You Can Never Tell
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Malaya. I arrived in Malaya on 15th July 1948, and found that a State of Emergency had been declared because of an outbreak of terrorism by Chinese, whose sympathies lay with the Chinese Communist Government. During the war many Chinese had gone into the jungle to fight a guerrilla action against the occupying Japanese forces. Some were trained by British officers who had arrived in Malaya by submarine or air drops. Many Chinese fighters had taken part in the Victory Parades held to celebrate the end of the war. Some handed in their weapons and returned to civilian life, but others stacked them away for future use. Later these people returned to the jungle to try to oust the British and take over running the country. Fortunately, there was no love lost between the Chinese Communist Terrorists and the local Malays, who overwhelmingly rejected them. So, after six years in the armed forces, I was once again living in dangerous conditions. The Emergency, as it was known, continued for 10 years, until it officially ended in 1958, one year after Malaya was granted independence from Britain. During all that time I was accompanied by two, armed Malay bodyguards and travelled in armoured cars. For self-protection, I was provided with a Reising sub-machine gun and a .45 pistol.
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About the Book
Philip Zeid writes about his unusual life experiences. His story starts with his experiences during the bombing of England by the Germans at the beginning of World War II, followed by his volunteering as a pilot in the RAF and his training in America, which, at the time, was not at war. He eventually transferred to gliders and served in the Burma Campaign. After the war and because of the partition riots in India, his ambition to be a tea planter there ended in him becoming a rubber planter in Malaya where he experienced ten years of the Emergency both as a bachelor and later with his wife and family. He also introduced several innovative procedures into his work. He experienced many unusual incidents in a variety of countries and places, which include America, Mexico, India, Burma, Thailand (Siam), Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Himalayas, and several other interesting places. He also provides an insight into how “you can never tell” which events—small or large, close or far—can influence our future lives. In this book, he shows how taking up radio as a hobby, how refusing to wear glasses as a child, how the partition riots in India, how being in debt on his first leave from Malaya, and how many other such incidents could have a profound effect on his life.