Good books on Operation FIREDOG?

[Procopius]

Are there any good books out there on the RAF during the Malayan Emergency, or for that matter, a good general history of the Emergency? It's almost totally unknown here.

[Rabbit Leader]

_{Dear Procopius,}

_{I'm at work at the moment, however I do have a copy what appears to be the "official" history of the Malayan Energency at home.}

_{Give me a few hours and I'll get the correct details and ISBN for you.}

_{If I recall corectly, I purchased it new via mail order a few years ago. To be honest, theres bugger all photos and the overall content is really dry, however if you wanna know how many 60lb rockets were fired by 45 sqd during Feb 1952 then this book may be of interest.}

_{Cheers .. Dave}

[Rabbit Leader]

Sorry... Slept in a bit after a strange day at work and then family visiting thereafter..

The book I have is by a chap called Macolm Postgate and the link is shown below - (note - there are cheaper options around this just gives the best picture).

http://www.biblio.com/malcolm-postgate/operation-firedog~40546902~title

To be honest, I was after something a little more modeller friendly, such as good quality photos and the odd side profile, however it's really a mass of small pinted words with little margin bordering the pages. I've read bits and pieces, however could not read it cover to cover. I would not put if in my top 50 books..

If there are better books out there, I'd be interested as well.. Pity we don't live in the same town - you could have borrowed mine.

Cheers.. Dave.

[Procopius]

Hmmm. Well, it still sounds interesting enough to grab someday. Now to hunt for more profile-y books on the subject.

[XV107]

Postgate's book is the declassified history of FIREDOG; it originally came out as an AP (Air Publication just in case anyone is unaware of that nomenclature) and this explains the lack of user-friendliness. (It was AP3410, if anyone's really interested. No? Thought not...)

There's some useful - but again not exactly modeller friendly - stuff in this:

http://www.airpowerstudies.com/RAF%20and%20Small%20Wars%20Part%202.pdf

You can hunt around in the IWM online archive for photos if that's what you want:

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205127186 is as good a way in as any, or you could be brave and follow

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?f[0]=themeString%3AMalayan%20Emergency%201948-1960&f[1]=webCategory%3Aphotographs&query=

which'll give you a fair few photos (although NB that some of the photos in IWM search strings don't appear because of various copyright/reproduction issues).

The piece by Bryan Hunt in

http://www.airpowerstudies.co.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/aprvol11no1.pdf

Is quite interesting from an historical point of view, albeit slightly academic in tone (IIRC, Bryan was/is doing postgraduate work and this originated from it)

This is pretty decent, while this is OK as well (and I'm sure can be found for a little less cash...)

Again, while it's academic in tone, you might find this pdf from the USAF's Air University of some interest, since it's a contemporary analysis.

The official ops manual - The Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya is also worth a look if you want to get into tactics, procedures, etc, etc

In all cases, if you can get inter-library loans fired up for this, it saves fiscal disappointment if the book's aren't quite what you're after.

[Procopius]

Oh, I love stuff like this, VC10, it's right in my wheelhouse. I have a much-loved copy of the Admiralty Battle Summary for the Indian Ocean Raid back at my house.

[XV107]

If you like the slightly drier stuff, then RAND has quite a lot of material

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R957.pdf

Anti-Guerrilla Intelligence in Malaya

Army Operations In Mayala 1947-60

And http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3651.html is quite decent, since it distills personal experience from those who were there and did it (but most definitely didn't wear the T-shirt, since one would be thrown out of one's club for such scruffy dress...)