[TALK] Operation Cleeves, SOE's Forgotten Wartime Tragedy in Thailand

Details

Title: [TALK] Operation Cleeves, SOE's Forgotten Wartime Tragedy in Thailand
Speaker: Ms. Kate Reid-Smith and Mr. Steve Wright
Moderator: Dato Dr. Ooi Kee Beng
Date: Friday, December 6
Time: 2 – 4 pm
Venue: Conference Hall, Penang Institute.

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Note: Entrance to this event is FREE. Join us in person or watch the live stream on Penang Institute's Facebook and YouTube channel.

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On December 8, 1941, Malaya, then under British administration, began to be occupied by Japanese forces. This occupation would last for three years and eight months, profoundly impacting post-war Malayan society.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of this significant event, prompting us to reflect on its implications. In this talk, Ms. Kate Reid-Smith will discuss her latest book, Operation Cleeves: SOE's Forgotten Wartime Tragedy in Thailand, which explores the overlooked role of Penang during World War II. Her research reveals a previously unknown chapter in Penang's crucial involvement in the first British Special Operations Executive (Far East) covert planning behind enemy lines in December 1941. These new perspectives reveal Penang's previously unrecognized role in orchestrating small-scale sabotage and demolition operations planned for Southern Thailand during Japan's invasion on December 8, 1941.

Following the sharing by Ms. Kate Reid-Smith, there will be a panel discussion featuring her and Mr. Steve Wright, moderated by Dato Dr. Ooi Kee Beng.

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About The Speakers

Ms. Kate Reid-Smith is a former military officer, now military and intelligence historian. She specializes in uncovering, investigating and bringing to light covert Southeast Asian World War Two history, including SOE and other behind-enemy-lines operations. Kate has lived, worked and travelled extensively in and around Southeast Asia, and now finds herself with a travel addiction of purposefully stumbling upon old wartime-related books, stories and photographs, and has turned into a bit of a snob about laksa. She writes in the witching hours which suit her best, then spends the rest of the day trying to impress her wayward cat named Calico, that she does not own Kate’s writing desk.

Mr. Steve Wright was born to a Eurasian mother and English father in London in 1961. He embraces his mixed-race heritage and has been actively engaged in pursuing the family history and stories passed on by his maternal grandmother who moved to Kuala Lumpur from her birthplace in Borneo in the 1920's. The family, with his mother aged 2, escaped Singapore on the last Red Cross convoy to sail for India in February 1942 before returning after the war and subsequently relocating to the UK in 1956. Steve has also been fortunate to inherit his grandmother's cooking skills and passion for eastern cuisine which he is pleased to pass on to his three sons. He is Global Design Director for a major pharmaceutical organisation spending his time leading the creation of world-leading workplace environments. His career has afforded the opportunity to work and live across all regions of the world from Asia Pacific to The Americas. Steve is a regular speaker on the international Architecture and Design conference circuit.

Moderator

Dato' Dr Ooi Kee Beng is Executive Director of Penang Institute. Born and bred in Penang, he lived much of his life in Sweden. He was the Deputy Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore, now ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute where he remains a Senior Visiting Fellow. He is a long-term regular columnist for The Edge Malaysia, and founder-editor of Penang Monthly, ISEAS Perspective, ISSUES Policy Brief, and South Wing Papers. His latest books are Signals in the Noise (Faction Press, 2023), and The Reluctant Nation (Gerakbudya 2024), which are the ninth and tenth compilation of his published opinion pieces, as well as the Chinese version of his award-winning biography The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time (ISEAS 2007). His two-dozen publications include the much-acclaimed The Eurasian Core: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (ISEAS 2015), In Lieu of Ideology: An Intellectual History of Goh Keng Swee (ISEAS 2010), As Empires Fell: The Life and Times of Lee Hau-Shik, the First Finance Minister of Malaya (ISEAS 2022), and Lim Kit Siang, Defying the Odds (Marshall Cavendish, 2015), Yusof Ishak, A Man of Many Firsts (ISEAS 2017, and St Xavier’s Institution, A Documented History (Penang Institute 2022).

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Penang Institute, 10 Jalan Brown, George Town, Malaysia