Trouble in Paradise: a British officer and his Japanese mistress.

The Malay Regiment -- a British Army unit in Port Dickson on the beautiful west coast of Malaya -- officially came into being in 1935. It was lauded as a showcase of how to create an effective local army. But not all was going swimmingly, as this episode involving a British NCO shows ...

The Port Dickson beachfront boasted a number of hotels in the 1930s, many of them Japanese owned.

In the early morning of 6 May 1935, a Tamil was on the beach near the Tanaka Hotel, 1st Mile Linggi-Port Dickson Road, one of many burgeoning seaside resorts at Port Dickson, when he saw a body floating just a metre or so offshore. He summoned the proprietress of the hotel, an elderly Japanese woman. She immediately called the police. The body was soon identified as CSM J Gallacher, who’d been in-country for 18 months. He had a small two-inch wound on the side of his throat.

Gallacher had been reported missing from duty the previous evening, so the police started digging around for more information, and an inquest into this death held.

Japanese karayuki-san (generally prostitutes by any other name) proliferated in prosperous Malaya and Singapore pre-war.

A picture started to emerge. He had ‘lost’ his wife in the UK some time ago (they’d presumably separated) and he missed his four children. His superiors noted this change of mood and, while he performed OK on parade, his demeanour was otherwise not deemed satisfactory for an officer. His colleagues had also found him increasingly aloof recently.

It seems he’d installed a Japanese karayuki-san in the local Magnolia Hotel, and kept her for the past year, visiting her twice a week.

On May 5 at 2am Gallacher arrived at her hotel room in a rather disheveled tiny three-and-a-half: clothes wet and muddy, knees bruised. He claimed to have fallen from his rental car while intoxicated. After sleeping for a few hours, he awoke at 9:30am, had coffee, and remained at the hotel until 6:30 pm.

In the meantime, he was presumably spotted there. Because Port Dickson policeman NC Halsey went up to her room to interview him. He found Gallacher dressed only in a kimono, sitting on the edge of the bed, and the Japanese girl was also there. Halsey explained that he’d been reported missing, and was to report to OC Major Bruce when he was found.

Gallacher told him he’d be returning to camp as soon as he was properly dressed, and left.

The Malay Regiment officers 1934 - the tallest most imposing figure is CO Lt-Col George Bruce.

Meanwhile a search of Gallacher’s room by Sgt-Maj FW Jones showed his bed had not been slept in, and there was a letter addressed ‘To whom it may concern …’ This immediately alarmed him, because he’d seen Gallacher ‘a little morose’ the evening before: he didn’t join them when they went to watch a movie in Seremban. He told Maj Bretherton, who brought the matter up to Maj Bruce. Bruce searched the room and found a bundle of photographs tied up, with a note on an envelope stating ‘To be sent home.’

Just then they bumped into Halsey, the policemen, who reported that Gallacher had been found in the Magnolia Hotel. Maj Bruce detailed Sgt Rich and Lt Field to go to the Magnolia Hotel and escort Gallacher back to camp. Bretherton arrived at the hotel to find the two arguing with the Japanese proprietress, who said Gallacher had gone off to get his hired car.

Bretherton and Halsey then decided to search at the Port Dickson Club, but Gallacher was not there either. So they put out an instruction to all units that the missing CSM was to be arrested under the Mental Disorders Act, due to concerns about his well-being (the only authority they had to detain him).

According to the Japanese girl, he’d left the hotel room at 6:30pm to get a car back to the camp, and that was the last time she’d seen him. The elderly Japanese hotelier had seen him looking ‘unhappy’ but he greeted her politely with ‘Tabek.’

The waterfront at Port Dickson near the Malay Regiment HQ was often bustling with boats and junks and traders.

And that was the last anyone had seen him before his body was found.

Later, at low tide, a razor had also been found, confirmed by his Japanese girlfriend to be one that Gallacher had always carried with him, which caused the injury to his neck. But the official cause of death came down as ‘suicide by drowning.’

His superior officer Bretherton voiced disappointment that Gallacher had not complained to him earlier about any challenges he was facing. Four officers and four NCOS acted as pall-bearers at his funeral.

And so ended a rather intriguing chapter in the colourful annals of the Malay Regiment, which itself was only just beginning. For more stories on pre-war Malaya, Singapore, and this military outfit, you might want to check out my book 'The Malay Experiment: The Colonial Origins and Homegrown Heroics of The Malay Regiment' (out now in print, ebook, and audiobook).