The Fight for Malaya: The Jungle War of Maurice Cotterill - Hardcover

Maurice Cottterill, an expatriate rubber planter, was the only Englishman to have lived in Malaya when the country was successively a part of the British Empire, occupied by the Japanese, designated a British colony, subject to a prolonged civil war and then an independent nation. He spent the years from 1942 to 1945 in the jungle, being one of the handful of refugees to survive betrayal, capture, starvation or disease. He was unhappy with Spencer Chapman's classic account of those years in The Jungle is Neutral because he knew certain incidents described in the book to be misreported, exaggerated or probably untrue. During his lifetime, he declined to write about his own experiences in the jungle or to make his enthralling record of those years available for publication. After reading Eleven Months in Malaya, which described the chaotic period following the sudden ending of the war in August 1945, Cotterill s daughter Philippa agreed that its author should use her father s diary to provide not just a gripping record of her father s courage and resource but also to examine the hardships inflicted on the inhabitants of Malaya during the years of Japanese occupation and the creation of a society which was to undergo further volatility, anguish and change during the long drawn-out conflict with the Communist insurgents. Published in 2007 and distributed only in Malaysia, The Fight for Malaya was seen by scholars and general readers there as both an incredibly readable and interesting adventure story but also as a fascinating insight, not just in what happened on Malaya but also ... into the Japanese motivation and thought processes. A distinguished historian wrote to the author, I read (it) from cover to cover on the day of receipt and very greatly enjoyed it. Historians of Malaysia will be greatly in your dept for your contribution to the history of the war. With so many close ties between people in Malaysia and other Commonwealth countries, it is appropriate that this important and readable story should now be made available to a wider readership.

Bob Holder's time at university was interrupted by three years in the army. He served in the Far East, landed on Morib Beach in September 1945, and served in Malaya until August 1946. Since 1951, he has lived in the West of England. He has worked in manufacturing companies in Ireland, Belgium and North America as well as in the United Kingdom. He has also held a number of public appointments. From 1974 to 1984 he was Treasurer of Bath University and remained a Pro-Chancellor until 1997. He is author of Eleven Months in Malaya (2005), The Dictionary of Euphemisms, Thinking About Management (1994), How Not to Say What You Mean (2002) and The Dictionary Men (2004).