RUBBER PLANTER SHOT

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 103, 14 February 1950, Page 3

RUBBER PLANTER SHOT

PAYROLL STOLEN GUERILLAS SET AMBUSH (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright). (9.45) SINGAPORE, Feb. 13. Mrs H. N. Winter, aged 62, who is London-born, braved Communist guerillas who had just killed her husband near Ipoh, Perak, to-day when she set out alone and unarmed to go to the scene of the ambush. Mrs Winter had been told by a wounded Malay driver that her husband, a 60-year-old planter from Preston, Lancashire, had been shot in the face by terrorists one mile from their bungalow. The driver said that guerillas opened fire on Mr Winter’s car from both sides of the road, but Mr Winter and the driver, though both wounded, fled into a rubber plantation in a bid to escape.

The driver made his way back to the bungalow and told Mrs Winter, who set off to search for her husband-

Security forces who rushed to the scene persuaded her to return home.

Mr Winter’s bullet-riddled body was found some distance away from the ambush five hours after the shooting. Mr Winter, a Perak rubber planter, was carrying the payroll to provide his Chinese labourers with advance wages when the terrorists attacked him four miles from I'poh. They stole the payroll, amounting to approximately £625 stei’ling, after killing Mr Winter.

Mr Winter -was a veteran planter who .had been in Malaya for 38 years.

Security forces to-day killed four armed terrorists in the Jasin area of Malacca and another in Peralci, while a European police-sergeant captured a guerilla in the ' Ruantan area of Pahang after a hand-to-hand struggle.

The authorities disclosed that more than 250,000 people in Malaya—one in every 20 of the population —have so far enrolled for duties during the “Malayan People’s Anti-Bandit Month.” It is expected to start within, the next few weeks when a determined effort will be made to wipe out the terrorists.