HEROIC STRUGGLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 6, 8 January 1942, Page 7

HEROIC STRUGGLE

MALAYA'S DEFENDERS

HEAVY ODDS AGAINST

(Rec. .1 p.m.) RUGBY, January 7,

The fighting in northern Malaya is described in a dispatch published in the "Straits Times," Singapore, today. A correspondent writes:

"The defenders are putting up a heroic struggle against odds of four or five tp one, and are manfully resisting in dogged rearguard actions which compel the enemy to pay a terrible price. The Japanese avoid open country, keeping to the cover of the jungle, but their losses are nevertheless heavy. British' troops have rushed enemy positions and engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. Ghurkas also raced .into action."

The correspondent tells many stories of heroism of civilians during attacks on towns which have fallen into enemy hands. A Singalese telephone operator remained at his post alone for 36 hours amid falling bombs. In one town civilians recognised the danger of looting while the Japanese were bombing and machine-gunning, and set up their own shop guards, who patrolled with staves and arm-bands. Three days before the Japanese entered the town all the warehouses were thrown open for the population to remove food for themselves. The stocks taken included 100,000 bags of rice, which were thus saved from the Japanese and distributed over wide areas. Although it was wrong from a military viewpoint, the water supplies were deliberately left intact, out of humane consideration for the people. Roads and bridges were destroyed, and booby traps were laid as the Japanese advanced. Rubber was burned, tin mines were flooded and tin dredges were sunk or dismantled.— B.O.W.