BEHIND THE LINES IN MALAYA

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23315, 26 September 1945, Page 7

BEHIND THE LINES IN MALAYA

School For Guerrillas N.Z.P.A.—Special Correspondent (7.30 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 24. When 4000 Japanese of the 29th Army formally laid down their arms at Tapah on September 18, Brigadier N. P. H. Tapp, of the 25th Indian Division, who took the surrender, presented two souvenirs to Captain F. T. Quayle, of New Zealand, says the special correspondent of “The Times’’ at Kuala Lumpur. One was a sword belonging to Colonel Onishi, head of Kempeitai in Malaya. The other was a walking stick of the Japanese Governor of Perak, a civilian official, Kawamura. Captain Quayle had previously exchanged words through an interpreter with both of these Japanese. Colonel Onishi said: “So we meet at last.” Kawamura said: “I must congratulate you on having escaped our Japanese bullets so long.” Captain Quayle is one of a small band of Europeans who evaded capture by the Japanese in 1942 and retained their freedom until Malaya was reoccupied. All owed their survival to the assistance given by Chinese guerrilla fighters, but Captain Quayle also speaks in the highest terms of the Sakais, the aboriginal negrito tribesmen of the Malayan mountain ranges, little men who still use blowpipes. They looked after him and fed and sheltered him at one time for more than a year. Captain Quayle, who was a tin miner in Slam before the war, was sent early in 1942 to the Pahang jungle with four others to disrupt Japanese communications behind the frontline. Singapore fell before they received their code orders over the Singapore radio to start action. They hid in the jungle for several months and then decided to try to escape to Ceylon by boat. The attempt was unsuccessful, and one of the party was captured. One of the decisive engagements of the Malayan campaign wqs fought at Slim River. After this ' battle the Chinese recovered hundreds of rifles, Bren guns and mortars from the jungle, and some time later, when the resistance movement got going, a guerrilla school started in the mountains, north-east of Slim. Permanent Band There was a permanent band of about 70 men, all of whom, in small parties, would come for courses from all over Malaya. Captain Quayle became an instructor at this school, and wrote all the textbooks on arms, weapons, training and demolition used by the guerrilla fighters throughout Malaya. The camp was located in front of a cave in which the guerrilla fighters once had to take refuge when an elephant wounded by one of them, came with four companions and flattened the bivouacs. A Malay finally guided the Japanese to the camp. There was a brisk action, but all the Chinese escaped. While on his way from the camp to Pahang to train guerrilla fighters in Perak, Captain Quayle went down with fever for the second time. When he was getting better he heard that two British officers had come into Malaya, but it was four months before he was fit enough to make the journey south. He eventually found them and with them was Lieutenant-Colonel F. G. Chapman, who had also evaded capture all this time. A few months after the officers Joined forces they established regular wireless communication with India. Once it had been established, parachutists and arms began to drop in increasing number.