Many books have been written about Second World War special forces operations in Europe and the Middle East. Much less has been said about such operations in South-East Asia those launched against the Japanese in Sumatra and the Andaman Islands, and the Germans in Goa. These operations, and the exceptional men who took part in them, have been almost forgotten. David Miller, in this gripping account, sets the record straight. His book is based on extensive original research, including long-hidden family documents, revealing much information for the first time and his narrative is fascinating reading for anyone who is interested in special operations and the war against the Axis powers in South-East Asia. His history is the first general account of these operations - it is a landmark in the field.

During the Second World War, the British government established the Special Operations Executive (SOE) for the purpose of coordinating ‘all action, by way of subversion and sabotage, against the enemy overseas’. Although the overseas operations of this branch of the British Secret Services are relatively well known, few studies have explored the ‘backroom sections’ of this organisation. This book draws together the infrastructure developed to support an agent’s ‘journey’ from recruitment to despatch to the field. At the start of the Second World War there were few existing facilities established within the UK to support clandestine operations. As the conflict progressed, in parallel to learning the operational procedures of their trade, SOE also had to rapidly expand their support infrastructure around the world. The organisation could effectively support their agents only by establishing facilities dedicated to training, research and development, supply, transportation, communication, and command and control. By predominately focusing on the organisation’s ‘agent facing’ infrastructure, this book provides a backdrop to the brave men and women who conducted operations abroad. In addition, it gives an overview of the facilities in which SOE’s backroom staff lived and worked. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of archaeology, history and war studies.

During World War II, agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) infiltrated Japanese-occupied Malaya. There they worked with Malayan guerrilla groups, including the communist-sponsored Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), regarded as the precursor of the communist insurgent army of the Malayan Emergency. This book traces the development of SOE's Malayan operations, and analyses the interactions between SOE and the various guerrilla groups. It explores the reasons for and the extent of Malay disillusionment with Japanese rule, and demonstrates how guerrilla service acted as a training ground for some later Malay leaders of the independent nation. However, the reports written about the MPAJA by SOE operatives just after the war failed to draw out the likely future threat posed by the communists to the returning colonial administration. Rebecca Kenneison shows that the British possessed a wealth of local information, but failed to convert it into active intelligence in the period prior to the Malayan Emergency. In doing so she provides new insights into the impact of SOE on Malayan politics, the nature of Malayan communism's challenge to colonial rule, and British post-war intelligence in Malaya.

In the mountains and jungles of occupied Burma during World War II, British special forces launched a series of secret operations, assisted by parts of the Burmese population. The men of the SOE, trained in sabotage and guerrilla warfare, worked in the jungle, deep behind enemy lines, to frustrate the puppet Burmese government of Ba Maw and continue the fight against Hirohito's Japan in a theatre starved of resources. Here, Richard Duckett uses newly declassified documents from the National Archives to reveal for the first time the extent of British special forces' involvement - from the 1941 operations until beyond Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1948. Duckett argues convincingly that `Operation Character' and `Operation Billet' - large SOE missions launched in support of General Slim's XIV Army offensive to liberate Burma - rank among the most militarily significant of the SOE's secret missions. Featuring a wealth of photographs and accompanying material never before published, including direct testimony recorded by veterans of the campaign and maps from the SOE files, The SOE in Burma tells a compelling story of courage and struggle in during World War II

Japanese forces invaded Malaya on 8 December 1941 and British forces surrendered in Singapore 70 days later. Japan would rule the territory for the next 3½ years. Early efforts to maintain pre-war standards of comfort gave way to a grim struggle for survival as the vibrant economy ground to a halt and residents struggled to deal with unemployment, shortages of consumer goods, sharp price rises, a thriving black market and widespread corruption. People were hungry, dressed in rags, and falling victim to treatable diseases for which medicines were unavailable, and there was little reason to hope for better in the future. Using surviving administrative papers, oral materials, intelligence reports and post-war accounts by Japanese officers, this book presents a picture of life in occupied Malaya and Singapore. It shows the impact of war and occupation on a non-belligerent population, and creates a new understanding of the changes and the continuities that underlay the post-war economy and society. The book was first published in 1998 and is now re-issued in new edition that incorporates information from newly translated Japanese documents and other recent discoveries.

Shortly after midnight on 8 December 1941, two divisions of crack troops of the Imperial Japanese Army began a seaborne invasion of southern Thailand and northern Malaya. Their assault developed into a full-blown advance towards Singapore, the main defensive position of the British Empire in the Far East. The defending British, Indian, Australian and Malayan forces were outmanoeuvred on the ground, overwhelmed in the air and scattered on the sea. By the end of January 1942, British Empire forces were driven back onto the island of Singapore Itself, cut off from further outside help. When the Japanese stormed the island with an an-out assault, the defenders were quickly pushed back into a corner from which there was no escape. Singapore’s defenders finally capitulated on 15 February, to prevent the wholesale pillage of the city itself. Their rapid and total defeat was nothing less than military humiliation and political disaster. Based on the most extensive use yet of primary documents in Britain, Japan, Australia and Singapore, Brian Farrell provides the fullest picture of how and why Singapore fell and its real significance to the outcome of the Second World War.