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Daily Worker Headline - End This Horror
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a broader spectrum of left-wing opinion. At its peak, the newspaper achieved a circulation of 35,000.
The above photo was published by the Daily Worker on 10 May 1952 with an accompanying report pleading that Britain would cave her honour by ending the war in Malaya (The Malayan Emergency). In the political climate of the time the newspapers series of shocking reports and harrowing pictures was seen as Communist propaganda and ignored by the British public at large - much to the relief of the British Colonial Office,
Mark Curtis in his book "The War in Malaya 1948 -1960" refers to this picture thus:
Decapitation of insurgents was a little more unusual – intended as a way of identifying dead guerrillas when it was not possible to bring their corpses in from the jungle. A photograph of a Marine Commando holding two insurgents’ heads caused a public outcry in April 1952. The Colonial Office privately noted that “there is no doubt that under international law a similar case in wartime would be a war crime”. (Britain always denied it was technically at “war” in Malaya, hence use of the term “emergency”).
NB This photograph has been on Google Images for many years. No doubt it is still there.
To read Dr Tweedie's personal recollections of the start of the Malayan Emergency, click here.
To read a summary about the Malayan Emergency and see a short video, click here.