Posted on 05/04/2008 6:27:02 PM PDT by Flavius
120 soldiers of the Royal Malay Regiment have become the first all-Islamic Company to provide a British monarch's ceremonial guard. Report by Shell Daruwala. RMR soldiers during Changing of the Guards
The Royal Malay Regiment soldiers with Members of the Welsh Guards during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace on Friday 2 May 2008 [Picture: Sergeant Mick Howard RLC]
At Buckingham Palace today, Friday 2 May 2008, red jackets and black bearskins were replaced by pristine white tunics, brocade 'sampins' and gold-banded 'songkoks', when the Malay Regiment changed guards with 1st Battalion Welsh Guards.
(Excerpt) Read more at mod.uk ...
What old poem said
Guards are changin at Buckington Palance
I like to think the best of people, and I hope they are as loyal as other regiments, however, prayers up for the Queen.
I note with ironic satisfaction that the Malays are armed with what appear to be chrome plated M-16s.
So Britain segregates their armed forces.
Pure stupidity....all it takes is one.....
Gay Agenda ping? What Queen, Elton John?
Those Brits have nice rifles .. looks like some kind of bullpup ...
This is either a horrendous example of political correctness gone amuck or someone has done a grand job of hiding her Majesty’s slide into senility. Who’s idea was this??
doesn’t look like ‘16s to me. pups of some sort.
I’m having bad visions of what happened to Indira Gandhi after her troops attacked the Goldrn Shrine at Amritsar.
“Uh, pawdin me sah, what flaw yo going to?”
The Real Tiger of Malaya
Every nation has its heroes, and most become known to outsiders as well. For Malaysia and Singapore, the heroic symbol of resistance to Japanese aggression is Adnan Saidi of the Royal Malay Regiment.
2nd Lt. Adnan Saidi
The Royal Malay Regiment began in 1930 with an “experimental” unit of 25 Malay recruits under a British officer. The unit remained small until 1939, when it was expanded into the 1st Battalion of the Royal Mayal Regiment (Rejimin Askar Melayu DiRaja). The British agreed to limit recruitment to Malays, excluding Malaya’s ethnic Chinese community.
In our Tiger of Malaya game, both Malay battalions appear. Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita became known as the “Tiger of Malaya” in Japanese propaganda, but the title truly belongs to a different man.
Among the Royal Malay Regiment’s early recruits was Adnan Saidi, a well-educated young man from Kajang when he enlisted in 1933 at the age of 18. Selected as the unit’s best soldier, he became the first Malay NCO in 1936 when he was promoted to sergeant. In 1937 he attended officer training school in Singapore and became the first commissioned Malay.
A second Royal Malay battalion was formed in December 1941, less than a week before Japanese troops began landing in Malaya. The two battalions formed the 1st Malaya Brigade, and fought on the mainland alongside 44th Indian Brigade.
Adnan had married schoolteacher Sofiah Fakir after winning his commission, and now moved his family to the safety of Singapore. They took up residence among the British officers’ families in the Pasir Panjang area. But there was no safety to be had — within weeks, the Japanese had forced their way ashore.
Alarmed, Adnan sent his pregnant wife and two small children back to Kajang.
“I was only four,” his oldest son, Mokhtar, recalled later. “I did not realize that it would be the last time I would see my father. My brother and I kissed our father’s hand before he left us. He did not say much. He merely told us to take care of ourselves and not be naughty. I could see that my mother was very sad. She did not say anything.”
On 13 February 1942, with the British-led defense of Singapore collapsing, the remnants of 1st Battalion, about 300 men, took up positions on Bukit Chandu, or Opium Hill, site of a opium processing plant in the early 1900s that later became a trendy housing area for senior British officials — the very spot where Adnan had sent his family. Over the next 48 hours, wave after wave of Japanese from the elite 18th “Chrysanthemum” Division broke on the hill. The Malays fought them all back in savage hand-to-hand combat.
At the front of the defense stood C Company. Capt. H.R. Rix told his men they would retreat no further, and that he would die with them where they stood. In a bungalow at 31K Pepys Road, Rix stationed 42 men led by Adnan. Repeatedly the Japanese fought their way into the buildings under a shower of grenades, and just as often the Malays threw them back out. At the Alexandra Brickworks, D Company also stood fanatically, mowing down hundreds of Japanese who came forward in human-wave assaults.
“Lt. Adnan came to my stockade through the communication trench,” Datuk Abbas Manan, one of the 42 heroes, remembered. “He asked me to help him. He wanted to fire the machine gun, so he needed me to change the magazines while he was firing. Incidentally, the Japanese were coming from the front of the stockade positions. They were wearing disguises. So Adnan opened fire. The Japanese soldiers scattered when they were fired on, and many died. Then Adnan said to me, ‘Mr. Abbas, if I should die today, I am quite willing as long as someone can look after my family.’ Those were his last words and that was the last time I saw him alive.”
Japanese advance up Opium Hill.
Adnan, suffering from several bullet and shrapnel wounds and a broken arm, refused to leave his men and fought alongside them with pistol, sword and finally as ammunition ran out, his bare hands.
Australian troops fighting nearby looked on with horror at what happened next. “The Malays started to fight the Japanese on Reformatory Road,” said Lt. Penrod V. Dean of the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion. “They had dug slit trenches but they didn’t have a lot of weapons. They started fighting the Japanese just with rifles virtually. And when the Japanese broke through them, the Malays took to them with bayonets, they put bayonets on the rifles and with a bayonet charge they drove the Japanese back across Reformatory Road. They were very brave people. They fought very hard, but for every Malay soldier there was about 10 or 12 Japanese soldiers. So it was inevitable what was going to happen.”
The next day, the British surrendered. The Japanese separated officers and men among their prisoners, sending the Malay rank and file to join Indian enlisted men in an enclosure at Farrer Park. Rix and all the battalion’s British officers had died fighting.
And then there was the Malay lieutenant.
Grievously wounded, Adnan was instantly recognized as the short berserker who had personally killed dozens of Japanese. His captors beat him savagely, then slowly killed him with bayonet thrusts.
Two days later, Sofiah gave birth to a daughter, who died soon afterwards. Sofiah survived the war but died in 1949, leaving her two young boys in foster care.
Five other Malay officers were captured by the Japanese. “My husband Ibrahim Sidek and his friends were told by the Japanese to take off their Malay Regiment uniforms and accept release,” Sharifah Khadijah Hamid recounted years later. “They refused. They didn’t even want to remove their badges of rank. A week later, the Japanese executed them. My children were still very young, too young to know their father. His body was never found. We cannot even remember him with a grave.”
A Malaysian movie studio is currently working on Adnan’s story.
http://www.avalanchepress.com/RealTiger.php
Hmmmmm, didn’t her islamist guards murder her?
God Save the Queen.
***Hmmmmm, didn’t her islamist guards murder her?
God Save the Queen.***
Sikhs
I would agree. I was in HK in the early 70’s, when I witnessed and was on duty (on parade) at the time,, as the Gurkhas marched in “double time” for the whole of the route, which I believe was around 6 miles, through Kowloon, for the “Queen’s Birthday Parade”.
just a matter of time ....
No, her bodyguards were Sikhs, and they killed her in revenge for the siege at the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar.
There was also the incident in which Sikh extremists blew up an Air India 747 over the Atlantic, killing 300-odd people.
I bet it was only the Redcoats...IF THEM....who had any ammo in their rifle’s magazines.
I’m sure their weapons aren’t loaded.
They’re changing guards at Buckingham Palace...
Christopher Robin went down with Alice...
We looked for the Queen but she never came..
Well God take care of her, all of the same,”
Says Alice...
Of course this is about Queen Victoria (1837-1901)
OH YEAH well this time for real hate to say this
It not good
I was thinking of Anwar Sadat.
Guess they don’t believe in separation of church and state.
Guess they also don’t believe in protect one’s arse.
I've got a ba-a-a-a-a-a-d feeling about this...
Cute Girly Man outfits.
The Queen best watch her six!
Ping.
Thanks for posting that. I'd say that unit has a proud heritage.
Robert McNamara would not approve.
The troops in the other photo are carrying Bullpups.
Mmmmm, George II's? Indian and other South Asian troops have served in the British Army for 300 years as sepoys and other regiments. Shades of the Raj, and all that.
One of the Fast Division battleships of the WW I group that served in both wars, HMS Malaya was a fifth ship of a four-ship class; she was built by subscription by the princes of Malaya and presented to the Royal Navy. She was good for 25 knots and carried eight 15"/42-caliber naval rifles and flag quarters. She and her sisters were the hard core of the Royal Navy's big ships in the Great War, the fastest and hardest-hitting of the battle fleet.
She was refitted between the wars, served during WW 2, and finally converted to a training ship when the war was more or less won.
The Malaysians pictured are not part of the British Army. The ‘Royal’ part of their title is in regards to the Malaysian King. The Regiment have long ties with the UK Armed Forces.
You do realise that there are thousands of Muslims in the U.S. Armed Forces?
Notice that the redcoats have magazines in their weapons. Smart move. I hope they are loaded.
“So Britain segregates their armed forces”
Err, that’s not a British Army Regiment.
But have you ever heard of the Gurkhas?
And, yes, Regiments in the British Army have traditionally been based on geographical areas: The Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, The Irish Guards, The Queens Lancashire Regiment, The Welsh Guards, etc.
“Guess they don’t believe in separation of church and state.”
Who doesn’t? The Queen? Given that she’s the head of the Church of England you wouldn’t really need to guess, would you?
This doesn’t make sense. I was always led to believe that allegiance to the Queen was a prerequisite for guarding her. This is why some commonwealth countries, such as Jamaica, Canada Australia etc have been able to mount her guard (increasingly frequently as demand is put on British guards to go on active service abroad) but not those from republican countries.
The Royal Malaysia Regiment’s allegiance is to the Malaysian Royal family, so that should mean they are not eligable to guard our Queen....
Yes. At least until the next attack.
Some knee jerk reactions on this thread.
Utter non-sense. What next? The roundup and expulsion of all American Muslims from the U.S.? It just isn’t going to happen.
Nope, never have.
Unlike you.
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