| December 12 |  |
Editor says, what if the Batang Kali attrocity had been fully exposed at the time? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the August 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1948, on this day a fourteen-man patrol from the 7th Platoon, G Company, 2nd Scots Guard led by led by two lance-sergeants, Charles Douglas and Thomas Hughes surrounded a rubber plantation, shot and killed twenty-eight unarmed Malayan civilians before setting fire to the village of Batang Kali.
Justice for Batang Kali Massacre Britain's My LaiThe official report produced by Commanding officer George Ramsay was immediately published in the Singapore-based Straits Times "Police, Bandits kill 28 [sic] bandits in day ... Biggest Success for Forces since [Malayan] Emergency Started". But the British owner of the Sungei Remok Estate, Thomas Menzies immediately contradicted the report, publicly stated that his labourers had a long record of good conduct. By the 24th December the Straits Times was calling for a public enquiry and British Communist MP Philip Piratin became directly involved in the dispute. Discovering that there was a living witness, he brought villager Romen Bose Tham to London. Together, they started the biggest firestorm in the history of the British Empire.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Batang Kali, Malayan Emergency, British, British Empire, Malaysia. Editor says, in authoring this post we have repurposed content from Wikipedia based upon an article by Christopher Hale in the July 2012 Edition of History Today Magazine. The issue was raised after My Lai when it was questioned whether British soldiers would be capable of such an atrocity, prompting members of the Scots Guard to come forward and confess the Batang Kali Massacre. The last adult witness Tham Yong died on 2 April 2010 and as of 2012 a judicial review is in the process of being held at the UK's High Court.
~ The British like to whitewash their colonial history a lot - this was hardly even the worst atrocity ever committed for the Empire
~ Don't know how this would have changed things. By 1948 the British Empire was clearly running out of time no matter what. Its doom had been written in the fields of the Somme and Passchendaele.
~ Overall, probably not much effect, but it might be something for Jeremy Paxman's BBC series on the empire.
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