As our train moved across the mile long causeway, which connects Singapore to the mainland, the majority of the Battalion had their first sight of Malaya. At the Northern end of the causeway, lies Johore Bahru, the capital of the State of Johore, and towering above the untidy mass of Chinese shops is the Government building, strangely Tibetan in its appearance but typical of the cosmopolitan influences which have moulded Malaya. Once through Johore Bahru we came upon the characteristic Malayan scene. Mile after mile of rubber estates, the lines of trees stretching as far as the eye could see in perfect symmetry. Now and then the rubber would stop abruptly and give way to the jungle, whose great tall trees and dense undergrowth looked most forbidding, and whose interior seemed absolutely dark. There were many small towns and villages, and the wayside stations had their names written in English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil. Only the occasional wired-in village with a police post showed that there was an Emergency. We passed through Kluang and Segamat where, later on, we were to be stationed, and in North Johore we saw the swamps which we were to know only too well, with their oily brown water and thick covering of “belukar.”

On the journey the Battalion was fully armed and sentries were placed at the end of each carriage. At this time it was very common for trains to be shot at or derailed, particularly at night. Although all passenger trains were preceded by a “pilot” train in case the line had been tampered with, the terrorists often fired at the train as it passed, or ambushed the place where they had damaged the line.

Mangrove Swamp

Kedah area map

To the North of Kuala Lumpur, and more especially in the State of Perak, tin mines replaced rubber trees as the principal feature of the landscape. Instead of thousands of acres of rubber trees there were wide-open spaces dotted with tin mines, with their characteristic tressle-work structures for carrying the water away from the mine. Nearer Ipoh, which was to be the Battalion’s last station in Malaya, we saw some very striking limestone hills (or “gunongs”), which rise almost vertically out of the ground, sometimes a thousand feet or more. Bushes, shrubs and creepers cling precariously to their sides, and they are honeycombed with caves, often used by terrorists as hiding places, In many of them the Chinese have made cave temples.

Still farther North came the rice fields of Kedah, and eventually Prai where we changed trains and saw the island of Penang, rising sharply out of the water four miles away. Sungei Patani, which was reached in the afternoon, is a typical Malayan town. A wide main street with a line of trees down the centre, a police station, a school, a railway station and, in the larger towns, a European club and a bank. Our camp, which was tented, was on a small open plain about a mile from the town. All the trees had been cleared away in the camp area, and there was no shade from the intense heat, which seemed to be increased by reflection from the four thousand feet slopes of Kedah Peak which lay to the North of the camp on the far side of a thick swamp.

Our operational area, taken over from 45 Commando,, Royal Marines, covered the whole of Kedah, and the following day “B” Company moved out to its base at Kroh, while “C” Company moved to Kulim with a platoon detachment at Pelam Estate some twenty miles to the North-west. “D” Company remained with Battalion Headquarters to complete its jungle training. Soon after our arrival we received our first detachment of the Civil Liaison Corps, which consisted of trackers and Civil Liasion Officers, trackers were recruited in Borneo and came from the Iban and Dyak tribes. One was attached to each platoon to assist in tracking in the jungle; they were friendly and cheerful little men, and their skill often proved invaluable to jungle patrols. The Civil Liaison Officers were usually Chinese or Eurasian, and their job was to act as interpreters and to gain information from the population about the terrorists.

KROH

Kroh, the first operational base of “B” Company, is a small town in the North-East corner of Kedah, about three miles from the Siamese border. It is over a thousand feet above sea level, lying in the steep mountain range, which forms the Malayan-Siamese borderland. The camp, which was unfinished when the Company arrived, was just South of the town but on higher ground, with only the perimeter wire between the tents and the jungle. Before the Emergency, Kroh had been a rest centre, so that although the town was small it had many amenities. The few shops were well stocked with luxuries, there were tennis courts, a “padang” (Literally, “an open space”— in fact, a village green) and a delightful rest house. The town was also the last point on a minor road leading into Siam, a road which meandered through the hills and came to an end at Betong, a town full of Oriental mystery, with dancing girls and legal opium dens.

The country around Kroh is uncut jungle; there is no “belukar” and little rubber. The virgin jungle clings precariously to the steep slopes that they can only be surmounted by heaving oneself up sapling by sapling. It was hard going, but the jungle was fairly clear of undergrowth, unlike that which we were to meet in Johore and Selangor.

Once outside the town the people were mainly Malay or Siamese. There were few roads in the area and most of the villages could only be reached by tracks, after two or three days’ march from the road. The only other town in the vicinity was Klian Intan, which was joined to Kroh by a twisty road about eight miles in length. The road runs through a narrow ravine with innumerable hairpin bends, and the jungle coming right down to the road. Almost anywhere on the road is an ideal ambush position. At Klian Intan was the Rahman Hydraulic Tin Mine, one of the most important in North Malaya. The town was very remote and its mining population almost entirely Chinese. It was therefore a potential trouble spot and it was decided after consultation with the police to send 6 Platoon (2/Lt. D. K. May) to Klian Intan as a precautionary measure.

It was believed that somewhere across the Siamese border there were large M.R.L.A. training camps. Terrorist recruits were presumed to be trained in these camps before being sent to active units in Malaya. The route, which they took, was unknown, but it was thought that somewhere in the mountains to the North-East was a track which crossed the border and connected with the terrorist network of communications leading southwards to the rest of Malaya. “5” Platoon (2/Lt. D. B. Campbell) was allotted the task of finding the track, whilst 4 Platoon (2/Lt. D. C. Tyson) were to watch the South.

Kroh area map

Kulim and Serdang

Whilst the Company was at Kulim the terrorists staged two major incidents; in the first they killed a planter and a Special Constable, and in the second they ambushed a number of police. News of the first incident came one morning whilst the Company was on muster parade. The police headquarters in Kulim reported that they had received a telephone call from the police station at Terap saying that they were under heavy fire from a large number of terrorists. Very quickly the Company boarded its transport and drove off down the road to Terap, a notorious centre of Communism. The Company debussed on the outskirts and advanced cautiously into the village. Everything was ominously quiet, the people were all inside their wooden shops and huts, They moved on through the village and on the South side they found an ugly sight. In the middle of the road was a partially armoured jeep, its bonnet and canvas hood full of shot holes, and in the ditch lay a European and two Malay constables in a pool of blood. Apparently the planter (an Englishman named Dickens) had been driving up from the South in his jeep, escorted by two special constables. Just outside Terap they had come under heavy fire from an ambush position on the right-hand side of the road; they managed to drive on but a burst of automatic fire shattered their carburettor and the jeep stopped opposite a second ambush position a little further up on the left-hand side of the road. Dickens and the constables returned the fire from their partly armoured jeep, but the roof was unprotected and the terrorists were able to fire down on them from a high bank. After about forty minutes his ammunition had run out and Dickens decided to surrender in order to try and save the lives of the constables; all three had already been wounded. The terrorists stood Dickens and the two constables in a line, sprayed them with a machine gun and left them for dead. Only a few minutes later” C “Company arrived. The police station was only a few hundred yards away, and when the firing started the police thought they were being attacked and ‘phoned through to Kulim. The wounded were evacuated to Penang, where Dickens and one of the Malays died after regaining consciousness for a short time. The other Malay recovered. The area was searched thoroughly, the ambush positions were found and in one of them there were blood marks where one of the Malays had thrown a hand grenade. There was no trace or clue of where the terrorists might have gone, and after a day spent searching the area the Company returned to Kulim.