Loyal To The End: A Personal And Factual Account Of National Service In Malaya

This is the true story of the author’s time as a National Serviceman, 1957 to 1959. It starts with his marriage to Betty, five days before his call-up and then through three months of intense army infantry training. He was a member of the renowned First Battalion the Loyal Regiment, who were based in Northern Malaya and engaged in the war against the savage and cruel Malayan Communist army. For the last eighteen months of his service he was a Section Commander, leading his men through the conflict and in the middle of the worlds oldest primeval jungle. This book has been described as being to National Service, as ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was to the First World War. The British and Commonwealth forces were engaged in a twelve year jungle war against a well trained and well armed Communist army. It is known as the forgotten war, even though it’s the only time that a communist army has been defeated anywhere in the world. With three quarters of the British forces being National Service men, it is also and still known as, their war.