Lim Bo Seng's Downfall
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[edit] A Traitor Unmasked
De-classified war records in London have conclusively indentified the traitor who betrayed wartime hero Lim Bo Seng. This article reports the full story leading up to his downfall.
[edit] Costly Mistakes
Lim was designated agent B.B.192 and used several aliases. One of them was Tan Choon Lim.
The India Mission decided to work with the communist guerillas in Malaya, who would be tasked with mounting attacks from their jungle base in order to disrupt Japanese troop movements and control.
The first step in building a British clandestine presence would be to sneak back into Malaya, make contact with the communists and build up a spy network in the state of Perak. The operations launched in Malaya were led by Major John Davis and codenamed Gustavus.
Lim stayed behind in India to train the agents who would infiltrate the Malayan jungle. He was regarded as a key person in planning Force 136's operations in Malaya and in setting up Britain's spy network.
The British intended the Perak network to be the "prototype" for others that they wanted to establish throughout the country. The mission: to spy on the Japanese and provide detailed intelligence for the Allied forces when they launch their operation to retake the Malayan mainland.
Six Gustavus members landed off the coast of Pangkor Island, just west of the port of Lumut, on May 24, 1943, and made their way into the jungle of Belantan in central Perak.
The network consisted of an "interior" section headed by Davis and based at Pa Kasut's camp in the hills of Bidor in eastern Perak. The "exterior" section consisted of field agents stationed in Ipoh, Lumut and Pangkor.
One of the key field agents was a volunteer recruited in Calcutta. His name was Wu Chye Sin and, in no time at all, he had set up a successful front for the network. Davis reported: "This business was a shady concern of mushroom growth similar to many that have sprung up since the occupation. It dealt in rice, lubricating oil, gold...all articles which are unlawfully traded in and mostly smuggled. It brought about the most valuable contacts, including Japs, who like making money on the side. Many people with a certain amount of 'pull' were thus compromised and available to us."
Another of Davis' agents, Li Han Kwang, went into the fishing villages on Pangkor Island to arrange for a boat that was to be used for the network's monthly rendezvous with a submarine sent by Force 136. The clandestine meetings were crucial because the submarines carried food, weapons and funds for the agents.
Li turned to the headman of the fishing village on Pangkor, Chua Koon Eng, a middle-aged fisherman who owned three small fishing boats on the island. The headman agreed to provide Li with a boat and a cover for his monthly trips out to sea. He introduced Li as the son of an old acquaintance and set him up as a fishmonger and trader.
By taking Chua into its confidence, the network made its first costly mistake, as later events showed. Although he appeared helpful, he was not an agent and it was not clear where his loyalties lay.
Things started to fall into place with the arrival of Lim Bo Seng in November 1943. The network began relaying detailed information, couriered by submarine to Force 136 headquarters, on Japanese troop movements and plans in Perak state.
However, as a result of several missed rendezvous, the network became short of funds. Lim, who had until then stayed in the Bidor camp, came out of the jungle in March 1944 to sort out the finances. This would prove to be the second costly mistake.
[edit] Beginning of the end
As a result of a counter-espionage operation in January 1944, the Japanese had captured a communist guerilla, who revealed the existence of an Allied spy network operating on Pangkor Island.
Many post-war accounts and authors claim that Lai Teck, a triple agent working for the British, Japanese and the Malayan Communist Party, was the one who revealed Lim's identity and the existence of the Ipoh network.
However, Chin Peng, Lai Teck's successor, had monitored Lai Teck's movements and denies the allegation. He said in a recent interview: "The reality is Lim Bo Seng was betrayed by one of his own men."
When the Japanese learnt of the existence of a spy network in Perak, their secret police or Kempeitai began a full-scale counter-espionage operation on Pangkor Island. By late March, more than 200 Japanese soldiers were swarming all over Pangkor.
On March 23, Chua disappeared and one of Lim's most trusted agents, Tan Chong Tee, advised Lim to leave Ipoh "in view of the circumstances". But Lim refused to flee until he had heard from Wu, who had gone to Singapore to look for funds.
This was the beginning of the end. On March 24, the Kempeitai arrested Chua at Teluk Murrek on the Perak coast. He confessed everything and implicated Li in the spy ring. The Japanese then used Chua as a bait to lure Li, who by then had also escaped from Pangkor. Under torture, Li confirmed Chua's story.
Here, the story took a quixotic turn. The Japanese were hoping to turn Li, so they treated him relatively well and held him at the Kempeitai headquarters in Ipoh. The HQ turned out to be a large house where Japanese soldiers, Chinese detectives and a few "comfort women" lived.
He was not locked up, although he was kept under constant guard. On March 26, Li made a daring escape. He was being "guarded" by two women when a Japanese soldier wandered into the room stark naked. The girls walked out of the room, thus giving Li his chance.
On the pretext of taking a bath, he squeezed through the bathroom window and jumped from the second floor. He then jumped into a taxi, telling the driver that he was an anti-Japanese guerilla making his escape. According to Davis, "the driver responded magnificently and shouting 'Tai ka ting pau' ('We're all of us of one blood') proceeded at full speed to Bidor, where Li immediately entered the jungle".
But the escape failed to hold back the Japanese. Within a few hours of Li's escape, the Japanese netted Tan. The network's headquarters was raided. On March 27, Lim realised that the game was up and decided to flee. But it was too late. The Japanese intercepted his car near the 7th of Jalan Gopeng outside Ipoh. By March 31, the Japanese had smashed the entire network.
Back in the Bidor hills, Davis and Broome were blissfully unaware that their spies had fallen like dominoes until the escapee Li staggered into their camp on March 29. They made frantic attempts to contact Lim but did not receive any response.
The destruction of the Perak network was a huge blow to the British. It wrecked their plans to develop spy networks in Malaya. Moreover, the lack of signal equipment and the end of the monthly submarine rendezvous also meant that contact between Force 136 headquarters and the remnants of Davis' network in the jungle was cut off. It was not re-established until early 1945.
[edit] Hero's terrible last days
Who was the traitor in their midst? The declassified files show that Captain Richard Broome pointed the finger at Chua. He noted that Chua was released quickly by the Japanese and that his business in Pangkor thrived under Japanese rule.
He observed at that time: "Chua is now back in his business in Pangkor under strict Jap control. ALl the junks in Pangkor are now owned by a firm under Bill's(Chua's) direction." It was clear to Broome that Chua had been the snitch. He was privy to the entire network of agents and he knew where the hideouts were located. He also noted that Chua had not been screened when he was roped in to help with the rendezvous arrangements. "We always took it for granted that he would break down if arrested," he wrote.
Davis' top-secret signal to Force 136 headquarters in February 1945 left no doubt as to the identity of the traitor: "From DEE (Davis): 192 (Lim), NG (Wu), TSING, SEK FU (Yi), LIM (TAN) arrested late March, owing collapse of BILL (Chua) under arrest."
The files do not say what became of Chua after the war or how he ended his days. What happened to Lim is more well-known. After two months in captivity, he became ill with dysentery. The Japanese bundled him up in an old blanket and left him to die in a bare room. He was not given any food and water. Lim, who refused to betray his comrades, died in the early hours of June 29, 1944, two months and two days after his 35th birthday. His remains were buried in a grave on the outskirts of the jail.
When the war ended and Lim's fate was confirmed, the SOE's Singapore station chief, Derek Gill Davies, and an Anglican priest, the headmaster of St Andrew's School where Lim's sons were studying, called on Mrs Lim. She and her seven children had survived the hardships of war and occupation only to find out that the head of the household had died under terrible circumstances.
Gill Davis gave the family 5,000 Straits dollars. But British officials queried the special treatment given to Lim and his family. In several coded signals, Gill Davies was given a dressing down for giving so much money to the family.
Although the SOE's finance section did not appreciate Lim's contribution, the Chinese Nationalist government did. In December 1945, it gave Mrs Lim 400,000 Chinese Nationalist dollars in recognition of services rendered by her husband. Later, memorial services for Lim were held in Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Thousands of people attended the services.
It would take special intervention by the successors to the SOE to ensure that Mrs Lim received the monthly military pension that was promised to Lim when he signed up. The pension payment - ₤400 a year - was finally approved in January 1947, nearly three years after Lim's death and long after everyone else had recognised Lim's contributions.
