Chapter two - The Malayan Security Service and the evolution of the Special Branch

Summary

Planning for the military administration of Malaya had been carried out in London as early as 1943 by the War Office and the Colonial Office. After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, units of the British Military Administration of Malaya landed in Singapore with the occupying British forces in September 1945. The British Military Administration's main intelligence organisation was the Malayan Security Service. It was responsible for the provision of political and security intelligence, and operated on a pan-Malayan basis, covering both Malaya and Singapore under a Director MSS based in Singapore.

This chapter examines the functions of the Malayan Security Service from September 1945 until it was wound up and handed over to the Malayan and Singapore Special Branches in August 1948. It provides an account, too, of the unsettled security situation that prevailed in Singapore and Malaya at the end of the war, when the MSS returned as part of the British Military Administration. Although the MSS was separate from the BMA Civil Affairs Police and reported directly to the higher echelons of the government in both territories, it liaised closely with the BMA Civil Affairs Police commanding officers in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

Short describes the MSS as ‘a sort of super intelligence organisation’ that was ‘supernumerary to the police and in particular to the CID’. Aslie and Ibrahim refer to it in their study of the history and role of the Malayan police as the ‘Malayan Secret Service’.

Both these definitions are not far from the truth, but its official charter listed its functions as follows:

1. (a) To collect and collate information on subversive organisations and personalities in Malaya and Singapore.

2. (b) To advise, so far as they [sic] are able, the two Governments [Malaya and Singapore] as to the extent to which Internal Security is threatened by the activities of such an organisation [sic].

3. (c) To keep the two Governments informed of the trends of public opinion which affect, or are likely to affect the Security of Malaya.

4. (d) To maintain a Central Registry of Aliens.

5. (e) To maintain a close liaison with other Security Intelligence Organisations, and the Defence Security Officer [MI5].