Malayan Spymaster

by Boris Hembry

  Jean received a letter from Mrs Gibson, Sir John’s personal secretary, dated the 22 June 1950. Having passed on both her’s and Sir John’s condolences, she went on to say that the Sunday Dispatch newspaper was chasing Sir John for a piece on the Emergency in Malaya and that he had written back to suggest that an article ‘red hot from the field of operations’ would be much more interesting for their readers. ‘The editor’s reply is enclosed, from which you will see that if Boris would agree to give an interview, the ghost writer could do the donkey work. In view of all that has happened around Sungei Siput and Boris’s colourful, not to say picturesque, descriptive manner, Sir John thinks we could get some very useful publicity which might stir people at home to a better realisation of the true situation in Malaya.’ She concluded, quite rightly, by saying, ‘The Sunday Dispatch, of course, is hardly the intelligentsia’s cup of tea, but it has an enormous readership composed mainly of what our present masters call the ‘working man’, whose votes they are most anxious to retain. Sir John thinks it a good idea to build up public opinion about Malaya within that section of the population, and hopes very much that Boris will agree to co-operate.’

  With some reluctance, I agreed to the interview. Mrs Gibson wrote again to the editor, Barclay Barr:

  Boris Hembry manages one of our large rubber estates in Malaya, which happens to be situated in about the most bandit-ridden area in the country. He has just returned on leave. His estate has been under constant attack, and we have been advised that he is one of the bandits’ marked men. Fortunately he has so far escaped, although a number of his assistants, both Asian and European, have been either killed or wounded. He is a very vigorous personality, has played a prominent part in the work of the Volunteer Forces and has been awarded the Police Medal for leadership and bravery.

  Sir John thinks you would find an interview with him, or an article by him, of great interest for your columns, since he has been living and working in a most dangerous district ever since the disturbances began, and will have at his finger tips all the latest possible information. He is also the sort of personality which can vividly convey his impressions to others.

  The Sunday Dispatch replied:

  The Editor thinks that, with Sir John’s approval, the subject would be worth two or three articles rather than one. It is not often that such an authoritative personality as Mr Hembry is accessible to a newspaper.

  I will place a skillful ghost-writer at Mr Hembry’s disposal.

  Yours sincerely,

  Victor Suhr, News Editor

  Barclay Barr called on us at Hornchurch, and we talked for nearly three hours, he taking notes all the time. ‘My’ article appeared in the Sunday Dispatch some three weeks later, and made chilling reading. It was entitled ‘The (Almost) Forgotten War’, and started, ‘War in Korea. Banditry in Malaya’. The substance was pretty much as I had described it to my ‘ghost’, with added information as to the numbers involved. For instance: at the end of 1950 the security forces – British, Gurkha, Malay Regiment, other Commonwealth, and armed constabulary – numbered more then 80,000. In addition, the RAF were flying on average more than 100 sorties a day, bombing and machine-gunning the Communist terrorists over an area of jungle stretching 500 by 200 miles, in addition to the many ops flown to drop supplies to the ground forces. I stated that in July 1950, for example, Lincoln bombers dropped 41 1000-pounders over an area of jungle within five miles of Kamuning, alone. The final paragraph read: ‘We have a very real war in Malaya, which is and has been for two years bigger than Korea, and strategically, economically and commercially far more important to the free world than Korea.’

  I was paid 30 guineas for ‘my’ article.

  We had another week staying in London, and seeing shows in the evenings, entertaining or attending meetings at Guthrie’s during the day.

  Strictly speaking my leave was up just before Christmas, but Guthrie’s agreed to extend it until after John returned to school in mid-January. Although Jean and I would have much preferred to return to Malaya by sea, I agreed to fly back, as Steve Thorburn, the general manager of Ulu Remis, was overdue his leave and was most anxious to get away. Sir John Hay was travelling out by sea and would be arriving in Singapore at about the same time as us.

  After the usual sad partings, we stayed our last night at the Cumberland Hotel. The following morning we left Heathrow by KLM, putting down at Amsterdam, Rome, Cairo, Baghdad, Karachi, Calcutta and finally Bangkok, before being met at Singapore with a Guthrie car. We spent the night with the Taylors, and were collected by Steve Thorburn the next morning and driven over the causeway to Johore Bahru, and Ulu Remis.

  Whilst I realised that the challenge and opportunity were there, and that I was extremely lucky to have now reached the pinnacle of my chosen profession, both Jean and I were homesick for Kamuning.

  Palm Oil (January 1951 – September 1951)

  I had heard a lot about Steve Thorburn over the years and little to his credit. Both Jean and I disliked him from the start. During the drive back to the estate he appeared affable enough while he started to brief me about the senior management at Ulu Remis. It was obvious that his principle of management was divide and rule. He told me that he had set up a network of informers amongst some of the more senior Indian staff, so that there was nothing that occurred out in the divisions that he did not know about very quickly. The system seemed to work, but it certainly was not conducive to ‘a happy ship’, and was one that I had no intention of employing.

  Ulu Remis was so large, with over 20,000 acres under cultivation, that each of the divisions was managed by a senior planter of management rank. But it was obvious that he considered them to be little more than mere senior assistants and treated them accordingly. This was, in my opinion, stupid, as there were many fine planters amongst the European staff, and I quickly found, when Steve had departed, that they performed far better, to everyone’s benefit, if permitted to use their own initiative, to get on with the jobs that they were undoubtedly more than capable of doing.

  Despite Thorburn’s many failings – and I was to discover many extremely disquieting things of which I felt ashamed, if only by association – Ulu Remis Estate was a great monument to him, his pioneering spirit, drive and enterprise. In the middle 1920s the State of Johore had granted Guthrie’s about 25,000 acres of virgin jungle for development. Steve, with only one or two Asian assistants, had simply stopped the train from Singapore at Layang Layang, made a clearing for a camp, and set to work surveying and planning his oil palm estate. He engaged local Chinese labour and, over the next 25 years, cut down the jungle, built the roads (by 1951, 250 miles of them), the bridges and culverts, the coolie lines, the processing factory, hospital, staff bungalows, schools, the 150 miles of private railway, and planted up 20,000 acres of crop – by anyone’s standards, a monumental achievement.

  I took over 30 European and senior Asian staff, a labour force of 3,000 and 60 lorries. The large factory was very ably managed by John Twitchen – ‘Twitch’ – and his assistant Charlton.

  In addition to the planted area, there were over 5,000 acres of jungle reserve. The estate was surrounded on three sides by thousands of square miles of jungle, much impenetrable swamp – impenetrable, that is, until the Gurkhas and other regiments penetrated it in pursuit of the enemy.

  After a couple of days Brownie Smith-Laing, Guthrie’s senior VA, arrived to oversee the handover. It seemed that the agents lacked faith in Thorburn’s ability to give the incoming manager a fair deal. It was just as well that Brownie was there for I had not been on the estate for more than a day or so when I went down with flu and took very little part in the proceedings. Of the week put aside for the handover, I spent four days in bed so, Brownie having compiled his detailed report on the state of everything, my actual take-over consisted entirely of counting the petty cash. We were thankful when Steve left and we had the bungalow to ourselves. Our new home was newly built, in the style of a normal two-storey house in England, n
ot the traditional planters’ bungalow on piers that I had been used to for the past 20 years.

  Ulu Remis was in one of the most isolated and dangerous areas in the whole of Johore and, for that matter, in the whole of Malaya. Layang Layang railway station had been captured and burnt down by the CTs, several planters had been murdered on neighbouring rubber estates, and the Security Forces had suffered many casualties, both from ambush and during their own offensive operations in the jungle and swamps. All the staff bungalows were within high palisades of barbed wire, and had Malay special constables on constant guard, as were the factory, hospital and other estate facilities. In many respects the situation was worse than in Sungei Siput where at least some semblance of law and order had been restored. The drive to the estate, once one had turned off the main road, was through miles of secondary jungle, dark and depressing, every yard presenting good ambushing possibilities for bandits. We were always glad to reach the comparative safety of the estate.

  An early visitor was Harry ‘Piper’ Gray, whom I had dropped in to Johore with Colin Park in 1945, who was in charge of research, and from him I gained much information about my European staff. He confirmed my original impression of Steve’s policy of divide and rule. I decided very early on that my subordinates were all competent at their respective jobs, and so could be left, for the most part, to get on with them with minimum interference. However, I was soon made aware that there were several rackets going on, not something that I had ever directly experienced before. I made it very clear to every one of my European and senior Asian staff that I simply would not tolerate corruption of any kind, whatever Thorburn’s attitude, which at first I considered merely ambivalent. I found very soon that it was not. Steve was in fact at the centre of most of the rackets.

  A few people resented my efforts to stamp out these malpractices, and someone evidently wrote to Steve to advise him what I was up to in this respect, because he wrote to me telling me not to interfere with the existing practices. I did not forward this missive to the agents in KL, as perhaps I should have done, but decided to keep it on file, together with all the other evidence I had gathered, for possible future use. Knowing Steve’s methods, he would certainly make it very awkward for both myself and those staff who had obviously supported me, when he returned six months later. In this respect, Twitch and Piper particularly were outstanding in their loyalty to me. Anyway, some of the rackets had been going on for so long that a few more months would not make all that much difference, and I could clean out the Augean stables when I took over permanently. Also, Ulu Remis was extremely profitable, so that the improprieties were not having too great an effect. It merely shocked me that Europeans should be involved in such practices.

  Ulu Remis was divided into four divisions, each with a manager, all a good deal older than me, and an experienced assistant. The manager of Hay division was ‘Fergie’ Ferguson, whose clothes I had helped shoot to shreds 20 years previously. The others were strangers to me, so that the farewell drinks party we gave for Steve, held at midday because of the strict dawn-to-dusk curfew, was the first chance that I had to meet everyone.

  I was not overwhelmed by the new job. The problems were pretty much those with which I had to contend on Kamuning, but on a larger scale. The solutions were usually the same. The property was obviously in first-class condition, and the staff very competent. Even my efficient Indian personal clerk knew shorthand and took dictation. We soon settled down. The early days were spent in going around the estate with the divisional managers. Although my natural inclination was to spend as much time as possible out in the field, very soon office work took up most of my working hours and consequently, by the end of my eight months stint at Ulu Remis I still did not know my way around the estate with any degree of certainty.

  Communist banditry was bad, and getting worse. Ulu Remis, like Kamuning, being the largest property in the area, automatically became the main target for the CTs. A company of Gurkhas was positioned on the estate, and they gave us much confidence. They patrolled constantly, but as soon as their backs were turned the terrorists returned. Shortly before our arrival they attacked Layang Layang, and killed many of the villagers and guards, although the Specials put up a good fight before succumbing.

  Shortly after my arrival the telephone rang and I was advised that one of our lorries had been waylaid. At that time of the morning it could only have been carrying Chinese labour out to work on palm fruit gathering. Not knowing my way around I asked Piper to go with me as guide. As an old ISLD ‘jungle wallah’ he had my complete confidence. He led me to the scene of the incident, both of us well aware that it might only have been a set-up to ambush us, so we approached the scene with extreme caution. ‘Incident’ is such a harmless and commonplace word to describe what we found. The lorry burned out, the charred remains of at least four Chinese women, and the others standing around in deep shock, sobbing at the horror of the fate suffered by their friends and companions. This was the face of communism that we knew in Malaya. The military follow-up to this incident found nothing, which led us to believe that the CTs were most probably members of our own work force.

  The Emergency was now into its third year, and the acts of terrorism continued unabated. But things were changing; new government strategy was beginning to bear fruit. At the beginning the army acted very definitely as the ‘aid to the civil power’, and came under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Police. When General Briggs was appointed director of operations in 1950 he was able to co-ordinate the activities of all the security forces in the country, a process which was to be further improved by Sir Gerald Templer and which lasted throughout the rest of the war.

  At the top, in KL, was the Federal War Council, with similar councils at state and district level. All these councils consisted of the civil, military and police commanders of the appropriate rank, with the addition of representative ‘unofficials’, such as planters and miners, in mirror image. I served on the Sungei Siput War Council, with the local police OCPD, the company commander of the troops stationed on the estate, the District Officer, and usually the Chinese Protectorate officer, too. Then I was also on the Perak State War Council, together with the British Adviser, the brigadier commanding the army, based in Ipoh, and his brigade intelligence officer, the Chief of Police for Perak State, the Legal Adviser, and one or two other ‘unofficials’. Early in 1951 I was appointed to the Federal War Council, which was chaired by the High Commissioner, and consisted of General Briggs as director of operations, Nicol Gray, the Chief of Police, senior members of the MCS (Malayan Civil Service), two unofficials, such as myself, and representatives of the Malay, Chinese and Indian communities. Of the latter I thought there were too many, as all expected to get in their twopennyworth during discussions, and I thought the fewer people privy to the most secret plans for combating the terrorists the better. I considered the wartime principle of ‘need to know’ a good one. The exception, of course, was to be my old hockey-playing friend from prewar Kedah days, Tunku Abdul Rahman, a man of exceptional wisdom and integrity.

  My appointment to the Federal War Council was reported in The Straits Times as ‘Ex-Force 136 Colonel on War Council’. In those days anything to do with clandestine operations was always lumped under the general heading of Force 136, which says much for the SOE publicity machine. The report went on:

  Kuala Lumpur, Tuesday.

  Former Force 136 Lieutenant Colonel and experienced guerrilla fighter, Mr Boris Hembry, has been appointed Member of the Federal War Council in succession to Mr G.D.Treble.

  Mr Hembry, who is at present the general manager of Ulu Remis Estate, Layang Layang, Johore, was formerly of Sungei Siput, Perak, where the murders of three planters in one day started the Emergency.

  Last year Mr Hembry was awarded the Colonial Police Medal for meritorious service. Mr Hembry is an honorary officer in the Auxiliary Police.

  In the House of Commons recently a Member asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the
Incorporated Society of Planters had not been consulted on the appointment of Mr Hembry as planters’ representative on the Federal War Council. The Minister replied that the High Commissioner who made such appointments did not wish to have nominees of organisations, but to use his own judgement. Mr Hembry came under this category.

  The Straits Times was told today that the ISP had not been officially consulted on Mr Hembry’s appointment, but they were very pleased that he had been chosen as he is an energetic member of ISP, and an experienced planter.

  I cannot understand why my appointment should have been discussed in the House of Commons at all, or who could possibly have raised the matter with an MP. But I suppose that it is not every day that the name of a total nonentity is bandied about in Parliament. I did think it might have been Thorburn, tipped off by a friend on Ulu Remis, but decided that even he could not have been quite so influential, surely.

  Our closest neighbour on the estate was Piper Gray and, as a birthday present, he gave Jean an adorable English bull terrier puppy, whom we called Pedro, the grandest dog we ever had. I almost wrote ‘possessed’, but we had the great privilege to have been possessed by him. I think everyone who has dogs loves them all dearly, but over a lifetime has one that is particularly special. Ours was undoubtedly Pedro. As a companion we bought an Alsatian bitch puppy, Greta, from Katie Ferguson, and the two dogs became inseparable companions. We took great care to avoid ‘bullsatian’ puppies, feeling that such a combination could be difficult to handle, if not lethal. These two friends were to be an essential part of our lives for the rest of our time in Malaya, and it almost broke our hearts to leave them behind when we returned to England in 1956.