Dutch East Indies campaign

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Dutch East Indies campaign of 1941-1942 is the reason Pearl Harbor happened. Japan needed oil. Its armed forces and economy together could not produce even 10% of their domestic oil needs. The islands of what is now Indonesia were the fourth-largest oil exporter on the planet. Japan's planners decided those fields were worth going to war over. But taking the East Indies would draw the United States into that war. So Japan struck first, targeting the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, to clear the path. How the Dutch and their allies tried to block what came next, and what the campaign left behind, are the questions this documentary takes up.

• 2. The Oil Embargo

  ›

  On the 26th of July 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that froze all of Japan's American assets. Oil exports to Japan ended the same day. Japan's available oil supply fell by 93%. The Dutch government-in-exile, at Allied urging and with the backing of Queen Wilhelmina, broke its economic treaty with Japan and joined the embargo in August. Japan's combined military and economic reserves amounted to roughly a year and a half of oil. Japan had been attempting to extract oil shale in Manchuria through the Fushun process, but that output could not close the gap. In late November 1941, the Dutch in the East Indies were already responding. Ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy put to sea, and the KNIL Air Force was mobilized. Both sides had done the arithmetic, and the answer was war.

• 3. The Dutch Declaration

  ›

  On the 4th of December 1941, Japan chose not to declare war on the Netherlands directly. Instead, the government resolved to treat the Dutch as a 'quasi enemy until actual hostilities... occur.' This was three days after Japan had committed to war against America, Britain, and the Netherlands. The aim was to buy time: Japan needed to reach the oil fields before the Dutch could destroy them.

  On the 8th of December, the Dutch moved first. By 07:00, the governor general had broadcast over the radio that the Netherlands 'accepts the challenge and takes up arms against the Japanese Empire.' Instructions had been telegraphed to the Dutch embassy in Tokyo at 02:30 that morning, before news of Pearl Harbor had even reached the Dutch government in London at 04:00. The instructions were only received in Tokyo the following evening. The Dutch ambassador, J. C. Pabst, formally handed the declaration to Japan's foreign minister, Shigenori Tōgō, on the morning of the 10th of December. The Swedish ambassador agreed to represent Dutch interests for the rest of the conflict.

  Japan's own declaration of war did not come until the 11th of January 1942. In 1946, when Japan was charged with waging a war of aggression before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, it argued that the Dutch had declared war first. The tribunal rejected this. It found that Japan's sole aim had been 'to give less time to the Netherlands for destroying oil wells' and ruled the Dutch declaration an act of self-defence. Japan's forces had already landed in Borneo before Japan itself formally declared war.

• 4. Three Prongs South

  ›

  General Hisaichi Terauchi, commanding Japan's Southern Expeditionary Army Group, put General Hitoshi Imamura's 16th Army in charge of the initial thrust into Borneo. On the 17th of December 1941, Japanese forces came ashore at Miri, an oil production centre in northern Sarawak. A battleship, an aircraft carrier, three cruisers, and four destroyers backed the landing. Further landings followed at Seria, Kuching, Jesselton, and Sandakan between the 15th of December 1941 and the 19th of January 1942.

  With Borneo's main objectives secured, Terauchi launched a three-pronged drive southward. The Eastern Force was to push from Jolo and Davao, capture Celebes, Amboina, and Timor, and shield the flanks of the central advance. The Center Force would take the oil fields and airfields at Tarakan Island and Balikpapan. The Western Force was assigned the oil refineries and airfields at Palembang. Japan launched the assault on the 11th of January, landing at Tarakan to open the central push.

  By the 17th of January, the Japanese were flying from Tarakan's captured airfield. Balikpapan fell a week after that. In both cases, Dutch garrisons had destroyed the oil installations before retreating, denying Japan what it had come for. By the 28th of January, the Japanese were operating aircraft from Balikpapan as well. By the end of that month, their forces controlled parts of Celebes and Dutch Borneo. February brought landings on Sumatra, accompanied by an encouraged revolt in Aceh.

  The Allied command meant to coordinate the response had come into being four days after the Tarakan landing. It was already behind.

• 5. The Allied Command

  ›

  Activated on the 15th of January 1942, the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command combined forces from four nations under a single structure. British field marshal Sir Archibald Wavell took overall command. American Army Air Force lieutenant general George Brett served as his deputy. British lieutenant general Henry Royds Pownall was chief of staff. Naval command went to American admiral Thomas C. Hart. Ground forces fell to Dutch Lieutenant General Hein ter Poorten. Air command went to British air chief marshal Sir Richard Peirse. The command had a name for every position. It had no shared sense of priority.

  The British were focused on Singapore and the approaches to Ceylon and India. The Americans and Australians wanted to preserve the bases they would need for any future counterattack. For the Dutch, Java and Sumatra were their 'second homeland where they had been trading and living for over three centuries.' These three visions of what mattered most could not easily be reconciled.

  The U.S. Asiatic Fleet, newly arrived from the fall of the Philippines, formed part of the coalition's naval component. Two heavy cruisers and seven light cruisers made up the surface backbone, supplemented by 22 destroyers. The coalition's greatest strength lay in its submarines: 25 American and 16 Dutch. Against them, the Japanese Central Force alone included a light carrier, three light cruisers, and 16 destroyers. Their Western Force added five heavy cruisers and seven destroyers. Four fleet carriers were operating in the broader theater: Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, and Sōryū, alongside four battleships.

  In the battles of the Java Sea, Sunda Strait, and Second Java Sea, most of the Allied naval strength was destroyed. Of all the American ships larger than a destroyer that entered those battles, only the old cruiser Marblehead survived. On the 1st of March 1942, Admiral Conrad Helfrich dissolved ABDACOM, less than two months after its inception. The Dutch surrender came seven days later.

• 6. The Fall of Java

  ›

  On the 8th of March 1942, the Dutch surrendered to Japan without condition at Kalijati Airfield in Subang, West Java. The event is also known as the Kalijati treaty. The following day, Lieutenant General Hein ter Poorten, Commander-in-Chief of Allied forces on Java, formally surrendered alongside Governor General Jonkheer A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer. Ter Poorten made his announcement without consulting the British and American commanders. They wanted to keep fighting but had no choice but to comply.

  Announcer Bert Garthoff became known for closing NIROM's final broadcasts on the day of the surrender with the words: 'Listeners, we're closing now. Farewell, until better days. Long live the Fatherland, long live the Queen.' Japanese authorities then told the station's employees to 'carry on as usual.' They did, concluding each subsequent broadcast with the Dutch National Anthem. When Japanese officials discovered this, they executed three NIROM employees in retaliation.

  The campaign had lasted less than three months. The occupation that followed lasted three and a half years.

• 7. After the Occupation

  ›

  Allied forces made no attempt during the war to retake Java, Sumatra, Timor, or Bali. The Japanese garrisons on those islands held until Japan's overall surrender at the end of World War II. Most Japanese military personnel and civilian colonial administrators were then repatriated to Japan. Several hundred were held for war crimes investigations; some were eventually put on trial.

  About 1,000 Japanese soldiers chose desertion over repatriation. They assimilated into local communities across the former colony. Many of them provided active support to Indonesian Republican forces during the Indonesian National Revolution. Dutch colonial rule in the region did not survive the Japanese occupation.