The Special Operations Executive in Malaya

World War II and the Path to Independence

Rebecca Kenneison

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781788313896
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350118584
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

During World War II, agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) infiltrated Japanese-occupied Malaya. There they worked with Malayan guerrilla groups, including the communist-sponsored Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), regarded as the precursor of the communist insurgent army of the Malayan Emergency. This book traces the development of SOE's Malayan operations, and analyses the interactions between SOE and the various guerrilla groups. It explores the reasons for and the extent of Malay disillusionment with Japanese rule, and demonstrates how guerrilla service acted as a training ground for some later Malay leaders of the independent nation. However, the reports written about the MPAJA by SOE operatives just after the war failed to draw out the likely future threat posed by the communists to the returning colonial administration. Rebecca Kenneison shows that the British possessed a wealth of local information, but failed to convert it into active intelligence in the period prior to the Malayan Emergency. In doing so she provides new insights into the impact of SOE on Malayan politics, the nature of Malayan communism's challenge to colonial rule, and British post-war intelligence in Malaya.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Dedication Page
• Praise Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Note on spelling
• Key characters
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Oriental Mission and Malaya, 1941–1942
• Chapter 2 Malayan Country Section, Force 136: Recruitment, Composition and Training
• Chapter 3 ‘A Deal with the Devil’: Force 136 and the MPAJA1
• Chapter 4 ‘Expect to Meet You Shortly’: Force 136 and the Malay Resistance1
• Chapter 5 ‘The Kuomintang State’: Force 136 and the OCAJA1
• Chapter 6 ‘Revolutionary Spirit’: The Post-War Period, August 1945–April 19461
• Chapter 7 ‘The Tangled Mass of Unspun Fibres’: Information and Intelligence in the Lead-up to the Malayan Emergency1
• Conclusion
• Appendix A The Blantan Agreement
• Appendix B The Second Agreement
• Appendix C Targeted Killings Prior to the Declaration of the Emergency
• Notes
• Sources and Bibliography
• Index
• Plates Section
• Copyright Page