Season three of ‘When the Cold War got Hot’, featuring the war in Malaya between the British Army and a Communist Army will begin in September.  This podcast series will look at the background to war which began in 1948 and follow the story to its end in 1960.  Looking at the leading figures and events in that war.  A war that looked to much closer in likely outcome in 1951 when Communist terrorism was rampant in Malaya, where even the most important British official in Malaya was not safe.

As a bonus there will an extra four episodes of the Indonesian Confrontation when the Soviet backed Government of Indonesia fought a war in North Borneo against Malaysia and the British Commonwealth.  That war would in 1965 produce a dramatic chance in the balance of power between the West and the Communist powers heavily in favour of the west.

In the first episode I look at the background to the war with the British loss of its colony in Malaya to the Japanese Empire in 1942 and the Japanese repression of the ethnic Chinese during from 1942 to 1945..