Did you know that the Malayan Emergency was the only war that was won against Communism?
Most people can remember the failures like Korea and Vietnam but few nowadays recall the victory in Malaya.
Unlike the American policy in Vietnam of "search and destroy" and then return to base, the British and Commonwealth soldiers in Malaya played the guerillas at their own game by living out in the jungle for weeks on end and ambushing them. By 1953 these tactics had succeeded in forcing Chin Peng to move his headquarters into Thailand. He had not been able to establish any liberated areas and by the end of 1958 there were only 250 guerillas operating in Malaya.
During the Second World War the British sent in arms by supply drops and by landings from submarines and parachuted in officers to liaise with and train Chinese resistance groups in Malaya. These resistance groups became the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army. After the war, the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) planned to use this army to fight a guerilla war in order to achieve independence for Malaya. In 1947 the MCP had 12,590 members and its Secretary General, Chin Peng, was commander of between 5,000 and 7,000 guerillas. (Chin Peng was awarded an OBE for his services during the Second World War but he never received the decoration because it arrived in Kuala Lumpur after he launched his revolt. The award was subsequently cancelled.) In 1949 the army was renamed the Malayan Races Liberation Army (MRLA) and was divided up into 10 regiments, spread throughout the peninsula.
On 16 June 1948 the guerilla war began with the killing of some rubber planters. Chin Peng's plan was to attack lonely rubber estates and tin mines and exterminate important police and government officials in country districts, thereby forcing the British to evacuate the rural areas and go to the bigger towns. He would then set up guerilla bases in liberated areas and expand his army with recruits from local supporters. Once his army had been expanded in the liberated rural areas, he planned to attack towns, villages and important communication lines. Then, with the political backing of China and USSR, it was hoped that the pressure of world opinion would force Britain to give Malaya independence under an MCP government.
Although the British Army in Malaya at this time consisted of 11 battalions of British, Gurkha and Malay troops, the number of guerillas bearing arms outnumbered the actual fighting men of the British Army as most battalions were under strength. The Army's first task was a holding operation, keeping the guerillas on the move by constant searching, patrolling and ambushing.
Throughout the country there were some 600,000 squatters who lived on the fringes of the jungle on land to which they had no real title or right. The guerillas used these settlements as a refuge and to store food. The government decided to uproot and resettle these squatters in New Villages where they could be isolated from the guerillas. In these villages they were able to build their own houses and farm land that was to be legally theirs. By the end of 1951 more than two-thirds of the squatters were living in 509 New Villages. The guerillas were thus cut off from their usual food supplies and were forced to move.
At the same time a reward system was set up whereby persons giving information leading to the capture of guerillas were given cash bounties. This led many guerillas who had surrendered to give information on their former comrades.
Throughout the Emergency the Government maintained a policy of policing villages rather than destroying them and of "winning the hearts and minds" of the people. As a result, the Air Force rarely bombed or strafed targets near any town or populated area. Its vital contribution lay in air reconnaissance; dropping of supplies to Army units operating in jungles; evacuating casualties; and providing mobility for the Security forces with helicopters which were used very effectively to move troops from one point to another when searching out and subsequently attacking suspected camps.
It was an intense 12-year jungle war fought by the British, British Commonwealth and Malay forces against the army of the Malayan Communist Party led by Communist fanatic Chin Peng.
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