was shipped to Japan and used as raw material to manufacture weapons. Lim believed that if the workers in the Dungun mine went on strike, the Japanese would suffer a huge loss, so he planned to make the workers go on strike. Around February 1938, Lim travelled to Dungun with Zhuang Huiquan () of the Anxi clan association to carry out their plan. Zhuang went to the mine to persuade the workers to go on strike while Lim contacted the local police and gained their support. By early March, Lim and Zhuang achieved success as many workers left the mine and followed them to Singapore. On 11 March 1938, Lim and the Singaporean Chinese community held a welcoming ceremony for the workers, who later resettled and found employment in Singapore. In December 1941, Lim was put in charge of organising a group of volunteers (part of the Straits Settlements Volunteer Force) to resist the Japanese, who were advancing towards Southeast Asia. The volunteers put up a fierce fight against the Japanese during the Battle of Singapore in February 1942. Life in Force 136 On 11 February 1942, Lim left Singapore and travelled to Sumatra with other ethnic Chinese leaders to the British Raj India later. He recruited and trained hundreds of secret agents through intensive military intelligence missions from China and the British ruled India. He set up the Sino-British guerrilla task force Force 136 in 1942 with Captain John Davis of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Operation Gustavus Operation Gustavus was aimed at establishing an espionage network in Malaya and Singapore to gather intelligence about Japanese activities, and thereby aid the British in Operation Zipper – the code name for their plan to take back Singapore from the Japanese. On 24 May 1943, the first group of Force 136 agents, codenamed Gustavus I and led by John Davis, arrived in Perak on board the Dutch submarine O 24. The O 24 would rendezvous with Gustavus I again in September and November 1943 to transfer supplies and personnel from Gustavus IV and V respectively. Its sister ship, the O 23, under Captain Richard Broome, transported Gustavus II and Gustavus III to Malaya on 25 June and 4 August 1943 respectively. Lim arrived in Malaya on 2 November 1943 as part of Gustavus V. He travelled under the alias "Tan Choon Lim" () to avoid identification and claimed to be a