h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am about to write about a revolutionary aspect of the Malayan/Singapore campaign. Now that 'BBC History WW2' has closed, where should I address it, as I can't find a suitable place in h2g2?
Len

Hello Len,

When you have completed your work, you can enter it into Peer Review. They will read your work through, give you advice and it will be forwarded to the Editors for entry into the Guide.


lil xx

It depends on what kind of piece you want to write Len.

PeerReview and the Edited Guide are for factual pieces rather like the sort of thing you'd find on Wikipedia or in an encyclopaedia. If your piece is likely to be more along the lines of personal reminiscences then it should go either to <./>ThePost</.> (h2g2's newspaper) or the <./>Underguide</.>

If you're going into the subject in great depth you might consider the University.

*sticks the L plate back down*

Thanks BH

Hmmmm, BH, I've been told off before for saying <./>underguide</.> when Entries are submitted for *possible inclusion* in the said UnderGuide are via being submitted to Writing-Alternative in a similar way as Entries are submitted to PeerReview for *possible inclusion* in the Edited Guide.

(guess who )

ps I'll bet this is a simpost

Good point. Both The Post and the Underguide can be accessed through Writing-Alternative.

And I learn something new every day

Thank you!

*knock me down with a feather*

I actually made a good point...and I'm not in my regular name

I'll shut up now, before I spoil it by saying something stupid...

I have never had a reply to the last submission I sent, concerning the spy in the Malayan Cambaign. Len Baynes

Your list of Entries:

<./>MA240737?type=1</.>
<./>MA240737?type=2</.>

But none of them have the word /Malayan/ in the title. Could you give us the number of the actual Entry? We might then be in a better position to help.

(If you don't know what I mean, shout. Someone will help.)

TRiG.

This post has been removed.

ps. Article was emailed 30th. May

Len, I have yikes'd your message as it seemed to have your real address and your email address - you shouldn't really post stuff like that on a public forum. Just in case the mods hide the whole message, this is the text of the message without the addresses.

Who did you email this to? h2g2 doesn't usually work by email unless it was a submission to ThePost. Where were you expecting to see it published?



Len (Snowie) Baynes:

There follows a copy of the article in question - one that you would be unlikely to forget or lose:
***********************************************************************
KRANJI or THE SINGAPORE TRAITOR

Romen Bose has written three books, revealing different aspects of the Malayan campaign of World War Two. The title ‘Kranji’ is the site of the Singapore POW War Memorial. The paperback is published by Marshall Cavendish Editions, Singapore, and includes the following revelations, which are, as far as I know, so far unheard of in this country.

Page 92 starts the passage dealing with a Captain who was a spy in the British ranks; he kept in touch with the Japanese forces throughout the campaign by short wave radio. Thus, they knew where to attack at our weakest points, the position of our battlefronts, when and where we were low on ammunition, and such information as would enable our enemy to leapfrog down the Malay peninsular and the amazing rate they did.

Born in New Zealand, the bastard son of a governess, and educated at a British Public School, the spy’s name was Captain Patrick Stanley Vaughan Heenan. In 1935 at the age of 25, he was commissioned into the British Army, assigned to the 16th Punjab Regiment, and travelled to India by troopship. He failed to get the Indian Army to accept him, probably because he refused to knuckle down to discipline. He had to serve for a further six months before being accepted. However, he was later posted to their Army Service Corps, to which unsatisfactory officers were usually sent. They didn’t like him, and sent him to a different battalion.

Soon, he took a long leave in Japan, where he must have joined the Japanese Intelligence. Back with his regiment, they were posted to Malaya early in 1941. There he was very unpopular, and Lieut. Col. Frank Moore asked for him to be posted, and he was sent to Singapore to train in Air Liaison duties (a very convenient post for a spy).

After his training, he was sent with his unit to the Kedah airfields, so that in the months before the Japanese launched their offences, they had a spy right at the heart of our defence. When they attacked on the 8th December 1941, they were guided where to strike by Heenan with a short-wave radio, so it took them only three days to destroy our planes, and the RAF virtually ceased to exist.

Col. Moore reported that the Japanese were performing very successful and mysterious bombing of the RAF on the ground, so our Intelligence eventually got on to Heenen, and found two short-wave radios, one hidden as a typewriter, and the other in a field communion set, plus incriminating papers and code book. He was caught red-handed sending the enemy information on 9th December.

There follows extracts from a letter to his wife by Flt. Lieut. Alfred Elson-Smith:

When I reported at 7 o’clock tonight, a further shock awaited me. I have told you in past letters of a Captain Heenan who has been liaison officer for the 11th division to the RAF stations of Alor Star, Sungei Patani and Butterworth. Well my dear here’s the key to the cause of the walloping that we have had in the north up to date. Major Francis of Military Intelligence arrested him at 2 o’clock p.m. as a spy. There is no question of the authenticity of this arres, since they got the dope which proves his guilt beyond doubt. Just realise this b- - - - - - has been living with us in our mess for four months, drinking and playing cards and joining in our general living conditions. He has had access to our operational rooms together with full and concise knowledge of our administration, in every form pertaining to our strength, possible strength and in short the guts of everything. This simplifies the whys and wherefores of this dreadful debacle and to what extent his activities have sold us out southwards to what extent we have yet to experience. No words of mine, or anyone else for that matter, can express the feelings we have to this man who though clever has sold us so uniquely. Of course his fate is sealed, yet the damage he has done cannot be estimated since according to his own statement when he joined us, he had completed 15 years in the army, serving in all parts of India. This man evidently controlled all the subversive elements in the northern area from the Pri River to Penang and the Thailand border and incidentally recalls to my mind the type of women he kept company with in Penang. Well, my dear, whatever I might have suspected of the natives I never gave thought to such a climax as this. No doubt the authentic information leading to his arrest will be made public one day, but you can take it from me, it was by the little things and careless indifference to our apparent stupidity that he was finally caught, and thanks to Major Francis who is certainly a credit to our military intelligence service.


Witnesses say Heenan, on Friday 13th February, two days before Singapore surrendered, was taken down to the quayside by the military policemen. He was told to look at the setting sun as that would be his last sight of it. A single bullet was fired by an m.p. into the back of his head and the body pushed into the sea.

*

For those interested in the Malay/Singapore Campaign, the three books by Roman Bose, BATTLEBOX, THE END OF THE WAR, & KRANJI,

Are compulsive reading.

All are published by Marshall Cavendish Editions