Men in the Jungle

"Deep down in the jungle, something stirred"
From the Jungle Book by RUDYARD KIPLING

During the 12 years of the Malayan Emergency, up to thirty British infantry battalions completed tour in Malaya. As well as RMC, RA and RE. Their ranks were mainly filled by young National Service conscripts aged from 18 to 19 years old. The NCOs and officers that trained and commanded these young men were some times veterans of the Second World War. Many of these veterans had already fought the Japanese in Burma.

The Devonshire Regiment were one of the first to see action in Malaya. Not in the jungle, but guarding rubber plantations against attacks by bandits or CTs as the British soldiers called the Malayan Communist Party guerrillas. Platoons from the Devonshire Regiment were sent to support the Royal Malayan Police who were struggling in their effort to protect plantation owners. The Communist Bandits would attack these rubber plantations hoping to kill the white planter and his family and to also destroy the rubber plantation. The Devons soon found themselves in short, sharp fire fights against the C.T's. The Devons would fight back hard in these fire fights but found that they could not reply heavily on support from their Malayan Police counterparts, who would drop their weapons when the firing started, but this was early days in the emergency and the Malayan Police force would prove their worth as the fight against the Communist Guerrillas continue.

Gradually as the protection of the protection of the rubber plantations came more under the control of the Malayan Police the Demon's moved into the jungle to hunt down the bandits.

The first enemy the British soldiers encountered when entering the Malayan jungle was not Communist bandits but, a large array of deadly jungle insects and other creatures that lived in the jungle, most notably the leach. Soldiers found that the leaches would get to their skin no matter how well the British soldier protected himself. The leaches were able to squeeze through the eye holes of the soldiers boots, then through the socks to get to human skin. After patrol had crossed a river or a swamp time had to be taken to remove leaches from the body, sometimes up to 30 leaches at one time. The soldiers could not just simply pull the leaches off from their skin because the leaches teeth and head would still be rooted to the skin which could lead to a deadly blood infection, among the other creatures that crawled the jungle floor looking for fresh young national serviceman flesh were pythons the size of telegraph poles and scorpions the size of lobsters! It became a ritual every night before a soldier got into his "basha" (lean-to) to check that he would have no unwanted company during the night sharing his basha.

Another jungle danger was the booby traps that the C.T.'s would leave along jungle foot paths to either kill or maim British soldiers. One of these booby traps was called a CHOLER by the British soldiers. This was a water vine with spikes and bamboo steaks in the ground with razor sharp edges which would seriously wound or kill anybody stepping on them.

For many young National servicemen the above dangers were nothing compared to the dark jungle with its strange and alien sounds. For a young man used to the wide open spaces of the English home counties or large cities of England the jungle seemed a very hostile environment where you were never sure who or what was watching you, the trees in the Malayan jungle were sometimes hundreds of feet high, blocking most of the day light out which created a strange and dark atmosphere. To combat the troops' nervousness about operating in the jungle and to improve their jungle craft a jungle warfare school was set up at Kota Tinngi. The school was run by Australian army officers and N.C.O's who learnt their jungle skills fighting the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea . The jungle school staff also included ex Chindits who had fought with General Slim in Burma. The instructors aim was to teach the young national servicemen how to survive and move about in the jungle. They also went about destroying the myth that you cannot move about the jungle at night.

Now with their improved training and better intelligence supplied by Special Branch, the British Army started to take the upper hand in the fight against the C.T.s in the Jungle. The 1st Battalion Suffolk Regiment had great success against the bandits. By the end of the emergency the Suffolk's had managed to acquire one of the biggest kill rates of the campaign. If a British or Gurkha patrol killed a CTs during a contact they would have to prove their victory. In the beginning of the Emergency this was some times done by cutting the head off the dead CT to bring back to base. This grizzly practice was soon stopped and troops had to carry out the hole body of the dead CT. This times proved to very difficult when patrols were several days march before they were out of the jungle. As in the Kenya Emergency captured Bandits were given two choices by Special Branch. The prisoner could either change sides and give information about his or hers unit or face a judge in Singapore with the possibility of an appointment with the hang man.

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