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our regime to become purely one of repression. This was, after all, the final tragedy of our rule in Palestine.’98 But it was again to Palestine that London looked for leadership in Malaya. Even before Gent’s departure there had been a good deal of discussion of his successor in private. Among the names canvassed was the recent chief secretary in Palestine, Sir Henry ‘Jimmy’ Gurney. When consulted by Creech Jones, MacDonald had not been impressed. He felt that local opinion would demand an old Malaya hand or a major public figure; certainly this was the view of the planting community (‘Give us Monty’). But Gurney had proved his ability to work with the military and was respected for his even-handed approach to communal issues. This was precisely the problem for Malay leaders when the news was broken to them: the constant analogy with Palestine troubled them deeply and they feared Gurney would treat the Chinese as a kind of Jewish Agency. Creech Jones prevailed, but Gurney did not arrive until 1 October. A slight man of fifty, he had more panache than his predecessor – even at the height of the Palestine crisis, he was a contributor to Punch magazine – but possessed a mandarin manner which alienated many people. He was overshadowed by the vivacity of MacDonald, who had no direct responsibility for fighting the communists, and the martial drive of his successor, General Gerald Templer, who was given far more powers than Gurney. But two lessons of the Middle East shaped Gurney’s approach in Malaya: a need to prevent the deterioration of the ethnic situation that could create ‘another Palestine’ and the need to keep the war in Malaya a civilian conflict. He resisted firmly calls for martial law.99 A religious man who understood the power of communism, Gurney’s first months in Malaya were overshadowed by the heavy hand of oppression.

The army chiefs were confident that the threat could easily and quickly be countered. Even MacDonald forecast that the Emergency might be over by September. The new military commander, a Gurkha officer from India, Major General Charles Boucher, was ebullient. ‘I can tell you’, he announced, ‘this is by far the easiest problem I have ever tackled. In spite of the appalling country, and ease with which he can hide, the enemy is far weaker in technique and courage than either the Greek or Indian reds.’100 He fought communism as if it were a set of skirmishes on the North West Frontier. In particular large ‘sweeps’ were set in train to dislodge guerrillas, followed through with air-force raids to break morale and to flush the enemy into the open. These were unsuccessful. Commanders were later to learn that it needed a thousand hours of patrolling to eliminate one guerrilla.101 The British did, however, begin to experiment with specialist private armies. Veterans of Force 136–many of whom had returned to Malaya as district officers, policemen and planters – formed themselves into what were called ‘Ferret Forces’. The leading figures were John Davis and Richard Broome, the ‘Dum’ and ‘Dee’ who during the war had liaised with Chin Peng, a man who was, Davis remarked, ‘my greatest ally and who has always, I believe, remained a good friend’.102 These kinds of forces had the merit of being easy to dissolve should they become controversial. The use of Dyak trackers from Sarawak caused a press sensation; the reaction of the Daily Worker was hysterical: ‘The Labour Government policy requires for successful operation the participation of man-eating, primitive savages…’ Eventually in Malaya, as Broome later put it, ‘the whole army became “ferretized”’.103 The objective was to bring the guerrillas out of the jungle and to a fixed battle. In 1954 this strategy would also be pursued by the French against the Viet Minh, and culminate in defeat at Dien Bien Phu, but the communists in Malaya were never put to this test.

Men like Davis and Broome drew upon their deep knowledge of the MPAJA but, in general, British understanding of Chinese society in Malaya was either very rudimentary or very out-of-date, and distorted