Admiral Mountbatten and Major General Messervy with Force 136 leaders after their disbandment in Singapore,...

Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten and Major General Sir Frank Messervy with Force 136 leaders after their disbandment in Singapore, 1946. Photograph, World War Two, Far East, 1946. Force 136 was a multi-national resistance force organised by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to resist Japanese occupation in the Far East. Its operations in Malaya involved close collaboration with the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). This organisation was dominated by Chinese members of the Malayan Communist party who went on to play a leading role in the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). Disbanded in December 1945, the MPAJA was supposed to hand in all of its Allied-supplied weaponry to the British Military Administration, but much of it remained hidden and was used by the Communists in their subsequent guerilla campaign. From a collection of official photographs collected by Major General (later Lieutenant General) Sir Frank Walter Messervy.