1948-09-01 — Page 12

Page 2.

September 1, 1948

REVOLVER ARMED em- ployees stand on the verandah of their bungalow, transformed to a. sandbagged strongpoint and alarm post at Dublin Estate, Kedah State, Malays.

AMERICAN COMPANY, RAISES “PRIVATE ARMY”

TO PROTECT. PLANTATION IN MALAYA

Led by a veteran jungle fighter, and equipped with guns flown from the United States, the Dublin Estate, in Kedah State, Malaya, has its own army: British and Malay defenders of the largest American property in Malaya are welding a fighting force for the day, when, and if, Communist insurgents strike at them.

They are the small defence force of the six rubber estates operated by the Malayan American Plantations, a subsidiary of the US. Rubber Company. Of the six, the largest is the 10,000-acre Dublin Estate in North. Malaya,

With the hard-pressed Malayan Government. able to furnish only a token force of Malay troops as guards, MAP's management - stepped into the breach and set up their own defence. They enlisted Malays from the native villages on the estates, training them to use guns they never saw before. Putting them into uniform, and posting them strategically about the estates, they-trained them to defend the aeren-of rubber trees, the spacious bungalows of the European staff, and the "neat `Indian and Chinese villages,

· from sudden attack from the jungle.

Directing MAP's defence force is 30-year-old George Swenson, of New York. A. US. employed in the Sumatra rubber industry before the Japanese invasion, he joined the U.S. Army in 1942 and fought the Japanese for more than three years. Now he tours MAP's estates regularly, supervising the training of the new guards.

The athletic playing fields, the comfortable houses, the processing and plant and laboratory have all taken on a wartime appearance, like many other Malayan plantations. Wives have left the estate. Their husbands bunk together in central bungawa, surrounded by, barbed wire, Sand-bagged sentry posts are dotted about.

Swenson says: "The responsibility of protecting the country and its rubber plantations, the added prestige of a weapon and a uniform, is giving (the Malays) an increased realisation that Malaya in their own country, something worth working and fighting for." (All photographs by A.P.). ⠀

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́ ́R.'S, HERRING, of Bournal east of Penang, sets out-by: Jeep) posts ...and defence, installations.

--- MALATS of the Malay Regiment fake positić In a sentry post of handbags

· Intense mesatiren have been intrody jod to,foll attacks by Communist, Insurgents, roaming the surrounding jungle. In the background, a barbed wire barricide can be ́soon: beyond the clearing.

MALAYANĘ NATIVE/EM Mañy “of these men havE) DAY OF are entering: enthusiastically: in