When the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other European countries commemorated the 60th anniversary of Operation Overlord, or D-Day or the Invasion of Normandy, a young relative of this writer in his mid-30s asked: What happened 60 years ago in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore when they was under Japanese occupation? Did we also have our Operation Overlord or D-Day? If not, why not? If yes, then why nobody seems to know or care, let alone commemorates it?

This writer told him that, while we indeed did not have a massive and spectacular operation like Operation Overlord in June 1944, there were several not insignificant military operations mounted, or planned to be mounted by the Allied from Australia and India/Ceylon (Sri Lanka), to liberate Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. There were, among others, Operation Jaywick (Australian), Operation Rimau (Australian), Operations Gustavus (Anglo-Chinese, Communists), Operation Hebrides (British), Operation Jukebox (American) and Operation Zipper (British), Operation Mailfist (British) and Operation Young (American).

We also had our local and heroic resistance to the Japanese occupation just like the French, Greek and other parts of Occupied Europe and China, namely the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), Force 136, Askar Setia Melayu (Perak), Wataniah (Pahang) and Anak Melayu Setia (Kedah). Before the fall of Singapore, there were the Malay Regiment and the Anglo-Chinese Dalforce which, together with the British, Australian and Indian troops, fought against the invasion.

That history books in schools or universities in Malaysia do not mention them does not mean those brave endeavors did not exist or not important. Fortunately, the history has been reconstructed and preserved in Singapore, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan, and one of the most prominent surviving participants, Chin Peng was willing to speak up.

Seen in this light, Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party is a remarkable contribution to the rediscovery of the missing pages of the modern history of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore.

Bukit Kepong attack

True, it is not as readable as Chin Peng's memoirs as told to veteran journalists Ian Ward and Norma Miraflor but it gives more and greater details of politics, military operations as well as personalities involved.

Also, unlike the early memoir which was personal in nature, Chin Peng was led, rather consciously, by scholars in the present book to reconstruct the history of the Communist Party of Malaya (or Malayan Communist Party) from 1930 to 1989. However, for reading flow and ease, it is still advisable to first read the memoirs before one can gather enough mental capacity and strength to venture into the 'jungle' of Dialogues where some goldmines can be found like the little known fact that Chin Peng himself was twice detained briefly by the Japanese in Tanjong Tualang and Slim River but managed to escape.

Another little known fact is that, besides Mao Zedong, two other authors who influenced Chin Peng and other Chinese Malayans in their ideological conversion to communism were American journalists, namely Edgar Snow and Anna Louis Strong. Chin Peng also revealed that, in the early 1950s when the 'Emergency' was still in operation, communists in Kuala Lumpur and Johore seemed to still enthuse over Snow's magnum opus, Red Star over China . Of course, we now know that Mao's Little Red Book had not appeared yet because he had not yet been deified by his over-zealous but insecure supporters as well as self-serving sycophants like Lin Biao and the 'Gang of Four' during the later 'Cultural Revolution'.

No less significant is the confirmation of the fact, by both Chin Peng and the scholars who interviewed him, that the bloody attack in Bukit Kepong launched by the communists on Feb 23, 1950 was directed by one Mohamad Indera @ Mat Indra who was a Malayan communist of Malay origin. According to Chin Peng, Mohamad Indera's action was locally planned and executed without authorization from his central command.

Of course, as in all books, monographs and memoirs about, or by, Chin Peng, the name and legacy of John Davis ( photo, left ) has always been present as both personal friends and institutional enemies simultaneously. Dialogues is no exception.

Colonel (formerly Captain) John Davis was a Chinese-speaking British police officer in Malaya in 1941. Not long before the fall of Singapore, he was assigned to train and arm the communists who were mostly Chinese in the 101 Special Training School (STS) in Tanjong Balai, Singapore, as stay-behind parties to conduct special operations and irregular warfare. 101 STS was an operational outfit of the Oriental Mission of the British wartime secret service, Special Operations Executive (SOE) formed by Churchill.

'Good old times'

After the fall of Singapore, Davis escaped to Ceylon and later India to join the Allied headquarters there. In May 1943, Davis was infiltrated back into Perak from a submarine and he was guided and protected by Chin Peng and his comrades in the occupation zone.

After the liberation, Davis continued to serve in Malaya even during the 'Emergency'. It was Davis who accompanied Chin Peng, Rashid Maidin and Chen Tian out of the jungle for the Baling Talk in 1955, and it was also Davis who sent them back into the jungle safely after the talk failed.

According to the editors of Dialogues , when Chin Peng and Davis met again some four decades later in London, Chin Peng insisted on talking of those 'good old times'. Davis's recollection of his underground mission in occupied Malaya is now available in The Price of Peace - True Account of the Japanese Occupation , complied and edited by Foong Choon Hon and translated by Clara Show (Singapore, Asiapac & Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Indistry, 1997, 1998, 2002).

To be sure, although Dialogues attempts to reconstruct an outline of the Communist Party of Malaya, it is still not a full and readable history of the party for non-academics. It has, however, collected and verified enough facts and figures for a comprehensive, intelligible and readable theme-specific account to be written.

Equally important is for a detailed, comprehensive, theme-specific and non-ideological account, in chronological order, of the resistance to Japanese occupation of Malaya and Singapore to be reconstructed from Malay, Chinese, Indian, Orang Asli, British, Australian, American and even Japanese sources. According to communist partisans' account mostly written in Chinese, Orang Asli (or Asal) played a significant role in the war of resistance which has yet to be publicly recognised

There is now no lack of materials for such a historic project: besides Dialogues and Chin Peng's earlier memoirs, there are also two collections of communist partisans' accounts written in Chinese on their military, political and intelligence activities in occupied Peninsular Malaysia, namely Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army and Selected Historical Material of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army . Both collections were published in Hong Kong in 1992 by The Singapore & Malaysia Overseas-Returned Chinese Association which is a welfare association of many war veterans.

Other publications

There is also Japanese historian Yoji Akashi's detailed account, The Anti-Japanese Movement in Perak during the Japanese Occupation, 1941-1945 (in Paul H Kratoska, ed., Malaya and Singapore During The Japanese Occupation, Singapore, National University of Singapore, 1995).

Kratoska himself has also written a monograph titled The Japanese Occupation of Malaya , 1941-1945 (London, Hurst, 1998). However, in the monograph, local resistance is not recorded in proportional details.

Then, there are, among others, Spencer Chapman's The Jungle is Neutral (Singapore, Times, 2001), Tan Chong Tee's Force 136: Story of A WWII Resistance Fighter (Singapore, Asiapac, 2001), Sybil Kartigesu's No Dram of Mercy (Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1983) and Dorathy Thatcher and Robert Cross' Pai Naa: The Story of an Englishwoman's Survival in the Malayan Jungle , and Abu Talib Ahmad's The Malay Muslims, Islam and the Rising Sun, 1941-1945 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2003).

Not less important is the 1998 memoirs of Abdullah CD, chairman of the Communist Party of Malaya since 1988, recalling his participation in anti-occupation movement and after liberation, CPM. Abdullah CD was also one of the founders and commander of the 10th Regiment of CPM's armed forces in 1949. He was reportedly allowed to visit Malaysia after the signing of the 1989 peace accord.

Of course, there is also a need to reconstruct the history of similar period and nature in Sabah and Sarawak, and integrate it into the larger narrative.

Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party is therefore also a very useful book for the reconstruction and preservation of the critical portions of history that is simultaneously Malaysian, regional and international.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia. He is a former DAP member of Parliament for Kampar (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily (now Sin Chew Daily). He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.