Jungle Soldier: The True Story of Freddy Spencer Chapman

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Early in 1936, he joined a Himalayan climbing expedition. He was not only a keen mountaineer but studied the history of mountaineering, Dr Kellas being amongst his heroes. He enjoyed difficult climbs and met Basil Gould, the Political Officer for Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet. Gould invited Spencer to be his private secretary on his political mission, from July 1936 to February 1937, to persuade the Panchen Lama to return from China and establish permanent British representation in Lhasa. Spencer struggled to learn Tibetan, learning it well enough to converse. He was involved in cypher work, kept a meteorological log, pressed six hundred plants, dried seeds, and made notes on bird life. He kept a diary of "events" in Lhasa and took many photographs [10] that were sent to India on a weekly basis. He was allowed to wander and did so in an unshepherded way into the middle of Tibet and around the Holy City. The majority community of Burma were the Bamar. Among the minority peoples of Burma, including Chins, Karens and Kachins, there were a mixture of anti-Bamar, anti-Japanese and pro-British sentiments. [16] In 1942, the pro-Japanese Burma Independence Army raised with Japanese assistance, attempted to disarm Karens in the Irrawaddy River delta region. This created a large-scale civil conflict which turned the Karens firmly against the Japanese. Unfortunately, military leaders and strategists would not allow preparations to be made in the event that Singapore fell, believing such a scenario was impossible. Following the Japanese invasion Captain Chapman formed a previously planned commando group as a stay behind party made up of sympathetic guerillas from Malay, Chinese, and Indian volunteers. Commissioned into the Seaforth Highlanders as a lieutenant on 6 June 1939, [9] Chapman was chosen for a mission in Australia to train Australian and New Zealand forces in guerrilla warfare and eventually to join what was then Special Training School 101 STS-101 in Singapore. One of the main objects of this school was the organization of parties to stay behind in areas the Japanese might overrun. In August 1941, a plan for stay-behind parties that would include local Indians, Chinese and Malays was proposed, but this was rejected by the British colonial governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, as extravagant and defeatist. Another force operating under Japanese command in Burma was the Indian National Army, a force composed of former prisoners of war captured by the Japanese at Singapore and some Tamils living in Malaya. However, Force 136 was prevented from working with anyone in the Indian National Army, regardless of their intentions. The policy towards the INA was formed and administered by India Command, a British rather than Allied headquarters.

The representative of the Korean Liberation Army's operations team resides in New Delhi, and all expenses shall be provided by the British army. Aldrich, Richard James (2000). Intelligence and the war against Japan: Britain, America and the politics of secret service. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-64186-9. The movement and equipment of Korean Liberation Army operatives shall be equivalent to British military officers. And on the one occasion he was arrested, Chapman blithely announced that a Japanese prince had been his keen birdwatching companion at Cambridge. The arresting officer was apparently so charmed that he apologised for having no whisky to offer Chapman, and declined to bind his hands and feet. Chapman then waited till dead of night and, despite a debilitating bout of malaria, made good his escape.

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Douglas Jung – A Canadian Army officer during WWII. Among the 150 Asian-Canadians recruited into Force 136 to become agents as part of Operation Oblivion, in which agents were parachuted into the South West Pacific. Jung received commando training at Commando Bay, Okanagan Lake, and parachute training in Australia. [1] After Oblivion was cancelled, he and other Asian-Canadians Force 136 agents were attached to Special Operations Australia and deployed to British Borneo and New Guinea to carry out search and rescue missions. He resumed his study in law after WWII. Elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Vancouver Centre, the first ever in the House of Commons of Canada from a minority ethnicity. [24] [25] Walter Fletcher – A British businessman turned agent. Part of Operation Remorse, sent into China to smuggle rubber products, foreign currency, diamonds and machinery out of Japanese occupied-Malaya and French Indochina. Elected as Member of Parliament for Bury in Lancashire after WWII. Barker, Ralph. One Man's Jungle: a biography of F. Spencer Chapman . London: Chatto & Windus, 1975. In between the Greenland Expeditions he took part in the Fell run, 130 miles (209.2 km) and 30,000 feet (9,100 m) of climbing, his time of 25 hours was not however a record. The service period of this task force shall be determined as the first six months, and the continuous service shall be extended by mutual agreement.

The organisation was established to encourage and supply indigenous resistance movements in enemy-occupied territory, and occasionally mount clandestine sabotage operations. Force 136 operated in the regions of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II which were occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945: Burma, Malaya, China, Sumatra, Siam, and French Indochina (FIC). [4] The Oriental Mission of SOE attempted to set up "stay-behind" and resistance organisations from August 1941, but their plans were opposed by the British colonial governor, Sir Shenton Thomas. They were able to begin serious efforts only in January 1942, after the Japanese Invasion of Malaya had already begun. A team of three agents, including Ibrahim Ismail, parachuted into the western coast of Terengganu, as part of Operation Oatmeal. They failed in their mission after being betrayed, and were later captured by the Japanese. [14] China [ edit ] The Bridge on the River Kwai, a film, depicts a fictional commando school referred to as "Force 316", the commanding officer "Major Warden" wears the patch of Force 136. Three local Malay resistance forces were established by Force 136 after they reached Malaya. Each force was assisted by British Liaison Officers (LOs) and agents from SOE. All the agents were from the Malay ethnic group who were working or studying overseas before World War II. [10] [11] [12] Ulu Perak

In Operation Remorse, a businessman named Walter Fletcher carried out covert economic operations such as trying to obtain smuggled rubber, currency speculation and so on, in Japanese-occupied China. As a result of these activities, SOE actually returned a financial profit of GBP 77 million in the Far East (aided by an accountant at SOE HQ in London, John Venner). [15] Many of these funds and the networks used to acquire them were subsequently used in various relief and repatriation operations, but critics pointed out that this created a pool of money that SOE could use beyond the oversight of any normal authority or accountability. Harris, Clare. Entry in: A Camera in Tibet: Photographs of Charles Bell and Spencer Chapman (exhibition held in the Atlas Gallery, London, May - July 2000). London: Atlas Ltd Editions, 2000. a b c Chapman, F. Spencer (2003). The jungle is neutral: [a soldier's two-year jungle escape from the Japanese army]. Guilford, Conn: Lyons Press. ISBN 1592281079. OCLC 53028704. This latitude did him good, winning a Kitchener scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1926. It was there that he developed his passion for adventure.