To avoid communist ambush during the Emergency, the salary of plantation workers was dropped from a plane. Here’s one a man who did such drops for two years.
Talalla with son Rohan
ONE plane, two men, three bags of money. They flew 423 times this way, for two years, during the Malayan Emergency.
Earnest Walter Talalla, known affectionately as Ernie, would fly with the instructor in either an Auster or Tiger Moth aircraft and assist in dropping bags of money, the salaries of plantation workers, to the eager workers waiting below. The cash was stuffed in thick leather bags because canvas bags would burst upon impact. Each bag weighed between 10 and 18 katis (about six to 11kg).
After making the paydrops – three to four per flight with each bag containing almost 80,000 Malayan dollars (around RM45,000 now) – Ernie would then take over the aircraft controls while the pilot, after giving him directions, kicked back with an issue of Times magazine on the journey back to the Kuala Lumpur airstrip.
“The paydrops saved the lives of the people working in the estates as land routes were prone to ambush by the communists,” says 93-year-old Ernie at his home in Kuala Lumpur recently.
The two men would take off at nine in the morning, and circle around the plantation while keeping a lookout for a smoke signal indicating where to drop the money.
“Once we saw the signal, we would fly very low, almost at the level of the treetops, and then drop the bags from the plane,” he recalls. Ernie assisted with paydrops all over the Kuala Selangor district, lower Perak (Slim River, Tapah), Pahang (Bentong, Raub), Johor (Mersing, Kluang) and Malacca. Timing was crucial as the plane only had enough fuel for a 130-minute flight.
Read more: http://thestar.com.my
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