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Two Sabahans who fought for Malaya
Published on: Sunday, November 05, 2023
By: Kan Yaw Chong
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Datuk Chin Phui Kong (left) will turn 100 on 26 Dec 2023. Ho Su Shen in Force 136 uniform.
Last Sunday, we reported how the entire Central Committee of the Malaysian Armed Forces Chinese Veterans Association (Macva) made a whirlwind trip to Kota Kinabalu on Oct 25 to accord Chin their exclusive ‘Honorary Member’ title reserved for only 10 deserving Malaysians, hailing him as “a legend and war hero” in his role as a secret agent in Force 136 of Malaya.
Datuk Chin and son Chin Kam (T-shirt) with top officers of Macva on October 25.
Macva is right to describe Chin as a “legend” – a world-renowned ichthyologist, author and co-author of multiple authoritative books with three species of fresh water fish permanently named after him – Beta chini; Osteochilus chini; Neogastromyzon chini.
But here is the obscure story on how two North Borneans got what we may say, “sucked into” Force 136 of Malaya by the geopolitics of WW2.
‘Mission retake Malaya’ after humiliating defeat
Force 136 Malaya was part of a Greater British Secret Service Organisation called Special Operations Executive (SOE) headquartered in India.
Its job was to recruit and train local guerrillas to help the British retake Malaya lost to the Japanese Army in a spectacular fashion in late 1941 and early 1942.
In a swift attack of Malaya on Dec 8, 1941 and ending in a humiliating defeat in the Battle of Singapore, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, Commander of the 80,000 Allied Forces, conceded what is known as the largest surrender of British forces in history on Feb 15, 1942.
Disgraced and sore about, the British plotted and schemed a counter invasion of Malaya called Operation Zipper in their top secret bases in India.
A top ranked Colonel B. Goodfellow fled Singapore before the surrender then re-emerged to set up Force 136 Malaya, assisted by two Cantonese proficient, Captain John Davies and Captain Richard Broome.
Sought – Chinese with trilingual flair
Specifically, Force 136 Malaya sought trilingual Chinese recruits and turn them into elite espionage or commando teams for a counter offensive.
This was deemed necessary since Caucasian agents would not blend with the local populations of Malaya.
The problem was the unit was based in India which made it impossible to obtain Chinese recruits with trilingual abilities who fit the bill.
Well, it so happened that there was a Fujian-born Lim Bo Seng but Singapore-honed businessman, very active in overseas Chinese community affairs and zealous resistance activist.
Like Colonel Goodfellow, Lim left Singapore upon the fall of Singapore, slipped into Sumatra before setting sail for Calcutta, India, from where he flew to Chonqing, China, where the Kuomintang government was based during the war.
Two things here, a trusted patriot, the Kuomintang government, apparently already working in cohort with the British, sent Lim back to India to help the British military forces in logistical operations such as fire fighting, medical supply and transportation supply
Lim Bo Seng made Force 136 Operations officer
The second and most relevant event to our story today, is that as part of the Allied co-operation between the Kuomintang government and Britain, the Kuomintang government designated Lim as the Chinese Liaison of Force 136, a Sino-British guerrilla task force and appointed Lim as Force 136’s Malaya Operations Officer, with the rank as Colonel!
The cutting edge appointment sharpened the drive to recruit Force 136 agents from Malaya to train in top secret Poona, India.
Chongqing’s trust in Lim to ramp up the zeal of overseas Chinese students destined Chin and classmate Ho Su Shen – the late father of architect Ar Ho JIa Lit and engineer brother Ir Richard Ho, into the arms of Force 136 Malaya.
Chin, Ho became classmates again in China
One of the fads in pre-war days was to send children to China for further studies.
Chin and also Ho were the products of that educational trend.
After completing Form 5 at Chung Hwa School, Sandakan, Chin’s parents sent him China where he enrolled into the so called Third National Overseas Chinese Middle School in Yong Kai District, northern Guandong District in the province of Guanzhou, with attractive benefits like free lodging and free tuition.
Similarly, Ho, who was a top student in North Borneo Form 3 exam, got a scholarship to study at Chung Hwa Sandakan, became Chin’s classmate, was later sent to Kong Kong to study Form 6, planning to enter University of Hong Kong.
Alas, Japan attacked Hon Kong on Dec 8, 1941, Ho fled to China where he ended up in the same Third National Overseas Middle School in Yong Kai District, Guandong, as Chin was.
Chin, Ho responded to Force 136 outreach
Essentially, Chin and Ho were stranded in China at the height of WW2.
Entered Force 136 recruitment drives in China.
Chin said he still remembers one day in 1944, representatives from Overseas Department in Chongqing (then spelled Chungking) came the school to ask if anybody was interested to take up “military training”.
Chin, Ho and another North Bornean student, Liang Shi Ming, said yes while a fourth declined, proving that they were looking for volunteers.
Datuk Chin (top), Ho Su Shen (left), Liang Shi Ming (front) and an unidentifie man (right), all members of Force 136 in their young days.
The arrangements set, Chin, Ho and Liang reported to Chongqing, a rendezvous of trilingual overseas Chinese youths – volunteers who represented the Kuomintang government which had struck a deal with the British government to set up this Malayan Joint Armed Forces (MJAF).
Whether Chin, Ho or Liang were aware of it or not, the deal in MJAF was China (Kuomintang government) were to supply manpower while Britain to provide training, transport, finance, planning and command, specifically to co-ordinate with the planned Allied counter – offensive to retake Malaya!
Flown to Kunming enroute India
So Chin, Ho, Liang and all members of the new found Malayan Joint Armed Force were flown by plane to Kunming Airport, where surprisingly, the US had set up an airbase.
From Kunming, they were flown over the Himalayan mountains to Calcutta, where they were taken by train westward across India towards Bombay, to mild weather highland where Eastern Warfare School of Poona – a top secret military training ground for mission to retake Malaya, was located!
In an article entitled ‘Wartime Stories’, Ir Richard Ho, son of Ho, writes:
“At the British military camp in Poona, my father was taught shooting skills, raid attacks, explosives and bombing, undercover communications, intelligence gathering, map reading and guerrilla warfare, even assassination.
“Shooting and bombing were two of the more important aspects of training. He also received parachute training at Jessore Airbase, north of Calcutta and practical jungle warfare tactic training in the Ceylonese (now Sri Lanka) jungle.”
Post training dispatch to Malaya
The training lasted six to eight months.
After that, they were to re-enter Malaya to perform.
Small groups, each contained two Chinese liaison officers and two British officers, formed, sent back to Malayan jungles at diverse spots, set up base camps, the Chinese liaisons would fan out to towns, infiltrate local populace to spy on Japanese invaders, retreat to camp to report to the British Command Centre in India through Morse Code or wireless radio transmitter.
Use of submarines for first moves
At first, there were no aircraft to parachute them down.
So the British and Dutch navies did the next best – lent their submarines.
Since both Capt John Davies and Richard Broome were conversant in Cantonese while Davies knew jungle well, they were picked to lead the first two commando teams, code named Gustavus 1 and 2 to infiltrate Malaya and even the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army.
On May 24, 1943, Davies and his Chinese agents landed north of Pangkor Island, Perak, pitched camp in Segari Hills, agents secured cover jobs in Perak, and end of Sept, managed to contact the main resistance movement – Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) led by Chin Peng.
On October 1943, Davies relocated to MPAJA stronghold Bukit Bidor for safety reason, held its first official meeting January 1944 with MPAJA which agreed to support Force 136 to re-establish British control till Japan surrenders while Force 136 agreed to provide arms, training, funds and medical supplies.
Communication and supply shocks
But Force 136 could not keep its promised help to MPAJA, one reason being its 260kg transmitter was stuck in the coast, unable to contact headquarter in India.
1944 was a year of communication and supply shocks for Force 136.
From February 1944 onwards, Force 136 repeatedly failed to set up contact with submarine bearing supplies and a loss of communication with Headquarters for a year as a result of five unsuccessful submarine sorties.
A very costly blunder – Lim captured
Making matters worse, the last of these sorties came under attacks by the Japanese who found out about it.
Then March 1944, disaster struck when a Force 136 agent made a blunder or “bai vu loong” making a rendezvous with a Japanese sub, thinking it was an Allied Sub, while the agent escaped, his two assistants captured and divulged secrets, leading to the arrest of Force 135 agents working in town, including top gun Lim Bo Seng, who happened to be in town raising funds, intercepted at a road block, jailed in Batu Gajah prison, interrogated, tortured by the kempeitai and died on June 29, 1944!
Before Lim died, May 1944, the Japanese launched a large scale raid on the Bukit Bidor camp, seizing important documents and supplies.
Turning point for Chin and Ho
If Daily Express’ hunch is correct, Force 136’s communication shock lasted at least more than one-and-half-years when they were unable to communicate with Headquarters in India until a few agents were able to retrieve the wireless transmitter, brought to new camp in Bukit Bidor in February 1945, where the innovative agents were able to use a make-shift bicycle dynamo to power and got the transmitter working, to re-establish contact with HQ.
This appears to be an important turning point for the air drop of Chin and Ho into Malaya in June 1945.
An armed Ho Su Shen of Force 136.
With the direct line of communication to HQ re-established, it became possible to coordinate supply airdrops and the addition of personnel, after Force 136 halted the use of submarines for mobilisation.
With a modified long range B-24 Liberator heavy bomber attached to Force 136, D-day came for Datuk Chin and four other agents on June 12, 1945, when he was air dropped into Bidor, Perak, after a 12-hour flight from Calcutta.
Chin’s parachute drama, met Chin Peng
The drama is Chin’s parachute got stuck on a tall rubber tree, injuring his hands.
One story had it that he used his commando knife to cut the nylon cord and climb down the rubber tree.
Daily Express asked Chin whether that was the case, he answered: “I used my rope to abseil down the tree!
“Another version had it that upon descent, there were already people waiting on the ground for him.”
But Wikipedia reports that Chin and his team “walked for two hours before arriving at the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army Camp where Chin Peng, was commander of the camp”.
Asked what he thought of Chin Peng, Chin said: “He is a leader.”
He also met Colonel John Davies: “Nice guy,” Chin said.
Ho jumped from modified B24 Liberator
One week later, it was Lo Su Shen’s turn to be air drooped but the parachute was blown off course.
“My father together with an Indonesian Chinese and two British officers were parachuted into Negeri Sembilan, Malaya, from a modified US B24 Liberator heavy bomber that set off from Ceylon’s Tricomalee Airport on June 18, 1945,” son Richard Ho writing in ‘Wartime Stories’.
How Ho stopped officer’s order to kill
“Their parachutes drifted to the coastline instead of the jungle and landed near the beach where they were spotted by two local fishermen.
“Order was given by the British Officer in charge to silence them as their mission to carry out espionage works behind enemy line was highly secretive and dangerous.
“However, upon my father’s conversation with the fishermen in local dialect and found them sympathetic to the anti-Japanese resistance fighters’ cause, he was able to persuade the British Officer to allow the fishermen to lead them to Chin Peng’s Malayan Communist Party camp; a tense situation was averted with a happy ending,” Richard narrated the incident.
Two atomic bombs suddenly made Force 136 unnecessary
But alas, two months being air dropped, Japan surrendered on Aug 15, 1945, after US dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug 6 followed by another on Nagasaki on Aug 9.
The big fuss around Force 136’s war efforts all but became unnecessary!
Chin after Force 136
Chin returned to China, worked as a government official in Fuzou, before enrolling a Bachelor of Science degree in marine biology at Amoy (Xiamen) University.
He returned to North Borneo in 1950, applied for a job in the fisheries department where he became Director of Department 1970-78.
Ho after Force 136
Ho Su Shen, meanwhile, headed for Taiwan, where he helped the Kuomintang government set up one of the biggest trading companies, became its first General Manager.
He then returned to North Borneo and set up a business on import of building materials, later ventured into Building and Civil Engineering constriction.
For their sacrifice and bravery in the liberation of Malayan people from Japanese occupation, Ho and Liang Shi Ming were posthumously awarded the Gold Medal by Taiwan’s Chief Secretary of Overseas Community Affairs Council in December 2015, while Datuk Chin Phui Kong was similarly recognised.
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