MALAYAN EMERGENCY.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Archive of material, including the photographs of Private Edward Allen. A progressively more shocking record of the violent and coercive underpinnings of British control in postwar Malaya, including many photographs taken by a young private tasked with stamping out communist resistance.Private Edward Allen was deployed with the Fourth Queen's Own Hussars at the beginning of the Malayan Emergency. Between 1948 and 1951, the regiment undertook counter-terrorist operations. His album opens with images of himself and army comrades in the field and posing in front of their armoured car, such jocularity masking the destructive control exercised by the British in the region. Further images show them in camp and armoured cards patrolling deserted streets.After some time off in Singapore, they return to Penang, affording an opportunity for further photography in the field. At this point in the album, Allen arranges several leaves of photographs of local and Western women. The latter are clearly acquaintances, but the former, many of whom are photographed with their breasts exposed, offers a discomforting insight into the attitude of British soldiers. In the final portion, posed shots of soldiers are joined by more sinister visuals, including a derailed train, dead enemy combatants afforded little dignity, and, most disturbingly, a British soldier posing with the heads of two executed soldiers. An album that began with frivolity has ended with violence being normalized and lionized in

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