RHODESIAN AFRICAN RIFLES @ MALAYA (1956-1958)

This photo is from 1956, at the start of the 1st Battalion, Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR deployment to Malaya during the Malayan Emergency 1948-1960.

What you're seeing:

Three black soldiers in British-style tropical khaki - short-sleeve bush shirts, shorts, black berets with the RAR badge (matabele spears and shield). The caption at the bottom says "Rhodesian African Rifles @ Malaya". The background with pipes and bulkhead looks like the interior of the troopship SS Empire Clyde, which is the ship the main body of the battalion sailed on to reach Singapore on 26 April 1956.

Who were they?

The RAR was originally formed in 1916 as the Rhodesian Native Regiment. By Southern Rhodesian standards it was an old, well-tried unit - it fought in East Africa in WWI and in Burma in WWII.

Its structure was distinctive: black rank-and-filers and warrant officers led by white officers. The soldiers came from both Mashonaland and Matabeleland, with Shona in the majority. Because the Royal Australian Regiment was also in Malaya, its acronym was temporarily changed to "RhAR" to avoid confusion.

Why were Rhodesians in Malaya?

Southern Rhodesia, then a self-governing colony of the UK, sent two units to fight with the Commonwealth against the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the armed wing of the Malayan Communist Party.

• First: "C" Squadron, the all-white Rhodesian SAS, 1951-1953
• Second: The RAR, 1956-1958

An advance party flew out from Salisbury (now Harare) on 13 February 1956 via Nairobi, Aden, Karachi and Ceylon to Kluang, Johor for jungle training with the Northern Rhodesia Regiment they were relieving. They then set up headquarters at Chaah, about 130km north-west of Johor Bahru.

In Malaya they were stationed in Johor between 1956 and 1958. Their work was classic counter-insurgency: long patrols in single file, food-denial operations like Operations *Cobble* and *Shoe*, tracking small MNLA groups through rubber plantations and jungle edge. Their officers noted the African soldiers were ideally suited to jungle warfare and were natural trackers from rural backgrounds.

From May to September 1956 they patrolled around Johor without major incident - contacts were rare, the monsoon was endless, and the communists usually fled after a few shots.

This deployment is remembered both in Malaysia as part of the Commonwealth effort that secured independence in 1957, and in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia as the predecessor to many of the key figures in the later Rhodesian Bush War.

Hj Zulheimy Maamor

3 September 2026: 2.22 a.m