Description

Title: Malayan Scouts SAS – A Memoir Of The Malayan Emergency, 1951

Author: Durkin, Joseph and Durkin, J C

Condition: Mint

Edition: 1st Edition

Publication Date: 2011

ISBN: 9780752461106

Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 224 pages

Comments: ‘He shot them, then dispatched others who were still frozen in their places. When the magazine of the sub-machine gun was empty he put it aside and calmly unholstered a .38 revolver. He picked off the remainder with carefully aimed shots. When they were all down he holstered the revolver, picked up the sub-machine gun and left the building. Inside it all the pilots were either dead or dying.’

When Japan withdrew its occupying troops at the end of the Second World War, the Malayan communists who had fought against the invader felt themselves betrayed by their government, their politics outlawed and their sacrifices unrewarded. They returned to the jungle as guerrillas, launching a successful campaign against the symbols of colonial power, the mines and plantations.

In desperation the British Army resurrected a force that had been disbanded after the Second World War: the SAS. Reformed as the Malayan Scouts, their task was to succeed where normal soldiering had failed and take the fight to the insurgents in the jungle, operating as guerrillas themselves.

The Malayan Scouts SAS is one soldier’s account of operations during the Malayan Emergency, fighting a ruthless enemy in a hostile environment. It is the story of a regiment often despised by its own army, perceived as ill-disciplined and uncontrollable, and yet fiercely effective against an enemy that traditional units could not best.