began; artillery, mortars, and aircraft began harassing fires in the South Swamp. Originally, the plan was to bomb and shell the swamp day and night so that the terrorists would be driven out into ambushes; but the terrorists were well prepared to stay indefinitely. Food parties came out occasionally, but the civil population was too afraid to report them.
Plans were modified; harassing fires were reduced to night-time only. Ambushes continued and patrolling inside the swamp was intensified. Operations of this nature continued for three months without results. Finally on 21 March, an ambush party, after forty-five hours of waiting, succeeded in killing two of eight terrorists. The first two red pins, signifying kills, appeared on the operations map, and local morale rose a little.
Another month passed before it was learned that the terrorists were making a contact inside the swamp. One platoon established an ambush; one terrorist appeared and was killed. May passed without contact. In June, a chance meeting by a patrol accounted for one killed and one captured. A few days later, after four fruitless days of patrolling, one platoon en route to camp accounted for two more terrorists. The No. 3 terrorist in the area surrendered and stated that food control was so effective that one terrorist had been murdered in a quarrel over food.
On 7 July, two additional companies were assigned to the area; patrolling and harassing fires were intensified. Three terrorists surrendered and one of them led a platoon patrol to the terrorist leader's camp. The patrol attacked the camp, killing four, including the leader. Other patrols accounted for four more; by the end of July, twenty-three terrorists remained in the swamp with no food or communications with the outside world.
This was the nature of operations: 60,000 artillery shells, 30,000 rounds of mortar ammunition, and 2,000 aircraft bombs for 35 terrorists killed or captured. Each one represented 1,500 man-days of patrolling or waiting in ambushes. "Nassau" was considered a success for the end of the emergency was one step nearer.<ref>Taber, ''The War of the Flea'', pp.140–141. Quote from Marine Corps Schools, "Small Unit Operations" in ''The Guerrilla – and how to Fight Him''</ref>}}
==Commonwealth contribution==
In addition to British and Malayan units and personnel, a range of Commonwealth forces were also involved, including troops from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Kenya, [[Nyasaland]], and [[Northern Rhodesia|Northern]] and [[Southern Rhodesia]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Malayan Campaign 1948–60 |last=Scurr |first=John |publisher=Osprey Publishing |location=Oxford |year=2005 |orig-year=1981 |isbn=978-0-85045-476-5}}</ref>
===Australia===
{{Main|Military history of Australia during the Malayan Emergency}}
The first Australian ground forces, the [[2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment]] (2 RAR), arrived in 1955.<ref name="awm.gov.au">{{cite web|title=Malayan Emergency, 1950–60|url=http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/emergency.asp|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080503033039/http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/emergency.asp|archive-date=3 May 2008|access-date=23 October 2011|publisher=Australian War Memorial}}</ref> The battalion was later replaced by [[3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment|3 RAR]], which in turn was replaced by [[1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment|1 RAR]]. The [[Royal Australian Air Force]] contributed [[No. 1 Squadron RAAF|No. 1 Squadron]] ([[Avro Lincoln]] bombers) and [[No. 38 Squadron RAAF|No. 38 Squadron]] ([[C-47 Skytrain|C-47]] transports), operating out of Singapore, early in the conflict. In 1955, the RAAF extended [[RAAF Base Butterworth|Butterworth air base]], from which [[English Electric Canberra|Canberra]] bombers of [[No. 2 Squadron RAAF|No. 2 Squadron]] (replacing No. 1 Squadron) and [[CAC Sabre]]s of [[No. 78 Wing RAAF|No. 78 Wing]] carried out ground attack missions against the guerillas. The [[Royal Australian Navy]] destroyers {{HMAS|Warramunga|I44|2}} and {{HMAS|Arunta|I30|2}} joined the force in June 1955. Between 1956 and 1960, the aircraft carriers {{HMAS|Melbourne|R21|2}} and {{HMAS|Sydney|1944|2}} and destroyers {{HMAS|Anzac|D59|2}}, {{HMAS|Quadrant|G11|2}}, {{HMAS|Queenborough|G30|2}}, {{HMAS|Quiberon|G81|2}}, {{HMAS|Quickmatch|G92|2}}, {{HMAS|Tobruk|D37|2}}, {{HMAS|Vampire|D11|2}}, {{HMAS|Vendetta|D08|2}} and {{HMAS|Voyager|D04|2}} were attached to the [[Commonwealth Strategic Reserve]] forces for three to nine months at a time. Several of the destroyers fired on communist positions in [[Johor]] State.
===New Zealand===
{{Main|Military history of New Zealand in Malaysia}}
A total of 1,300 New Zealanders served in the Malayan Emergency between 1948 and 1964, and fifteen lost their lives.
New Zealand's first contribution came in 1949, when [[C-47 Skytrain|C-47 Dakotas]] of [[No. 41 Squadron RNZAF|RNZAF No. 41 Squadron]] were attached to the [[Royal Air Force]]'s [[RAF Far East Air Force|Far East Air Force]]. New Zealand became more directly involved in the conflict in 1955; from May, RNZAF [[de Havilland Vampire]]s and [[de Havilland Venom|Venoms]] began to fly strike missions. In November 1955 133 soldiers of what was to become the [[Special Air Service of New Zealand]] arrived from Singapore, for training in-country with the British SAS, beginning operations by April 1956. The [[Royal New Zealand Air Force]] continued to carry out strike missions with Venoms of [[No. 14 Squadron RNZAF|No. 14 Squadron]]<ref>Ian McGibbon (Ed.), (2000). ''The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History.'' p.294.</ref> and later [[No. 75 Squadron RNZAF|No. 75 Squadron]] [[English Electric Canberra]]s, as well as supply-dropping operations in support of anti-guerrilla forces, using the [[Bristol Freighter]].
===Rhodesia===
{{Main|Southern Rhodesian military involvement in the Malayan Emergency}}
[[File:C Squadron (Rhodesian) SAS, 1953.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Rhodesian Special Air Service|"C" Squadron]], the all-Southern Rhodesian unit of the Special Air Service (SAS), in Malaya in 1953|alt=A formative black-and-white photograph of military personnel. The men wear khaki shirts and shorts with long, dark-coloured socks. They all wear dark berets.]]
[[Southern Rhodesia]] and its successor, the [[Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland]], contributed two units to Malaya. Between 1951 and 1953, white Southern Rhodesian volunteers formed [[Rhodesian Special Air Service|"C" Squadron]] of the [[Special Air Service]].<ref>{{cite book
|title=Masodja: The History of the Rhodesian African Rifles and its forerunner the Rhodesian Native Regiment
|last=Binda
|first=Alexandre
|editor-last=Heppenstall
|editor-first=David
|location=Johannesburg
|publisher=30° South Publishers
|date=November 2007
|isbn=978-1920143039
|page=127}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book
|title=The Special Air Service
|url=https://archive.org/details/specialairservic00libg
|url-access=limited
|last1=Shortt
|first1=James
|author-link1=
|others=illustrated by Angus McBride
|publisher=Osprey Publishing
|series=Men-at-arms 116
|location=Oxford
|year=1981
|isbn=0-85045-396-8
|pages=[https://archive.org/details/specialairservic00libg/page/n19 19]–20}}</ref> The [[Rhodesian African Rifles]], comprising black soldiers and [[warrant officer]]s but led by white officers, served in [[Johor]]e state for two years from 1956.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Masodja: The History of the Rhodesian African Rifles and its forerunner the Rhodesian Native Regiment
|last=Binda
|first=Alexandre
|editor-last=Heppenstall
|editor-first=David
|location=Johannesburg
|publisher=30° South Publishers
|date=November 2007
|isbn=978-1920143039
|pages=127–128}}</ref>
===Fiji===
During the four years of Fijian involvement, from 1952 to 1956, some 1,600 Fijian troops served. The first to arrive were the 1st Battalion, [[Fiji Infantry Regiment]]. Twenty-five Fijian troops died in combat in Malaya.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Center/Press-Releases/DOCUMENTARY-TO-EXPLORE-RELATIONSHIP-BETWEEN-MALAYS.aspx|work=Fiji Government Online Portal|title=Documentary to Explore the Relationship Between Malaysia and Fiji During the Malayan Emergency|access-date=13 September 2014|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183747/https://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Centre/News/DOCUMENTARY-TO-EXPLORE-RELATIONSHIP-BETWEEN-MALAYS|url-status=live}}</ref> Friendships on and off the battlefield developed between the two nations; the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], became a friend and mentor to Ratu Sir [[Edward Cakobau]], who was a commander of the Fijian Battalion, and who later went on to become the Deputy PM of Fiji and whose son Brigadier General [[Epeli Nailatikau|Ratu Epeli]] was a future President of Fiji.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.fijisun.com.fj/2014/01/30/documentary-to-explore-fijian-malaysian-links/|title=Documentary To Explore Fijian, Malaysian Links |access-date=13 September 2014 |work=Fiji Sun |date=30 January 2014|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183752/https://fijisun.com.fj/2014/01/30/documentary-to-explore-fijian-malaysian-links/|url-status=live }}</ref> The experience was captured in the documentary, ''Back to Batu Pahat''.
===Kenya, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland===
The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions of the [[King's African Rifles]] from [[Nyasaland]], [[Northern Rhodesia]] and [[Kenya]] respectively also served there suffering 23 losses.
==Resolution==
On 6 October 1951, the MNLA ambushed and killed the British High Commissioner, Sir [[Henry Gurney]]. The killing has been described as a major factor in causing the Malayan population to roundly reject the MNLA campaign, and also as leading to widespread fear due to the perception that "if even the High Commissioner was no longer safe, there was little hope of protection and safety for the man-in-the-street in Malaya."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ongkili|first=James P.|year=1985|title=Nation-building in Malaysia 1946–1974|page=79|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-582681-7}}</ref> Later, MNLA leader Chin Peng stated that the killing had little effect and that the communists were already altering their strategy, according to new guidelines enshrined in the so-called "October Resolutions".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_aPdeJinXGwC&pg=PA298 |title=Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party |authors= Chin, C. C. Chin; Hack, Karl |publisher=NUS Press|year= 2004|isbn=9789971692872 }}</ref>
The October Resolutions, a response to the Briggs Plan, involved a change of tactics by the MPLA by reducing attacks on economic targets and civilians, increasing efforts to go into political organisation and subversion, and bolstering the supply network from the [[Min Yuen]] as well as jungle farming.
[[File:Chin Peng wanted by Malaya.jpg|thumb|Headline on page 1 of ''[[The Straits Times]]'' of 1952. [[Chin Peng]]: Public Enemy No.1]]
Gurney's successor, Lieutenant General [[Gerald Templer]], was instructed by the British government to push for immediate measures to give Chinese ethnic residents the right to vote.
===Amnesty declaration===
On 8 September 1955, the Government of the Federation of Malaya issued a declaration of amnesty to the communists.<ref>Memorandum from the Chief Minister and Minister for Internal and Security, No. 386/17/56, 30 April 1956. CO1030/30</ref> The Government of Singapore issued an identical offer at the same time. [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], as Chief Minister, made good the offer of an amnesty but promised there would be no negotiations with the MNLA. The terms of the amnesty were:
* Those of you who come in and surrender will not be prosecuted for any offence connected with the Emergency, which you have committed under Communist direction, either before this date or in ignorance of this declaration.
* You may surrender now and to whom you like including to members of the public.
* There will be no general "ceasefire" but the security forces will be on alert to help those who wish to accept this offer and for this purpose local "ceasefire" will be arranged.
* The Government will conduct investigations on those who surrender. Those who show that they are genuinely intent to be loyal to the Government of Malaya and to give up their Communist activities will be helped to regain their normal position in society and be reunited with their families. As regards the remainder, restrictions will have to be placed on their liberty but if any of them wish to go to China, their request will be given due consideration.<ref name="ReferenceA">Prof Madya Dr. Nik Anuar Nik Mahmud, Tunku Abdul Rahman and His Role in the Baling Talks</ref>
Following the declaration, an intensive publicity campaign on an unprecedented scale was launched by the government. Alliance Ministers in the Federal Government travelled extensively up and down the country exhorting the people to call upon the communists to lay down their arms and take advantage of the amnesty. Despite the campaign, few Communists surrendered to the authorities. Some critics in the political circles commented that the amnesty was too restrictive and little more than a restatement of the surrender terms which had been in force for a long period. The critics advocated a more realistic and liberal approach of direct negotiations with the MCP to work out a settlement of the issue. Leading officials of the [[Labour Party of Malaya|Labour Party]] had, as part of the settlement, not excluded the possibility of recognition of the MCP as a political organisation. Within the Alliance itself, influential elements in both the [[Malaysian Chinese Association|MCA]] and [[United Malays National Organisation|UMNO]] were endeavouring to persuade the Chief Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, to hold negotiations with the MCP.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
===Baling talks and their consequences===
{{Main|Baling Talks}}
[[File:Malya Emergency British Artillery.jpg|thumb|right|British artillery firing on an insurgent hide-out in the Malayan jungle, 1955]]
Realising that the tide of the war was turning against him, Chin Peng indicated that he would be ready to meet with British officials alongside senior Malayan politicians in 1955. The talks took place in the Government English School at [[Baling]] on 28 December. Chin Ping walked out from the jungle and tried to negotiate with the leader of the Federation, [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], but the British Intelligence Service worried that the MCP would regain influence in society. The MCP was represented by [[Chin Peng]], the Secretary-General, [[Rashid Maidin]] and [[Chen Tien]], head of the MCP's Central Propaganda Department. On the other side were three elected national representatives, [[Tunku Abdul Rahman]], Dato' [[Tan Cheng Lock|Tan Cheng-Lock]] and [[David Marshall (Singaporean politician)|David Saul Marshall]], the Chief Minister of Singapore. The meeting was intended to design an end to the conflict but the Malayan government representatives, led by Tunku Abdul Rahman, dismissed all of Chin Peng's demands. As a result, the conflict heightened, and, in response, [[New Zealand]] sent NZSAS soldiers, [[No. 14 Squadron RNZAF]], [[No. 41 Squadron RNZAF|No. 41 (Bristol Freighter) Squadron RNZAF]] and, later, [[No. 75 Squadron RNZAF]]; other [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] members also sent troops to aid the British.
Following the failure of the talks, Tunku decided to withdraw the amnesty on 8 February 1956, five months after it had been offered, stating that he would not be willing to meet the Communists again unless they indicated beforehand their desire to see him with a view to making "a complete surrender".<ref>MacGillivray to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 15 March 1956, CO1030/22</ref> Despite the failure of the talks, the MCP made every effort to resume peace talks with the Malayan government, without success. Meanwhile, discussions began in the new Emergency Operations Council to intensify the "People's War" against the guerillas. In July 1957, a few weeks before independence, the MCP made another attempt at peace talks, suggesting the following conditions for a negotiated peace:
* its members should be given privileges enjoyed by citizens
* a guarantee that political as well as armed members of the MCP would not be punished
The failure of the talks affected MCP policy. At the same time, the strength of the MNLA and 'Min Yuen' declined to only 1830 members in August 1957. Those who remained faced going into exile, or death in the jungle. Tunku Abdul Rahman, however, did not respond to the MCP's proposals. With the independence of Malaya under Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman on 31 August 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 [[Thailand|Thai border]] and further east. On 31 July 1960 the Malayan government declared the state of emergency was over, and Chin Peng left south Thailand for Beijing where he was accommodated by the Chinese authorities in the International Liaison Bureau, where many other Southeast Asian Communist Party leaders were housed.{{cn|date=November 2021}}
==Casualties==
During the conflict, security forces killed 6,710 MRLA guerrillas and captured 1,287, while 2,702 guerrillas surrendered during the conflict, and approximately 500 more did so at its conclusion. 1,345 Malayan troops and police were killed during the fighting,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/my_polic.html |title=Royal Malaysian Police (Malaysia) |publisher=Crwflags.com |access-date=3 January 2014 |archive-date=14 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814232634/https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/my_polic.html |url-status=live }}</ref> as well as 519 Commonwealth personnel.<ref name="Smith">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IY9MDAAAQBAJ&q=519+Commonwealth+2,478+civilians&pg=PT52|title=Long Tan: The Start of a Lifelong Battle|last=Smith|first=Harry|date=2015-08-01|publisher=Big Sky Publishing|isbn=9781922132321|language=en|access-date=1 November 2020|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183715/https://books.google.com/books?id=IY9MDAAAQBAJ&q=519+Commonwealth+2%2C478+civilians&pg=PT52|url-status=live}}</ref> 2,478 civilians were killed, with another 810 recorded as missing.<ref name="Smith"/><!-- No page numbers?
The citation includes a link to a google books site which shows me where the casualty numbers are, but this strange book appears to have no page numbers.
How are we supposed to cite a book with no page numbers? -->
==War crimes==
===Commonwealth===
{{Main|List of war crimes#1948.E2.80.931960:_Malayan_Emergency|l1=List of war crimes § 1948-1960: Malayan Emergency|Bukit Kepong incident}}
[[War crimes]] have been broadly defined by the [[Nuremberg Principles]] as "violations of the [[laws or customs of war]]," which includes [[massacres]], [[bomb]]ings of civilian targets, [[terrorism]], [[mutilation]], [[torture]], and the murder of [[detainees]] and [[prisoners of war]]. Additional common crimes include [[theft]], [[arson]], and the destruction of [[property]] not warranted by [[military necessity]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Gary D. Solis|title=The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FKf0ocxEPAC&pg=PA301|date=15 February 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-48711-5|pages=301–303|access-date=27 June 2015|archive-date=16 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016051735/https://books.google.com/books?id=6FKf0ocxEPAC&pg=PA301|url-status=live}}</ref>
====Torture====
During the Malayan conflict, there were instances during operations to find insurgents where British troops detained and [[torture]]d villagers who were suspected of aiding the insurgents. Brian Lapping said that there was "some vicious conduct by the British forces, who routinely beat up Chinese [[Squatting|squatters]] when they refused, or possibly were unable, to give information" about the insurgents.{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}} [[The Scotsman|''The'' ''Scotsman'']] newspaper lauded these tactics as a good practice since "simple-minded peasants are told and come to believe that the communist leaders are invulnerable".{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}} Some civilians and detainees were also shot, either because they attempted to flee from and potentially aid insurgents or simply because they refused to give intelligence to British forces.{{cn|date=December 2021}}
Widespread use of arbitrary detention, punitive actions against villages, and use of torture by the police, "created animosity" between Chinese squatters and British forces in Malaya and "were therefore counterproductive in generating the one resource critical in a counterinsurgency, good intelligence".<ref name="MAY">{{citation |last=Siver |first=Christi |title=The Other Forgotten War: Understanding Atrocities during the Malayan Emergency |date=2009 |work=Political Science Faculty Publications. 8 |url=http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=polsci_pubs |publisher=College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University |quote=<!-- Prepared for delivery at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 3-6, 2009 -->}} </ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}} <!--p38-39 -->
British troops were often unable to tell the difference between enemy [[combatant]]s and [[civilian]]s while conducting [[military operations]] through the jungles, due to the fact that many Min Yuen wore civilian clothing and had support from sympathetic civilian populations.
====Batang Kali Massacre====
During the [[Batang Kali massacre]], 24 unarmed civilians were executed by the [[Scots Guard]]s near a rubber plantation at Sungai Rimoh near [[Batang Kali]] in [[Selangor]] in December 1948. All the victims were male, ranging in age from young teenage boys to elderly men.{{sfn|Hack|2018|p=210}} Many of the victims' bodies were found to have been mutilated and their village of Batang Kali was burned to the ground. No weapons were found when the village was searched. The only survivor of the killings was a man named Chong Hong who was in his 20s at the time. He fainted and was presumed dead.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup|title=New documents reveal cover-up of 1948 British 'massacre' of villagers in Malaya|newspaper=The Guardian|date=9 April 2011|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-date=30 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930043116/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thesundaily.my/news/868710|title=Batang Kali massacre families snubbed|newspaper=The Sun Daily|date=29 October 2013|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211224000/http://www.thesundaily.my/news/868710|archive-date=11 December 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/18/malaysia-petition-batang-kali-massacre|title=UK urged to accept responsibility for 1948 Batang Kali massacre in Malaya|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=18 June 2013|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183747/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/18/malaysia-petition-batang-kali-massacre|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19473258|title=Malaysian lose fight for 1948 'massacre' inquiry|website=BBC News|date=4 September 2012|access-date=13 January 2014|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183737/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-19473258|url-status=live}}</ref> Soon afterwards the British colonial occupation staged a coverup of British military abuses which served to obfuscate the exact details of the massacre.{{sfn|Hack|2018|p=212}}
The massacre later became the focus of decades of legal battles between the UK government and the families of the civilians executed by British troops.
According to Christi Silver, Batang Kali was notable in that it was the only incident of mass killings by Commonwealth forces during the war, which Silver attributes to the unique subculture of the Scots Guards and poor enforcement of discipline by junior officers.<ref>Siver, Christi L. "The other forgotten war: understanding atrocities during the Malayan Emergency." In APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper. 2009.</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}}
==== Destruction of villages ====
====Decapitations and mutilation====
During the war British and Commonwealth forces hired [[Iban people|Iban]] headhunters from Borneo to decapitate suspected MNLA members, arguing that this was done so for identification purposes.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Harrison|first=Simon|title=Dark Trophies: Hunting and the Enemy Body in Modern War|publisher=Berghahn|year=2012|isbn=978-1-78238-520-2|location=Oxford|pages=158|language=English}}</ref> However in practice this led to British troops taking the decapitated heads of Malayan people as trophies.<ref name=":1" /> Proof of this practice was first leaked to the public in 1952 when the [[Communist Party of Great Britain|British communist]] the [[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]] published multiple photographs of British soldiers posing with decapitated heads as trophies.<ref name=":1" /> Initially British government spokespersons belonging to the [[Admiralty (United Kingdom)|Admiralty]] and the [[Colonial Office]] claimed the photographs were fake. However, Colonial Secretary [[Oliver Lyttelton]] (after confirmation from Gerald Templer) confirmed to parliament that the photos were indeed genuine.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History|last1=Peng|first1=Chin|last2=Ward|first2=Ian|last3=Miraflor|first3=Norma|publisher=Media Masters|year=2003|isbn=981-04-8693-6|location=Singapore|pages=302}}</ref> The Colonial Office privately noted that "there is no doubt that under [[international law]] a similar case in wartime would be a war crime".<ref name="MAL">{{cite book |title=Malaysian Chinese & China: Conversion in Identity Consciousness, 1945–1957 |pages=61–65 |author=Fujio Hara |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |date=December 2002}}</ref><ref name="Mark Curtis 61–71">{{cite book |title=The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 |pages=61–71 |author=Mark Curtis |date=15 August 1995}}</ref> After the ''Daily Worker'' articles exposing the decapitating MNLA suspects the practice was banned by Winston Churchill who feared that such photographs would give ammunition to communist propaganda.<ref name=":1" /> After the war, one of the trophy heads was found within a British regimental museum.<ref name=":1" />
There were also cases of dead guerrillas being exhibited in public for identification, and to potentially entrap grieving associates.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}
====Internment camps====
As part of the [[Briggs Plan]] devised by British General Sir [[Harold Rawdon Briggs|Harold Briggs]], 500,000 people (roughly ten percent of Malaya's population) were forced from their homes by British forces. Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed, and many people were imprisoned in British [[Internment Camp]]s called "[[new village]]s". The policy aimed to inflict [[collective punishment]] on villages where people were thought to be support communism, and also to isolate civilians from guerrilla activity. Many of the forced evictions involved the destruction of existing settlements which went beyond the justification of [[military necessity]]. This practice was prohibited by the [[Geneva Conventions]] and [[customary international law]], which stated that the destruction of property must not happen unless rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.<ref name="MAY"/><ref name="MAL"/><ref name="Pamela Sodhy 1991 284–290">{{cite book |title=The US-Malaysian Nexus: Themes in Superpower-Small State Relations |pages=284–290 |publisher=Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia |author=Pamela Sodhy |year=1991}}</ref>
====Deportations====
{{more detail needed|date="November 2021}}
Over the course of the war, some 30,000 mostly ethnic Chinese were deported by the British authorities to mainland China.<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc" /><ref>Chin, C. (2012). Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party. Chinese Edition.</ref>
==Comparisons with Vietnam==
===Differences===
[[Image:Jungle service dress.JPG|thumb|upright=0.8|Jungle service dress of the [[Somerset Light Infantry|1st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry]] used in the emergency]]
The conflicts in Malaya and [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]] have often been compared,<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc" /> with historians asking how a British force of 35,000 succeeded to quell a communist insurgency in Malaya, while over half a million U.S. and allied soldiers failed in the comparably sized Vietnam. The two conflicts differ in the following ways:
* The MNLA never numbered more than about 8,000 insurgents, but the [[People's Army of Vietnam|People's Army of (North) Vietnam]] fielded over a quarter-million soldiers, in addition to roughly 100,000 [[Viet Cong|National Liberation Front (or Vietcong)]] guerillas.
* The Soviet Union, North Korea,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1427367.stm |title=N Korea admits Vietnam war role |work=BBC News |author=Gluck, Caroline |access-date=7 July 2001 |archive-date=3 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183714/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1427367.stm |url-status=live }}</ref> Cuba<ref>Bourne, Peter G. ''Fidel: A Biography of Fidel Castro'' (1986) p. 255; Coltman, Leycester ''The Real Fidel Castro'' (2003) p. 211</ref> and the People's Republic of China (PRC) provided large amounts of the latest military hardware, logistical support, personnel and training to North Vietnam, whereas the MNLA received no material support, weapons or training from any foreign government or party.
* North Vietnam's shared border with its ally China (PRC) allowed for continuous assistance and resupply, but Malaya's only land border is with non-communist Thailand.
* Britain did not approach the Emergency as a conventional conflict and quickly implemented an effective intelligence strategy, led by the Malayan Police Special Branch, and a systematic [[Winning hearts and minds|hearts and minds]] operation, both of which proved effective against the largely ''political'' aims of the guerrilla movement.<ref>Comber (2006), ''Malaya's Secret Police 1945–60. The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency''</ref><ref name="Clutterbuck">{{cite book|last=Clutterbuck|first=Richard|title=The long long war: The emergency in Malaya, 1948–1960|publisher=Cassell|year=1967}} Cited at length in Vietnam War essay on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency [https://web.archive.org/web/20071020064959/http://ehistory.osu.edu/vietnam/essays/insurgency/0006.cfm Lessons from Malaya], eHistory, Ohio State University.</ref>
* Vietnam was less ethnically fragmentated than Malaya. During the Emergency, most of MNLA members ethnically [[Malaysian Chinese|Chinese]] and drew support from sections of the Chinese community.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=53}} However, most of the more numerous indigenous Malays, many of whom were animated by anti-Chinese sentiments, remained loyal to the government and enlisted in high numbers into the security services.{{sfnp|Komer|1972|p=13}}
* Many Malayans had fought side by side with the British against the [[Japanese occupation of Malaya]], including the future leader of the MPLA, Chin Peng. That contrasted with Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), where colonial officials of Vichy France had been subordinate to the conquering Japanese forces, which fostered Vietnamese nationalism against France.
* The British military recognised that in a [[low-intensity conflict|low-intensity war]], individual soldiers' skill and endurance are of far greater importance than overwhelming firepower (artillery, air support, etc.). Even though many British soldiers were [[Conscription in the United Kingdom#After 1945|conscripted National Servicemen]], the necessary skills and attitudes were taught at a Jungle Warfare School, which also developed the optimum tactics based on experience gained in the field.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/historic/hist_c3_pt1.pdf |title=Analysis of British tactics in Malaya |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080911061212/http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/historic/hist_c3_pt1.pdf |archive-date=11 September 2008}}</ref>
* In Vietnam, soldiers and supplies passed through external countries such as [[CIA activities in Laos|Laos]] and [[Cambodian Campaign|Cambodia]], where US forces were not legally permitted to enter. That allowed Vietnamese communist troops a safe haven from US ground attacks. The MNLA had only a border with [[Thailand]], where they were forced to take shelter near the end of the conflict.
===Similarities===
Many tactics used by the Americans in Vietnam were similar to those used by the British in Malaya. Some examples are listed below.
====Agent Orange====
{{Main|Agent Orange}}
During the Malayan Emergency, Britain was the first nation to employ the use of [[herbicides]] and [[defoliants]] to destroy bushes, food crops, and trees to deprive the insurgents of cover and as part of the food denial campaign in the early 1950s. The [[2,4,5-T]] and [[2,4-D]] (Agent Orange) were used to clear [[lines of communication]] and wipe out food crops as part of this strategy and in 1952, [[trioxone]], and mixtures of the aforementioned herbicides, were sent along a number of key roads. From June to October 1952, 1,250 acres of roadside vegetation at possible ambush points were sprayed with defoliant, described as a policy of "national importance." The British reported that the use of herbicides and defoliants could be effectively replaced by removing vegetation by hand and the spraying was stopped. However, after that strategy failed, the use of herbicides and defoliants in effort to fight the insurgents was restarted under the command of British General Sir [[Gerald Templer]] in February 1953 as a means of destroying food crops grown by communist forces in jungle clearings. [[Helicopters]] and [[fixed-wing aircraft]] despatched [[Trichloroacetic acid|STCA]] and Trioxaone, along with pellets of [[(2-Chlorophenyl)thiourea|chlorophenyl]] [[N,N-Dimethyl-1-naphthylamine]] onto crops such as [[sweet potatoes]] and [[maize]]. Many Commonwealth personnel who handled and/or used Agent Orange during the conflict suffered from serious exposure to dioxin and Agent Orange. An estimated 10,000 civilians and insurgents in Malaya also suffered from the effects of the defoliant, but many historians think that the number is much larger since Agent Orange was used on a large scale in the Malayan conflict and, unlike the US, the British government limited information about its use to avoid negative world public opinion). The prolonged absence of vegetation caused by defoliation also resulted in major [[soil erosion]] to areas of Malaya.<ref>{{cite book |title=Pesticide Dilemma in the Third World: A Case Study of Malaysia |pages=23 |publisher=Phoenix Press |year=1984}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Dioxins and Health |url=https://archive.org/details/dioxinshealth00sche_546 |url-access=limited |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dioxinshealth00sche_546/page/n157 145]–160 |author=Arnold Schecter, Thomas A. Gasiewicz |date=4 July 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Reference Handbook |pages=178–180 |author=Albert J. Mauroni |date=July 2003}}</ref>
After the Malayan Conflict ended in 1960, the US used the British precedent in deciding that the use of defoliants was a [[law of war|legally-accepted tactic of warfare]]. [[US Secretary of State]] [[Dean Rusk]] advised [[US President]] [[John F. Kennedy]] that the precedent of using herbicide in warfare had been established by the British through their use of aircraft to spray herbicide and thus destroy enemy crops and thin the thick jungle of northern Malaya.<ref name="USE">{{cite book |title=The Global Politics of Pesticides: Forging Consensus from Conflicting Interests |page=61 |author=Bruce Cumings |year=1998 |publisher=[[Earthscan]]}}</ref><ref name="Pamela Sodhy 1991 284–290"/>
====Aerial bombardment====
Like the [[US Air Force]] in Vietnam, widespread [[saturation bombardment]] was used by the [[Royal Air Force]] throughout the conflict in Malaya. Britain conducted 4,500 airstrikes in the first five years of the Malayan war. Mapping was poor, communications were abysmal, the meteorology was unfavourable and airfields were few. Buzzing likely enemy positions was used (the modern '[[show of force]]'), and the bombing of potential escape routes was also occasionally practised. The author Robert Jackson said, "During 1956, some 545,000 lb. of bombs had been dropped on a supposed guerrilla encampment. but a lack of accurate pinpoints had nullified the effect. The camp was again attacked at the beginning of May 1957, dropping a total of 94,000 lb. of bombs, but because of inaccurate target information, this weight of explosive was 250 yards off target. Then, on 15 May. 70,000 lb. of bombs were dropped". "The attack was entirely successful", Jackson declares, since "four terrorists were killed". He also notds that a 500 lb. nose-fused bomb was employed from August 1948 and had a mean area of effectiveness of 15,000 square feet. "Another very viable weapon" was the 20 lb. [[Fragmentation (weaponry)|fragmentation bomb]], a forerunner of [[cluster bombs]]. "Since a [[Short Sunderland|Sunderland]] could carry a load of 190, its effect on terrorist morale was considerable", Jackson states. "Unfortunately, it was not used in great numbers, despite its excellent potential as a harassing weapon". On one occasion a [[Avro Lincoln|Lincoln]] bomber "dropped its bombs 600 yards short. killing twelve civilians and injuring twenty-six others". The British reported that bombing jungles was largely a waste of effort because of inaccurate targeting and the inability to confirm if a target was hostile or not. Throughout the 12-year conflict, between 670 and 995 [[non-combatants]] were killed by British RAF bombers.<ref name="MAY" /><ref name="Mark Curtis 61–71"/><ref>{{cite book |title=The Malayan Emergency |pages=28–34 |author=Robert Jackson |date=August 2008}}</ref>
====Resettlement programme====
Britain also set up a "[[population transfer|resettlement]]" programme, which provided a model for the Americans' [[Strategic Hamlet Program]] in Vietnam. During the Malayan Emergency, 450 [[new village]]s were created and it is estimated that 470,509 people, 400,000 of whom were Chinese, were [[interned]] in the resettlement program. A key British war measure was inflicting [[collective punishments]] on villages whose people were deemed to be aiding the insurgents. At [[Tanjung Malim|Tanjong Malim]] in March 1952, Templer imposed a twenty-two-hour house [[curfew]], banned everyone from leaving the village, closed the schools, stopped bus services, and reduced the rice rations for 20,000 people. The last measure prompted the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to write to the Colonial Office to note that the "chronically undernourished Malayan" might not be able to survive as a result. "This measure is bound to result in an increase, not only of sickness but also of deaths, particularly amongst the mothers and very young children". Some people were fined for leaving their homes to use external latrines. In another collective punishment, at [[Sungai Pelek|Sengei Pelek]] the following month, measures included a house curfew, a reduction of 40 percent in the rice ration and the construction of a chain-link fence 22 yards outside the existing barbed wire fence around the town. Officials explained that the measures were being imposed upon the 4,000 villagers "for their continually supplying food" to the insurgents and "because they did not give information to the authorities".<ref>{{cite book |title=The US-Malaysian nexus: Themes in superpower-small state relations |pages=356–365 |author=Pamela Sodhy |publisher=Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia |year=1991}}</ref>
[[File:Malayan Police patrol.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|Two suspected guerillas after capture by Jungle Squad officers]]
====Search and destroy====
As the Americans later did in Vietnam, British troops sometimes set fire to villages whose inhabitants were accused of supporting the insurgents, detained thousands of suspected collaborators, and denied the insurgents cover. British units that discovered civilians providing assistance to insurgents were to detain and interrogate them by using torture and the threat of violence against family members to discover the location of insurgent camps. Insurgents had numerous advantages over British forces since they lived in closer proximity to villagers, they sometimes had relatives or close friends in the village, and they were not afraid to threaten violence or torture and murder village leaders as an example to the others, which forced them to assist them with food and information. British forces thus faced a dual threat: the insurgents and the silent network in villages who supported them. British troops often described the terror of jungle patrols. In addition to watching out for insurgent fighters, they had to navigate difficult terrain and avoid dangerous animals and insects. Many patrols would stay in the jungle for days, even weeks, without encountering the MNLA guerrillas. That strategy led to the infamous [[Batang Kali massacre]] in which 24 unarmed villagers were executed by British troops.<ref name="MAY" /><ref name="MAL"/>
==Legacy==
[[File:Tugu Negara.jpg|thumb|The [[Tugu Negara|National Monument]] commemorating those who died in Malaysia's struggle for freedom, including the Malayan Emergency]]
The [[Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation]] of 1963–66 arose from tensions between Indonesia and the new British backed [[Malaysia|Federation of Malaysia]] that was conceived in the aftermath of the Malayan Emergency.
In the late 1960s, the coverage of the [[My Lai massacre]] during the [[Vietnam War]] prompted the initiation of investigations in the UK concerning war crimes perpetrated by British forces during the Emergency, such as the [[Batang Kali massacre]]. No charges have yet been brought against the British forces involved and the claims have been repeatedly dismissed by the British government as propaganda, despite evidence suggestive of a cover-up.<ref>{{cite news |last=Townsend |first=Mark |title=New documents reveal cover-up of 1948 British 'massacre' of villagers in Malaya |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup |work=The Guardian |access-date=15 April 2011 |location=London |date=9 April 2011 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930043116/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup |url-status=live }}</ref>
Following the end of the Malayan Emergency in 1960, the predominantly [[Malaysian Chinese|ethnic Chinese]] [[Malayan National Liberation Army]], the armed wing of the MCP, retreated to the Malaysian-Thailand border where it regrouped and retrained for future offensives against the Malaysian government. A new phase of [[communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–89)|communist insurgency]] began in 1968. It was triggered when the MCP ambushed security forces in [[Kroh|Kroh–Betong]], in the northern part of [[Peninsular Malaysia]], on 17 June 1968. The new conflict coincided with renewed tensions between ethnic [[Malay people|Malays]] and [[Malaysian Chinese|Chinese]] following the [[13 May Incident]] of 1969, and the ongoing conflict of the [[Vietnam War]].{{sfnp|Nazar bin Talib|pp=16–17}}
Communist leader [[Chin Peng]] spent much of the 1990s and early 2000s working to promote his perspective of the Emergency. In a collaboration with Australian academics, he met with historians and former Commonwealth military personnel at a series of meetings which led to the publication of ''Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party.''<ref>{{Cite web|title=Dialogues with Chin Peng – New Light on the Malayan Communist Party|url=https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/dialogues-with-chin-peng|website=National University of Singapore|access-date=17 May 2020|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183651/https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/dialogues-with-chin-peng|url-status=live}}</ref> Peng also travelled to England and teamed up with conservative journalist Ian Ward and his wife Norma Miraflor to write his autobiography ''Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History''.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UaluAAAAMAAJ&q=alias+chin+peng|isbn = 9789810486938|access-date = 17 May 2020|last1 = Chin|first1 = Peng|last2 = Ward|first2 = Ian|last3 = Miraflor|first3 = Norma O.|year = 2003|archive-date = 3 January 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183734/https://books.google.com/books?id=UaluAAAAMAAJ&q=alias+chin+peng|url-status = live}}</ref>
Many colonial documents, possibly relating to British atrocities in Malaya, were either destroyed or hidden by the British colonial authorities as a part of [[Operation Legacy]]. Traces of these documents were rediscovered during a legal battle in 2011 involving the victims of rape and torture by the British military during the [[Mau Mau Uprising]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sato|first=Shohei|date=2017|title='Operation Legacy': Britain's Destruction and Concealment of Colonial Records Worldwide|journal=The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History|volume=45|issue=4|pages=698, 697–719|doi=10.1080/03086534.2017.1294256|s2cid=159611286|issn=0308-6534|doi-access=free}}</ref>
==In popular culture==
{{Category see also|Works about the Malayan Emergency}}
In popular Malaysian culture, the Emergency has frequently been portrayed as a primarily Malay struggle against the Communists. This perception has been criticised by some, such as Information Minister [[Zainuddin Maidin]], for not recognising [[Malaysian Chinese|Chinese]] and [[Malaysian Indians|Indian]] efforts.<ref>Kaur, Manjit (16 December 2006). [http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/12/16/nation/16341437&sec=nation "Zam: Chinese too fought against communists"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604031429/http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=%2F2006%2F12%2F16%2Fnation%2F16341437&sec=nation |date=4 June 2011 }}. ''The Star''.</ref>
A number of films were set against the background of the Emergency, including:
* ''[[The Planter's Wife (1952 film)|The Planter's Wife]]'' (1952)
* ''[[Windom's Way]]'' (1957)
* ''[[The 7th Dawn]]'' (1964)
* ''[[The Virgin Soldiers (film)|The Virgin Soldiers]]'' (1969)
* ''[[Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers]]'' (1977)
* ''[[Bukit Kepong (film)|Bukit Kepong]]'' (1981)
* [[The Garden of Evening Mists (film)|''The Garden of Evening Mists'']] (2019)
Other media:
* [[Mona Brand]]'s stage production ''Strangers in the Land'' (1952) was created as political commentary to criticise the occupation, depicting plantation owners as burning down villiages and collecting the heads of murdered Malayans as trophies.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Lanstrum|first=Erik|date=2017|title=Facts About Atrocity: Reporting Colonial Violence in Postwar Britain|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbx032|journal=History Workshop Journal|volume=84|pages=108–127|doi=10.1093/hwj/dbx032|via=Oxford Academic}}</ref> The play was only performed in the UK at the tiny activist run Unity Theater because the British government had banned the play from commercial stages.<ref name=":0" />
*In ''[[The Sweeney]]'' episode "The Bigger They Are" (series 4, episode 8; 26 October 1978), the tycoon Leonard Gold is being blackmailed by Harold Collins, who has a photo of him present at a massacre of civilians in Malaya when he was in the British Army twenty-five years earlier.
* Throughout the series ''[[Porridge (1974 TV series)|Porridge]]'', there are references to Fletcher having served in Malaya, probably as a result of [[Conscription in the United Kingdom|National Service]]. He regales his fellow inmates with stories of his time there, and in one episode it is revealed that Prison Officer Mackay had also served in Malaya.
* ''[[The Malayan Trilogy]]'' series of novels (1956–1959) by [[Anthony Burgess]] is set during the Malayan Emergency.
==See also==
* [[Cold War in Asia]]
* [[Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–89)]]
* [[British Far East Command]]
* [[List of weapons in Malayan Emergency]]
* [[Far East Strategic Reserve|Far East Strategic Reserve (FESR)]]
* [[Chin Peng]]
* [[Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army]]
* [[Briggs Plan]]
* [[New village]]
* [[Batang Kali massacre]]
* [[Bukit Kepong incident]]
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
===Sources===
* {{cite book|last=Christopher|first=Paul|chapter=Malaya, 1948–1955: Case Outcome: COIN Win|title=Paths to Victory: Detailed Insurgency Case Studies|publisher=|year=2013|isbn=|location=|pages=51–63}}
* {{cite book |last=Komer|first=R.W|date=February 1972|title=The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect: Organisation of a Successful Counterinsurgency Effort |publisher=Rand Corporation|isbn=|location=|pages=|url=https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R957.pdf|access-date=12 May 2019|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183706/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R957.pdf|url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Newsinger |first=John |title=The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire|edition= 2nd |publisher=Bookmarks Publications |year=2013 |isbn=9781909026292 |location=London }}
* {{Cite book |last=Newsinger |first=John |title=British Counterinsurgency |edition=2nd |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-230-29824-8|location=Basingstoke }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |date=2018 |title='Devils that suck the blood of the Malayan People': The Case for Post-Revisionist Analysis of Counter-insurgency Violence |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0968344516671738 |journal=War in History |volume=25|issue=2 |doi=10.1177/0968344516671738 |s2cid=159509434 |via=Sage Journals |pages=202–226 |url-access=subscription}}
* {{cite book|last=Taber|first=Robert|year=2002|title=War of the flea: the classic study of guerrilla warfare|publisher=Brassey's|isbn=978-1-57488-555-2|location=|url=https://archive.org/details/waroffleaclassic00tabe}}
==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book|last=Director of Operations|first=Malaya|year=1958|title=The Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya|publisher=Director of Operations Malaya|location=Federation of Malaya|pages=|isbn=1907521747}}
* {{cite journal|last=Comber|first=Leon|title=The Malayan Security Service (1945–1948) |journal=Intelligence and National Security |issue=3|year=2003|pages=128–153 |volume=18 |doi=10.1080/02684520412331306950|s2cid=154320718|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684520412331306950 }}
* {{cite journal|last=Comber|first=Leon|title=The Malayan Special Branch on the Malayan-Thai Frontier during the Malayan Emergency|journal=Intelligence and National Security |volume=21 |issue=1|date=February 2006|pages=77–99|doi=10.1080/02684520600568352|s2cid=153496939}}
* {{cite book|last=Comber|first=Leon|year=2006|isbn=|chapter=Malaya's Secret Police 1945–60. The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency|title=PhD dissertation, Monash University|location=Melbourne|pages=|publisher=ISEAS (Institute of SE Asian Affairs, Singapore) and MAI (Monash Asia Institute)}}
* {{cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |date=1999 |title='Iron claws on Malaya': the historiography of the Malayan Emergency |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-southeast-asian-studies/article/abs/iron-claws-on-malaya-the-historiography-of-the-malayan-emergency1/14AB9D441A3E75DF21C96AE1FA223C59 |journal=Journal of Southeast Asian Studies |volume=30|issue=1|pages=99–125 |doi=10.1017/S0022463400008043 |url-access=subscription}}
* {{cite journal |last=Hack |first=Karl |year=1999 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684529908432578 |url-access=subscription|pages=211–241|title=Corpses, Prisoners of War and Captured documents: British and Communist Narratives of the Malayan Emergency, and the Dynamics of Intelligence Transformation|journal=Intelligence and National Security |issn=0268-4527 |volume=14 |issue=4 |doi=10.1080/02684529908432578}}
*{{cite book |last=Jackson |first=Robert |year=2011 |title=The Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation: The Commonwealth's Wars 1948–1966 |publisher= Pen and Sword |isbn= 9781848845558}}
* {{cite book|last=Jumper|first=Roy|year=2001|title=Death Waits in the Dark: The Senoi Praaq, Malaysia's Killer Elite |publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=0-313-31515-9|location=|pages=}}
* {{cite journal |last=Keo |first= Bernard Z. |title=A small, distant war? Historiographical reflections on the Malayan Emergency |journal=History Compass |date=March 2019 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hic3.12523 |doi=10.1111/hic3.12523 |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages= e12523 |s2cid= 150617654 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183725/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hic3.12523 |archive-date=3 January 2021 }}
* {{cite web|last=Mitchell|first=David F.|date=2016|title=The Malayan Emergency: How to Fight a Counterinsurgency War|work=Warfare History Network|url=http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/the-malayan-emergency-how-to-fight-a-counterinsurgency-war/|access-date=5 July 2018|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183710/https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2016/10/27/the-malayan-emergency-how-to-fight-a-counterinsurgency-war/|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book|last=Nagl|first=John A.|year=2002|title=Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam|publisher=University of Chicago|isbn=0-226-56770-2|location=|pages=|url=https://archive.org/details/learningtoeatsou00john}}
* Newsinger, John. (2016) ''British counterinsurgency'' (Springer, 2016) compares British measures in Mayaya, Palestine, Kenya, Cyprus, South Yemen, Dhofar, & Northern Ireland
* Short, Anthony (1975). ''The Communist Insurrection in Malaya 1948–1960''. London and New York: Frederick Muller. Reprinted (2000) as ''In Pursuit of Mountain Rats''. Singapore.
* {{cite book|last=Stubbs|first=Richard|year=2004|title=Hearts and Minds in Guerilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency 1948–1960|publisher=Eastern University|isbn=981-210-352-X|location=|pages=}}
* Sullivan, Michael D. "Leadership in Counterinsurgency: A Tale of Two Leaders" ''Military Review'' (Sep/Oct 2007) 897#5 pp 119–123.
* {{cite journal|last=Th'ng|first=Bee Fu|year=2019|title=Forbidden Knowledge: Response from Chinese-Malay Intellectuals to Leftist-Books Banning During the Emergency Period|journal=Sun Yat-sen Journal of Humanities|volume=|pages=|url=https://www.academia.edu/40326023|access-date=15 September 2019|via=|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183717/https://www.academia.edu/40326023/%E6%96%B9%E7%BE%8E%E5%AF%8C_%E8%A2%AB%E7%A6%81%E6%AD%A2%E7%9A%84%E7%9F%A5%E8%AD%98_%E9%A6%AC%E4%BE%86%E4%BA%9E%E7%B7%8A%E6%80%A5%E7%8B%80%E6%85%8B%E4%B8%8B%E7%9F%A5%E8%AD%98%E4%BA%BA%E5%B0%8D%E6%8A%84%E6%AA%A2%E5%B7%A6%E6%B4%BE%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96%E7%9A%84%E5%9B%9E%E6%87%89_Thng_Bee_Fu_Forbidden_Knowledge_Response_from_Chinese_Malay_Intellectuals_to_Leftist_Books_Banning_During_the_Emergency_Period|url-status=live |lang=zh}}
* {{cite book|last=Thompson|first=Sir Robert|year=1966|title=Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam|publisher=F. A. Praeger|location=London|pages=|isbn=0-7011-1133-X}}
* {{cite journal|last=Ucko|first=David H.|year=2019|title=Counterinsurgency as armed reform: The political history of the Malayan Emergency|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2017.1406852|journal=Journal of Strategic Studies|volume=42|issue=3–4|pages=448–479|doi=10.1080/01402390.2017.1406852|s2cid=158297553 |url-access=subscription}}
{{Refend}}
==External links==
{{Library resources box
|onlinebooks=no
|by=no
}}
{{Commons category}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20010807010636/http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/emergency.htm Australian War Memorial] ''(Malayan Emergency 1950–1960)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928083748/http://fesrassociation.com/archives/toc.htm Far East Strategic Reserve Navy Association (Australia) Inc.] ''(Origins of the FESR – Navy)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060712043107/http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/malaya/malayamain.html Malayan Emergency] ''(AUS/NZ Overview)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060620092600/http://www.britains-smallwars.com/malaya/index.html Britain's Small Wars] ''(Malayan Emergency)''
* [http://www.psywar.org/malaya.php PsyWar.Org] ''(Psychological Operations during the Malayan Emergency)''
* [http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Databases/MalayaPostWW2/index.html www.roll-of-honour.com] ''(Searchable database of Commonwealth Soldiers who died)''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120402140726/http://brigandboys.org.uk/index.php A personal account of flying the Bristol Brigand aircraft with 84 Squadron RAF during the Malayan Emergency – Terry Stringer]
*[https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/malayan-emergency-1948-1960 The Malayan Emergency 1948 to 1960] Anzac Portal
{{Communism in Malaysia}}
{{British colonial campaigns}}
{{Cold War}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Malayan Emergency| ]]
[[Category:1948 in military history]]
[[Category:Cold War conflicts]]
[[Category:Wars involving pre-independence Malaysia]]
[[Category:Communism in Malaysia]]
[[Category:Communism in Singapore]]
[[Category:History of the Royal Marines]]
[[Category:Insurgencies in Asia]]
[[Category:Rebellions against the British Empire]]
[[Category:Wars involving Australia]]
[[Category:Cold War history of Australia]]
[[Category:Wars involving Rhodesia]]
[[Category:Wars of independence]]
[[Category:Civil wars in Malaysia]]
[[Category:British Empire]]' |
