The War of the Running Dogs

How Malaya Defeated the Communist Guerillas 1948-1960

By: Noel Barber

Narrated by: Roger Davis

"A splendid, exciting book"—Daily Mirror

"The story of the first all-out struggle in Asia between Communism and the West, vividly told in an exciting and engrossing book"—Sunday Express

Only three short years after the end of the Japanese occupation, war came again to Malaya. The Chinese-backed guerrillas called it the War of the Running Dogs—their contemptuous term for those in Malaya who remained loyal to the British. The British Government referred to this bloody and costly struggle as the 'Malayan Emergency'. Yet it was a war that lasted twelve years and cost thousands of lives. By the time it was over Malaya had obtained its independence—but on British, not on Chinese or Communist terms.

Here is the war as it was. Here are the planters and their wives on their remote rubber estates, the policemen, the generals and the soldiers, the Malays, Chinese and Indians of a polyglot country, all fighting an astute, ruthless, and well-organized enemy.

©1971 The Estate of Noel Barber (P)2023 Tantor

A must read for military history

This book is the best written account of the Malayan Emergency in existence. The war in Malaysia was one of the very few counter insurgency won by a western power. This conflict is often studied by the US military academies as a how to manual for fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The War of the Running Dogs is also a great piece of late British Imperial and Malaysian history, and is a must read for fans as Asian or British Imperial history. The narrator does a great job my only complaint is they censored the C word once. I took notes on tactics the British used to win the war while reading and will post them below, I think many are invaluable lessons for counter insurgency.

“Malaya was isolated and british able to cut supplies from Thailand
British able to easily identify enemy because ethnic chinese, put chinese in concentration camps
5000 CTs vs 45000 British and Maylas for good counter insergency ratio
Won hearts and minds by promising independence, focusing on intel and light touch fighting vs all out war like vietnam
Templar was a less aggressive military leader than Montgomery and stepped down for civilian leaders when fighting quieted
Civilian government was always in charge over military, military was in supporting role to police
Offered generous terms to surrendering CTs
Gave out large bounties to those who would turn in any CTs especially leaders
British ended segregation
British consulted with local leaders before making any major decision
British had the support of majority mayla population because enemy was ethnic chinese and they promised independence
Later in the war British had “white zones” where they could promise no fighting would happen if population assisted them
British used propaganda about Ct leaders keeping mistresses and stealing girl friends while normal cts had no girls
British were willing to give into a independent civilian government before war was totally won
CT commander bragged to his body guards about his bounty and was killed by them
Air support bombing of enemy camps
British dropped 500 million pages out of airplanes over the jungle as propaganda
A CT leader surrended and the British paid him to get his troops to surrender”

Biased but well written

I just listened to and gave a bad review to Revolusi, a book about the Indonesian revolution. That book was very left wing, and this book on the Malaysian insurgency is just as right wing. If you believe Revolusi, 90% of the war crimes were committed by European imperialist, while this book would have you believe that 90% of the war crimes were committed by the Communist insurgents. The two wars were very different, but I suspect the main difference is in the politics of the authors. Although I can’t recommend either book separately , you can read them together for a four-star experience. Each book gives you a good idea what the other book is leaving out. Both authors are preaching to the choir, so to speak—and I guess that is the best way to make money. Although I give the book a low rating due to bias, the author is a good storyteller and I enjoyed the listen. He makes me want to read more on the Malaysian Emergency to get a better idea of what was actually going on.