Augustus Fletcher
Malaya policeman who took on Communist terrorists in the Emergency and went on to join MI6
AUGUSTUS FLETCHER, who has died aged 91, was awarded the George Medal in 1957 after a combined police and military operation code-named “Googly” during the Malayan Emergency; he later served in both MI5 and MI6.
In 1948, the Malayan Communist Party launched a countrywide insurrection. The militant arm of the Party, the Communist Terrorists or CTS, built large, well-camouflaged jungle camps only approachable by tracks which were booby-trapped and guarded by sentries.
The CTS were experts in field-craft, well-armed, highly trained in the use of hit-and-run tactics and ruthless in their policy of eliminating anyone suspected of passing on intelligence to the British. Fletcher, always known as Gus, was Assistant Superintendent of Police, and Area Special Branch Officer in the Kuala Pilau and Bahau Police Districts of Negeri Sembilan, Malaya.
In September 1956, Fletcher received a letter from Wang Hsi, a cunning, highly effective operator and master in the art of laying ambushes, who for many years had made every effort to kill Fletcher. In the letter Wang – motivated by recent reverses and the prospect of revenging himself on his superiors, as well as the chance of a substantial reward – asked for a meeting.
Subject to terms being agreed, he offered to defect and work under cover with the police to eliminate highranking Malayan CTS. Fletcher realised that it might be a trap; but the prospect of recruiting an insurgents’ cell to work under his direction and bring down CTS who were high on his wanted list was too attractive to pass up.
Fletcher agreed to a meeting. He and his colleagues accepted that there was no certainty which way the “ball would bounce”: the mission was accordingly code-named “Operation Googly”.
In the journey through the jungle by track and on foot, Fletcher, with a pistol taped to his body, was accompanied by Inspector Goh, Detective Corporal Idris, and a lugubrious Chinese surrendered CT. They were shadowed by Major Graham Vivian, an officer in the 2nd King Edward VII’S Own Goorkhas (The Sirmoor Rifles), and five of his hand-picked men.
Wang and a comrade appeared at the rendezvous, clad only in undergarments made from captured British Army parachute silk. In a short conversation in Cantonese, Wang told them that within a few days, Hsiao Feng, an important female CT, would arrive with policy directions for insurgent groups in the area. The woman had a reputation for being quick on the draw, merciless, and with a penchant for throwing hand grenades.
The plan was for Wang to invite Hsiao to his camp where he would greet her and her companions (including her bodyguard) with a cup of Ovaltine spiked with a strong but not lethal narcotic.
In the event, the drink was so foul that they gagged on it and a report came back that they were still halfconscious. Fletcher, Inspector Goh and the rest of their small group, who had been concealed nearby, charged into the camp. Hsiao tried to roll a hand grenade down the slope on to the attackers, but was too weakened to draw the pin and she and her group were captured.
The next target was Chen Ho, the State Committee Secretary: he had a key role in the CT organisation and if he could be taken and “turned” it would deal a body blow to the whole region. The scientists came up with an alternative drug and the assurance that it was just as strong as the one it replaced, but rather more palatable.
When Chen Ho visited Wang’s camp, the plan was put into action as before – but this time the drug had no effect. More unsettling was the news that Chen Ho’s bodyguard, a man of huge strength and armed with a Bren gun, had refused the drink.
Fletcher’s party decided to wait until they could be reasonably certain that most of the CTS in the camp were asleep. At two o’clock in the morning, Fletcher, Goh, Idris, Major Vivian and the Gurkhas crawled down the side of a steep ravine in almost complete blackness.
The only light came from the phosphorescent glow of decomposing vegetation; the line of men must have looked, Fletcher reflected afterwards, like a monstrous green centipede. They crawled up the other side of the gorge, guided by the glimmer of a dying fire.
At the camp, Inspector Goh and a Gurkha sergeant pounced on the Bren gun and hurled it aside. Major Vivian and his men came under close-range fire from CTS using Sten guns. Guided by flashes of gunfire and a shout of “Come on!” from Wang, Fletcher reached the raised sleeping platform in their camp.
Wang was holding Chen Ho in a bear hug to stop him from reaching for his gun. From behind the two men there came a tremendous bang and a charge of buckshot from a shotgun went past Fletcher’s ear. He dropped to a low crouch and fired his pistol at the flash. Unfortunately, the shots shattered Wang’s shoulder and nicked the top of his head, causing him to let go of Chen Ho.
Wang fell down half-conscious, and as Chen Ho tried to slip away in the darkness Inspector Goh caught him in the beam of his torch: “You move, I shoot,” he warned. Chen Ho did not move. At that moment, Fletcher saw the CT who had shot at him. He took aim but, to his dismay, his pistol was empty. Goh moved the beam of his torch from Chen Ho’s face, the better to illuminate the CT with the shotgun, and a Gurkha loosed off a burst at the man from his Sten.
Chen Ho, profiting from the diversion, slid eel-like from the platform and wriggled through Goh’s legs before disappearing into the darkness on the far side of the camp. Pursuing the escaping CT in the jungle would have been futile.
Fletcher’s team suffered no casualties apart from the unfortunate Wang, and he bore no grudges for his injuries. Three of the enemy had been killed. The wounded were patched up and the dead collected, together with weapons and documents.
The operation had failed in its main objective, but it had caused major dislocation of the CT organisation.
Fletcher’s award of a GM, gazetted in February 1957, paid tribute to his coolness, daring and determination in the face of great personal danger.
Augustus James Voisey Fletcher was born on December 23 1928 at Gurney Slade in Somerset. His father had been wounded while serving with the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War. Brought up in a farmworker’s cottage, young Gus was educated at Weston Grammar School.
He joined the CID Branch of the Railway Police at Temple Meads Railway Station, Bristol, before serving with the Palestine Police from 1946 until 1948 when it was disbanded.
He then joined the Malayan Police and was posted to the rubber estates at Mentakab, in the state of Pahang. Later postings took him to Raub, Fraser’s Hill, the Cameron Highlands and Kuala Lumpur. Sightings of the terrorists, let alone arrests, were hard to come by, but improved tactical intelligence – particularly the identification of their contacts, couriers and supply routes – produced dramatically better results.
It was here that Fletcher’s gift for languages became apparent, when he spent two years learning to speak Cantonese and read and write Chinese characters at the Government Officers’ Language School. Its principal, Robert Bruce, thought him the most naturally gifted of all the students he saw in the years he was running the school. Throughout his life thereafter, Fletcher was regularly taken for a Chinese person when speaking Cantonese on the telephone. He could also speak Malay, Arabic, Hindi and Turkish.
In 1958, as the Emergency was ending, he joined the joined the Security Service (MI5) on the recommendation of its chief in Kuala Lumpur. Finding that there was little scope for his Chinese expertise in MI5, in 1964 he transferred to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), for whom China and the threat of Chinese espionage worldwide was a high priority.
Fletcher made an immediate impact in MI6’S Chinese cadre. His experience in Malaysia, and his mastery of Cantonese, made him an effective operator, and carried weight both in the office and with many foreign liaison Services, especially those of the United States and the Commonwealth.
He served in Hong Kong from 1966 to 1970, and again from 1973 to 1976. He was head of the MI6 station in New Delhi and Intelligence Adviser to the British High Commissioner with the rank of Counsellor from 1979 to 1982.
Continuing his fascination with languages, in 1973 he read Mandarin at the Faculty of Oriental Languages, Cambridge. He was appointed OBE in 1977.
He retired to London in 1993 but continued to lead an active life, and among his many enthusiasms were opera, travel, fly-fishing, gardening and malt whisky. He had a brilliant sense of humour and was excellent company. He loved puns, poems, crosswords and anagrams: he was delighted that “funeral” is an anagram of “real fun” and insisted that that was remembered when the day came.
Gus Fletcher married, in 1956, Enyd Gwynne Harries, who survives him with their son and daughter.
Augustus Fletcher, born December 23 1928, died August 9 2020