Word: templer
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Gerald and Lady Templer were visibly moved. "We are desperately sad about leaving," said Sir Gerald to a newsman. Templer raised his hand and waved to the crowd,ducked into the plane and was gone...
Before him now lies Britain's top field command: commander in chief of the Army of the Rhine. A lean, austere martinet who characterizes himself as "a professional soldier ... no politician," Templer had expected no fond farewells in Malaya. Yet all the way to the airport from his gubernatorial mansion, his Rolls Royce had been mobbed by cheering, affectionate Asians: Malays, Chinese and Indians. From the turbaned representatives of nine Malayan potentates, Templer got a silver cigar box. On his wrist he wore a bamboo bracelet, given by the aborigines of far-off Negri Sembilan, to ward off evil...
...Bayonet Fighter. When Templer arrived in Malaya in February of 1952, the country, like Indo-China some 200 miles to the north, was in mortal danger of being captured by Communist guerrillas. A quarter of a million troops and police were combing the jungles for a few thousand Communists. The guerrillas held the initiative, murdering and plundering at will...
...Templer's orders were 1) to smash the Communists, 2) to weld Malayans-Malays, Chinese, Indians and British alike-into a sturdy, self-governing democracy within the Commonwealth. Objective No. 2 was impossible in a scant two years, yet Templer pledged himself, "mind and body," to fight for this political, economic and social "second front." He brought to his job demoniac energy, a streak of ruthlessness, a flair for jungle fighting (he once was bayonet fighting champion of the British army) and a sensibility that dumfounded those leftist British critics who had objected to his appointment out of fear...
...Templer found Malaya toppling," said the London Daily Telegraph last week. "He left it firm. That is the measure of his achievement...