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Police Lieutenant Arthur Waters Receives His Colonial Police Medal From Sir Donald Charles MacGillivray
This photograph was supplied by Police Lieutenant Tom Turnbull, the then Group Commander Area Security Unit, Batu Gajah, and now long retired from the Federation of Malaya Police.
Arthur Waters was a formidable policeman with a record second to none in the Malayan Emergency. With a tally of eliminating 9 Communist Terrorists personally and a total ‘kill’ of 18 in various police and military actions, he was awarded the Colonial Police Medal for Gallantry by the British Crown and also, in 1997, the prestigious Pingkat Jasa Kebaktian (PJK) by Sultan Yusuf Izzudin Shah, the Sultan of Perak. He served in Malaya for 10 years from October 1948.
Like many of he other British Police Lieutenants who served in Malaya during the Emergency, Arthur came from the British ‘Palestine Colonial Police Force’ where he was involved in fighting before being posted to Malaya on the withdrawal of the British from what is now Gaza. Prior to Palestine he had fought as a Marine in the Second World War, escaping from Crete by boat when the Germans launched their airborne invasion and the battle was lost. He and some other soldiers were rescued by an American Destroyer.
He recalls arriving in Singapore and being put on a train to Ipoh, with no weapon and still wearing his Palestine Police uniform.
Initially he was set to work training totally inexperienced members of the Sungai Siput Home Guard on security procedures and the use of weapons, but soon joined the Jungle Squads to hunt down the Communist insurgents active in the area.
On leaving the police service he worked as a manager in several plantations.
To read more about The Home Guard, click here.
To read more about Sir Donald MacGillivray, click here.
To read more about Tom Turnbull, also from the Palestine Police, click here.