by Boris Hembry
In the preamble I pointed out that it must be clear to everyone that we were no nearer to destroying the forces of communism than we were in June 1948. In fact the situation had considerably deteriorated during the previous three months, in spite of large-scale operations by the Security Forces.
I went on to suggest that Malaya could not continue to rely entirely on the UK for troops and finance and that the time had arrived when Malaya should rescue itself from the near-disastrous position it was in. It had the manpower and the money; all it needed was the will.
My main proposal was that all able-bodied men, of all classes, colours and creeds, should be conscripted into an armed militia, for a period of two months each year. Five to ten thousand at a time would be required to undergo a month of intensive basic training, comprising PT, weapons training and jungle field craft, followed by a month on active service. As soon as the first batch had been trained, the second would be required to report. This way the full 30,000 would be available within six months. The second year of service would only require a week’s refresher course before active service.
Where the men were in gainful employment their salaries during their embodiment would be met by their employers, otherwise the State would pay a basic allowance to the unemployed or casual labourers. This way all parts of society would have a stake in the fight against terrorism, and it was fair that the greater their stake in a peaceful, free and prosperous country, the more it should cost that person or his employers.
Included in the necessary legislation would be the legal requirement for employers to re-employ everyone at their old job, on completion of embodiment. Obviously all arms and equipment would be supplied by the Government, and it must be of good quality – not, for example, leftovers from the Great or even Boer wars.
The tasks would be several:
1. Aid to the Civil Power.
2. Active operations against the Communist bandits, in conjunction with and under the command of the regular forces.
3. Consolidation and garrisoning of areas cleared of Communist terrorists.
4. Provision of interpreters and providers of local knowledge for the regular forces.
Finally, I stressed the absolute necessity to form a first-class intelligence service, the Government’s own Min Yuen, with information leading to arrests and conviction well paid for. Five hundred dollars to the Government is nothing; $500 to a squatter or labourer, who had vital information to impart, was riches.
In front of me is a cutting from The Straits Times dated 20 April 1950, some two months after I wrote the above. It reads as follows: ‘Unofficial Members of the Federal Legislative Council today unanimously expressed the opinion that the manpower available in the country should be mobilised, trained and properly equipped to shoulder the responsibility of restoring peace and security.’
Of course I have no means of knowing, but I do know that my paper was circulated fairly extensively and I like to think that my ideas had some influence on the above resolution in the Legislative Council. Despite some improvement in the situation, the scale of CT activity in Perak remained massive. I think only Johore was as bad, although Negri Sembilan and Selangor and parts of Pahang were nearly so. The bandits in the Sungei Siput district were particularly daring one night when they entered the village and under the noses of the police and army relieved the villagers of their identity cards.
Perumal was a constant source of irritation to me. He was in the habit of visiting the outlying divisions and raiding the shops for rice and tinned stores. He also invariably helped himself to a bottle or two of orange crush. I suggested to the police that we should lace a marked bottle with cyanide and reward the shopkeeper who managed to palm it off, but they refused to accept my idea, on the grounds that there could be a mix-up resulting in someone innocent being poisoned. I also suggested that I should act as a decoy, with a section of Gurkhas disguised as tappers standing by, but this, too, was vetoed. Perumal’s parting words were always for the shopkeeper to tell the tuan that it would only be a matter of days before he killed me.
In due course the police were relieved of certain guard duties in and around Ipoh, such as the airfield, fuel dumps, electricity substations and telephone exchanges, and replaced by Specials.
One morning I was driving around the Sungei Buloh clearing when someone took a shot at me. The bullet struck the armour plating with a clang, not too many inches from my head. I stopped the jeep 200 yards further on and took to the rubber trees, retracing my path, but saw no one. I could not believe that it was Perumal as he would have mounted a proper ambush, with several accomplices. I concluded that it was most probably a lone bandit on his way home to join a weeding gang, after a night’s nefarious activity. Jean later reminded me that I always had at least two dogs cavorting and barking behind my jeep, which I always drove slowly around so that I could inspect the rubber, which would have identified me as the driver.
In June 1950 I received a letter from the secretaries in London, who had been instructed by the board to write direct to me. This was most unusual, if not unique, as it was the cast-iron rule that all communications between the Board and a manager must go through the agents in KL, otherwise it could lead to cross-purposes and misunderstandings. I quote the letter dated 1 June in full:
Dear Mr Hembry,
We have been asked by the Board to write to you direct expressing their regret at learning of the latest outrage on Kamuning Estate, and conveying their best wishes for Mr Jones’ speedy recovery. These sentiments were conveyed to you in a private telegram sent through the Agents yesterday, which we hope you received.
The Directors feel the utmost admiration for the courage and devotion to duty shown by the Staff, both European and Asian. As you know, they are prepared to authorise spending the company’s money to whatever extent considered necessary and advisable to protect the Staff, both by the institution of precautions and by the provision of insurance against the possibility of the worst happening. Though the Board cannot claim an extensive knowledge of the different districts in Malaya and of the outrages that have occurred there, they are of the opinion that the Sungei Siput district has had more of (sic) its share, and they are writing to the Agents suggesting a suitable letter should be addressed either to Mr Griffiths (Colonial Secretary) or Mr Strachey (War Minister), if they are still in Malaya, or failing them to Mr Hilton Poynton (Permanent Secretary, Colonial Office), listing the outrages, particularly murders, in the Sungei Siput district, emphasising how bad it is, and going on to say that the directors of companies whose estates have suffered so much cannot go on indefinitely asking men to expose themselves by working there in so much danger involved. We shall be grateful if you will co-operate in producing a list of outrages, and in any other way which you may consider advantageous.
With renewed best wishes for the safety of yourself and all others on Kamuning Estate and the speedy and complete recovery of Mr Jones.
Yours faithfully,
London Secretaries
Naturally I did my best to co-operate, and provided the requested list and quite a lot more information which I thought might strengthen the case – as if it needed to be! I also had a long talk with Sir Hilton Poynton when he visited Ipoh and attended a State War Executive committee meeting. I repeated my demand for the arrest of the Red Dean. Sir Hilton replied by saying, ‘Hembry, whilst I agree with you, I cannot say so officially.’ This latter exchange was while he was alone with me in my car as I was driving him to the club for lunch by a somewhat circuitous route, to give me more time to bend his ear in private.
I then wrote to Sir Hilton summarising the salient points that I had put to him in the car.
The letter from the London secretaries was followed by one from those in KL. They reiterated the sentiments expressed in the London letter, complimented me on my ‘forceful’ letter to Sir Hilton Poynton, and followed by saying, ‘Your routine reports are read with particular interest and concern and you are to be congratulated on yo
ur dogged and efficient conduct of affairs in the face of such exceptional, trying and difficult circumstances.’
This again was most gratifying. However, I was aware, through conversations with other planters, that some other companies were not nearly as supportive of their staffs, whether Asian or European, as Guthrie’s. It must have been very trying for them to feel that there was not the acknowledgement by those who worked in the safety of KL, Singapore or London of the very great dangers that most of us worked in every day.
Dates for our next home leave were now being discussed and it was tentatively agreed that we should return home in July, when Jean received disturbing news about the health of her father. We therefore decided that she should go at once. We were in KL having her passport renewed when Charles Ross telephoned to say that a cable had been received giving the news that Grandpa Cuthbertson had died on 15 April. He was only 68, and had enjoyed but three years of well-earned retirement. Jean managed to obtain a flight home during the first week of May.
I had persuaded the agents to appoint Charles Ross to act for me during my leave. He knew Kamuning like the back of his hand, and was familiar with my modus operandi and future plans, and more than capable of holding the fort until my return. But towards the end of June, within a matter of weeks of my scheduled departure, Charles became very ill and the X-rays showed inoperable cancer. But Reid Tweedie refused to accept this diagnosis and arranged for him to fly down to Singapore to see a surgeon friend for a second opinion. The latter diagnosed something less sinister, but which requiring an immediate operation. Luckily he was correct; there was no malignancy, and Charles made a complete recovery, convalesced in Australia, eventually succeeded to the Kamuning management and finally retired to Scotland.
Arrangements were hurriedly made for Louis Denholm of Kerling Estate to take Charles’ place, and I duly handed over to him. An excellent choice, but it was whilst showing him around the estate that we heard of my old friend Ralph Inder being murdered on the neighbouring Dovenby Estate. Acting as pall-bearer again, to another planter and old friend, was one of my final acts before departing.
I said my fond farewells to Puteh and Abdul, and of course to Kim. Alas, only a month or so later Louis wrote to say that the old boy had fretted away and died. I was so glad that I had been able to give him a good and loving home for the last five years of his life. He certainly repaid me with his love and loyalty.
I stayed the night in Ipoh, flew down to KL, where I was advised by the agents that I was shortly to be offered a more senior appointment, and then on to Singapore before flying home to arrive in London some 30 hours later, full of joy to be with Jean again, flattered that it appeared that a promotion was in the offing, but sad at the prospect of leaving Kamuning.
The first week of leave was truly hectic. We stayed at the Royal Commonwealth Society, as the accommodation in the East India & Sports Club was lamentable, and went to a show every night. After one, accompanied by Freddy and Mollie Reynolds, who were also home on leave, Freddy insisted on taking us on to the Gargoyle Club, which he had joined whilst up at Cambridge some 30 years before, and had not visited since. The entrance was by a tannery and the smell was disgusting. We ascended to the first floor by an old-fashioned lift, one of those which one propelled oneself upwards by pulling on a rope, which opened out to the bar. The first thing we saw was a fat, scruffy, bleary-eyed man in a clinch with a female, on a settee, with another man who was looking decidedly unamused, looking on from the other end of the settee. As the barman said that the latter was the woman’s husband, we were interested to see what would happen. When the couple came out of their clinch the unprepossessing lover started to speak in the most beautiful, melodious man’s voice I have ever heard. He introduced himself as Dylan Thomas, and would we join him in a drink? I quickly declined, as I thought that if we did we would be in for a very long night. But after a couple of bottles of champagne I became so impressed with the club that Freddy insisted on proposing me for membership there and then, and getting Dylan Thomas to second me. The secretary then discovered that Freddy had not paid his annual subscription for 30 years, and charged him over £100 to get up to date. We both paid our due subscriptions, and none of us ever returned. But Jean and I enjoyed ourselves, dancing to our favourite tunes from prewar. The club had been started by the painter Augustus John, and was the haunt of bohemians and queers.
We based ourselves at Hornchurch. I took delivery of the Humber Hawk that I had ordered in Malaya, and would be taking back with me at the end of my leave, so we were mobile. It was when I had driven up to meet my mother at Euston Station that I bumped into Anthony Eden again. ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said. ‘Malaya. Sungei Siput, isn’t it?’ I marvelled that this statesman could remember what to him must have been such a trivial occurrence in his long and distinguished life. He quizzed me for a few minutes about the current situation in Malaya, hinted that he hoped that there would be great changes in not too many months time, shook hands and left to catch his train.
Very soon I was summoned to Guthrie’s, now back in their headquarters in Gracechurch Street, in the City, to meet Sir John, and to attend a meeting of the Kamuning Board of Directors. Shortly after this Sir John asked me to join him at Lords for the Gentleman vs Players match. This was the game in which Freddy Brown made the quick hundred that ensured his captaincy of the MCC tour to Australia that winter. Sometime during Brown’s innings Sir John casually asked me whether I knew anything about oil palms. I replied, ‘Damn all.’ After about another 30 runs Sir John said that he wanted me to take over at Ulu Remis, the Oil Palms of Malaya estate at Layang Layang, in Johore. I repeated that I knew nothing about oil palms, well aware that Ulu Remis was the largest estate in the whole of Malaya, and the most prestigious and best-paid managership in the Guthrie group. He replied that there was an extremely experienced and capable staff there, quite able to look after the horticultural and manufacturing side of the business. I would be required to administer the enterprise, and to sort out the unhappiness and back-biting (Sir John’s words) that seemed to be prevalent amongst the divisional managers. Obviously the man I was to replace, Steve Thorburn, for all his abilities, had allowed this to occur. The plan was for me to act for Thorburn while he was on leave, to gain some experience with oil palms and re-establish good staff relations, before taking over from him after his final, shortened, tour.
I recognised the honour and the confidence Guthrie’s were showing in me, that at 41 I was very young for such responsibilities, and that it would give me a chance to earn a large income, even by Malayan standards, for at least 10 years. But I viewed the proposed change with mixed feelings. I sought no better position than Kamuning, which I considered home – or at least home from home. North Perak was a lovely part of Malaya, within easy reach of both Penang and Cameron Highlands for weekends, and where most of our friends lived. Of all the states that I knew, I liked Johore the least. I was happy with my European staff of two, and did not relish the idea of ‘sorting out’ more than a dozen Europeans, most of whom were older than me and with many years experience of oil palms. In addition, the Layang Layang area of Johore had the reputation of being a terrorist hotbed.
Sir John then said that the police had advised Guthrie’s that captured communist terrorist documents had showed me at the head of their ‘death list’, after only the High Commissioner, the Chief of Police and the Director of Operations. I found this hard to believe as, in spite of my anti-CT activities in Perak, I was after all only an ordinary rubber planter, and no more important than any of the other 800-odd planters in Malaya. But Sir John assured me it was so, and that they had agreed to move me. I did wonder whether my wartime activities had any bearing on this. Chin Peng might have thought that I knew too much about his contacts and plans. If so, he had the wrong man. Bob Chrystal and Freddy Spencer Chapman most certainly did, but they were thousands of miles away. Claude Fenner and John Davis most certainly did, and they were marked men, too. But if it were true,
I wondered why it was proposed to move me to somewhere equally as dangerous as Sungei Siput.
Towards the end of our leave, Sir John and I were invited to lunch by Alan Lennox-Boyd, the ‘shadow’ colonial secretary, at his beautiful house in Mayfair. His wife was a Guinness, and they lived accordingly. Pre-lunch drinks were champagne cocktails, and the exquisite meal, the raw materials for which must have been brought over from their estates in Ireland as there was still food rationing, was served by the butler. Throughout the meal I was closely questioned by our host on many matters concerning the Emergency, and asked for my views on various ideas that he was formulating in the hope of being in government within months.
I pressed the point that, in my opinion, the local government must be given a freer hand to act decisively and robustly, and to be backed to the hilt by the home government. I raised my hobbyhorse about controlling the squatters and their ability to supply the CTs with food and information, the need for our own Min Yuen to supply us with first-class intelligence, and the necessity for much larger sums of money to be made available to reward informers. Asked how I would control the squatters I suggested that they should be gathered into protected areas to make it easier for the police and military to oversee them, and more difficult for the Communists to gain access. I also suggested that it might be possible to use captured CTs in some way to lure their colleagues away from the jungle, although I foresaw difficulties from the legal authorities over the matter of rewarding convicted criminals. Lennox-Boyd appeared to listen attentively and took notes continually.
I do not pretend for one moment unduly to have influenced future events, or to have been the only person thinking along these lines, because to those of us at the ‘sharp end’ they seemed so much common sense. But the fact is that everything that I had been advocating to those in authority since almost the very beginning of the Emergency, and which Sir John and I had again pressed for over lunch with Alan Lennox-Boyd, had been fully implemented by the time Sir Gerald Templer left Malaya. To be fair to Sir Henry Gurney, who has never been given the recognition he deserves, many of these ideas had been accepted and put in hand before he was murdered. Templer was also lucky in that he had been granted almost unlimited powers, enjoyed direct access to Winston Churchill, the prime minister, and in Oliver Lyttelton had a very strong colonial secretary.
