instructed to leave Teluk Anson by the British district officer, W. E. Perera was one of a few people that boldly came out of hiding to help the unfortunate victims. He was a volunteer in the St Johns Ambulance at that time and months earlier had received training as a Superintendent of a medical unit which he put to good use. As described in one of his birthday messages: Throughout the war, Mr W. E. Perera was not affected by the atrocities of the Japanese soldiers or the Communists but he was not immune to other factions which he thought were war opportunists. W. E. Perera slapped an Indian National Army health officer who rebuked him for contributing only 5 Japanese dollars for their movement. This landed W. E. Perera being branded a traitor, arrested and detained in the Kempeitai jail. However, after a few hours, he was released when his friends who worked for the Japanese protested his innocence to the Kempeitai. During the war, a number of people lived with the family of W. E. Perera at his residence at various times for protection against persecution by the Japanese, Communists and for economic reasons. These included Mr Neoh Ban Soon and family, Mr James Ranatunge and family, Mrs Rosie Shoemarker and family, Mrs Loveridge and six former members of an Auxiliary Armed Force. To purchase food during these years, W. E. Perera sold some of his properties. W. E Perera saved a number of people from being executed during this period. As witnessed by his eldest son Jothika, Communist Insurgency (1946–1958) Life in Telok Anson was still difficult after the surrender of the Japanese at the end of World War II when the Malayan Emergency was declared. In the message given to his family, W. E. Perera relates the following: When the missionaries arrived and found out what W. E. Perera, a non-Methodist teacher had done for their school, they appointed him Principal of the School. As principal, he created a new high school with a laboratory for science teaching as an extension of ACS, Teluk Anson by getting his friend Mr V. Kn. Kannappa Chettiar to dispose of a five-acre block of rubber land which he owned adjoining the Raja Muda's Istana for a reasonably low price of $25,000. The school was constructed with donations from the Missionaries, various guilds and associations like the rubber and copra