Special Mission 43

Special Mission No 43.

West Java 1942.

Foreword

Deryck Watts Le Mare was a member of Special Mission No 43 in West Java from March to August 1942. This English version of the account of the Mission by DWN Kriek was prepared by Philip Clarke and placed on the internet by him at http://www.dolphinsands.co.za/miss001.html . He owns the copyright. I am grateful for his permission to transform the internet version to reduce the number of pages and to make it more readable. Deryck is mentioned on p18 as Captain Le Mier and on p48 as Derek Le Maire. I have added the map, composed from Expedia.co.uk. A satellite image is available on Google Earth by putting in the coordinates, 6º46´S 106º18´E, of Cikotok (formerly Tjikotok).

Information is also at

http://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/Deryck_and_Gladys_Le_Mare/html/deryck_le_mare.htm and http://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/Deryck_and_Gladys_Le_Mare/ .

Peter H Le Mare

Allithwaite, April 2007.

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Special Mission 43

SYNOPSIS

by Philip Clarke

Copyright © Philip Clarke 1998

The situation: Java during World War 2, and the Japanese forces have taken Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes. Lt.-Col. Laurens van der Post is there, on Java, and receives orders from General Wavell’s headquarters. He is to set up an evacuation centre for the British and Dutch cut off by the inevitable Japanese advance. He is also to disguise his activities, which might be seen by the Dutch as leaving them in the lurch, by waging guerilla warfare against the Japanese, with any who are willing to join him.

Meanwhile, David Kriek, a Dutch expatriate, is in charge of a gold mine in South Bantam, the area in which Van der Post is to become active. Kriek and other Dutch civilians are sent for military training so that they can form territorial forces to protect the various colonial undertakings on the island against the increasingly hostile natives.

Hopelessly outnumbered, the Dutch throw in the towel, and perhaps least amongst Kriek’s worries is the question of what to do with the 32 bars of gold still in the company’s possession.

More serious is the arrival of Van der Post: how best to aid him in his secret 43 Special Mission? Kriek provides a guide and sets up Van der Post and his men in a disused mining camp hidden deep in the mountains of South Bantam. Food and money, even a radio transceiver are given to the Special Mission, and Kriek provides continued support.

Even when the Japanese occupy the mine, Kriek goes on with his clandestine activities, helping stragglers reach Van der Post’s party. Despite increasing pressure from the Japanese, Kriek insists on risking his life by not admitting to any knowledge of the Allied Mission. After several dire adventures, he is interned, though he survives the ordeal.

And Van der Post surrenders, alone, to the Japanese, leaving hundreds of sick and wounded to die in the tropical jungle of South Bantam.

Post-war Java becomes a nightmare of nationalism, with inadequate British presence to control the murdering hordes of fanatical natives. The Dutch forces, thanks to Mountbatten’s policies, are not allowed back onto Java. Thousands of European women and children, starving in the ex-Japanese camps, are wiped out by natives now well armed with Japanese weapons.

Van der Post, adviser to Mountbatten, claims it is not up to the British to fight a colonial war on behalf of the Dutch, and the horror continues, until Sukarno is given power and the Europeans get out.

After the war, Van der Post lodges a secret report on No 43 Special Mission, in which he makes a statement that he was never able to substantiate ... yet one that he will not retract. He claims that Kriek led the Japanese to his hideout ... that he did not surrender but was captured.

Kriek’s book, a vivid account of what really happened on Java, is a fascinating record of a little-known part of the war. It includes remarkable prophecies of a lost tribe ... prophecies that came true during that bloody period. It tells of the atrocities committed by the native Javanese. And it includes Van der Post’s strange, rambling, and self- contradictory secret report.

Certainly a tale that will be hard to accept for the many admirers of Sir Laurens van der Post; equally, a story that will be readily accepted by the many men - Dutch, English, Australian alike - who fought in that theatre of the war and who saw the folly of Allied anti-Dutch actions.

And certainly Kriek’s book is a valuable contribution to the history of the Second World War. Since I posted this book, Anthea Beckett got in touch because she has listed some British POWs and internees in Java. The list includes a few names associated with 43 Special Mission. Visit Anthea’s site when you have finished Kriek’s book! Also, for more revelations about Van der Post, read JDF Jones’s book Storyteller: The Many Lives of Laurens van der Post, published September 2001 by John Murray (£25). A quote from the book: He misrepresented his wartime career, claiming that he was a lieutenant-colonel when he was an acting captain. He falsely claimed that he had co-founded the Capricorn movement (a political grouping in central and east Africa which attempted to propose a multiracial solution for the region) and that he was the architect of the Rhodesian settlement in 1980. Almost all the tales Van der Post related throughout his life, and which he claimed were personally told him by a Bushman, were in fact drawn from the research of a 19th-century German scholar, Dr Wilhelm Bleek. Time after time, the storyteller’s tales about himself were inaccurate, embellished, exaggerated, distorted or invented. Put more bluntly, he was a constant liar.

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PREFACE

by David Kriek

Copyright © David WN Kriek 1998

I wrote this book in order to record on paper my experiences during the Second World War, at which time I was on the island of Java, working as the manager of a gold mine. All the elements were there for a sizzling adventure story: gold bullion, the Japanese invasion, an uprising by the natives, guerrilla warfare behind the Japanese lines, black magic, murder, startling prophecies... and the presence of Sir Laurens van der Post, then a Lieutenant Colonel in the British army, now famous author and closest friend of Prince Charles.

But I have decided against fictionalizing my story. If I had done so, it would be all too easy to dismiss it as incredible lies, as a vindictive attack against the British, as anything other than what it really is. And it is, in reality, a compilation of facts that underlines the insanity of war, a document that highlights the morals of the people to whom we give power, and yet a book that would never have been written but for one man’s unwavering refusal to retract an accusation of treachery.

To my knowledge, No 43 Special Mission has been written about in detail twice before. A Dutch reporter by the name of G. Aalbertsberg recorded an interview with Paul Vogt, a Swiss national who worked for the same mining house as I did, and who, at my request, joined the Special Mission too. The interview was included in Aalbertsberg’s report to Lt General S.H. Spoor (See p.Ü**), but Paul Vogt related no more than the basic facts. He did not provide any detail of the hardships and suffering, the bravery and perseverance that characterized the Mission.

The other report was dictated by Lieutenant Colonel Van der Post, the Mission commander, to the War Office in London.

His report, which is classified as secret, was like Vogt’s in that it gave little description of what hell the members of the Mission had to endure. What it did do was record a bizarre collection of accusations and excuses, all heavily spiced with the peculiar flavour of mystic forces that are the basis of much of his later fiction.

I hope that my story gives some small idea of what Van der Post’s men went through. Most died horribly; few survived unscathed. I hope it also gives some idea of how my colonial Dutch compatriots suffered not just at the hands of the Japanese, but even more so thanks to the way in which our British Allies handled the ‘liberation’ of Java.

David W.N. Kriek

Amsterdam

Dedication

To all the members of the Tjikotok (6º46´S 106º18´E; now Cikotok,; PHL, Aug. 2006) territorials, who, in those turbulent days after the capitulation of the Dutch East Indies Government, co-operated, until the Japanese troops assumed responsibility, in the restoration and maintenance of peace and order in a vast area that was notorious for its unruliness.

And last, the rending pain of re-enactment

Of all that you have done, and been; the shame

Of motives late revealed, and the awareness

Of things ill done and done to others’ harm

Which once you took for exercise of virtue.

Then fools’ approval stings, and honour stains.

TS Eliot ‘Little Gidding’

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Contents

Chapter

1 Java, gold, and the Japanese invasion

2 Our territorials arms and train

3 Black magic and Baduj prophecies

4 An unexpected visit

5 After capitulation

6 Betrayal and escape

7 The pass of the smile

8 Tjikotok again, under guard

9 Batavia, and other places

10 In Japanese service

11 Interned!

12 No.43 Special Mission – success or failure?

13 Van der Post’s secret report

14 Post-war Java

15 A post script

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West Java showing Cikotok, formerly Tjikotok,6º46´S 106º18´E.

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CHAPTER 1: JAVA, GOLD, AND THE JAPANESE INVASION

At the outbreak of World War 2, I was manager of a gold and silver mine in South Bantam, Java. The mine was known as Tjikotok Gold Mine, though its real name was the Mining Company of South Bantam. Anyway, the company was established on 19 May, 1934, in Batavia (now Djakarta).

The development of the mine itself took quite some time. The hamlet of Tjikotok was chosen as the centre; it was at an altitude of some five-hundred metres in a sparsely populated, infertile and mountainous area north of Pelabuhan Ratu, which was on the Wijnkoops Bay.

Initially, materials, machines, and whatever else we needed were supplied by ship from Batavia. There was no harbour in the bay, so the ships had to be unloaded while lying in the roads off the seaside village of Bajah. From there, transport was by either pack-horse or porters, along a footpath up the mountain. In addition, some goods were brought to Pelabuhan Ratu by road, and transported from there to Bajah in proas, those swift outrigged boats that are so typical of Indonesian waters.

Later, a number of Caterpillar tractors and drilling machines were brought up to the Tjibareno River, along with large quantities of dynamite and other road-building materials. There, a bridge was built, together with thirty-two kilometres of roadway, suitable for motor vehicles, to Tjikotok.

Bajah, no longer wanted as a supply point, returned to the quiet fishing village it had previously been.

Another road was built to Pasir Gombong, about five kilometres west of the main yard at Tjikotok, on the Tjimadur River. The ore-processing plant was constructed at Pasir Gombong. Some kilometres upstream was a hydroelectric station, which produced the power we needed.

Still later, two other mines were made accessible to motor vehicles: at Tjipitjung to the south west and Tjirotan to the north. Eventually, all three mines were connected by cableway with the processing plant at Pasir Gombong. The cableway facilitated the transport of ore.

I should add that hardly any gold was found on the surface in Bantam. The ore could be won only by tunnelling. The deepest mine was Tjirotan, where the ninth level, 900 metres into the Earth, had been reached by the time the war forced us to halt the operations.

The ore itself was largely one of silver, though contained a few other minerals including a small percentage of gold. However, it was the high market price of gold that made the exploitation commercially attractive.

We had started off with small bamboo huts for the employees, though gradually replaced them with stone houses. Tjikotok boasted a well furnished hospital with twenty-eight beds, a large recreation hall with a cinema, barracks, a pasanggrahan or small guest-house for visitors and newcomers, and last but not least a tennis court.

All in all, the project was a gigantic job, and realized in only a few years. It took a great effort. The barracks were meant for the native police. They included an office and housing for the chief, plus housing for a score of the constables and their families. There were also eight cells and large stables.

The local police chief was a so-called outer-Baduj, a member of an ancient Baduj community that had long led a very isolated life in the inhospitable area to the north of Lembak Sembada. But more of this later.

The official opening of the mine took place towards the end of 1939. Many dignitaries were present, though they did not include A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborg Stachouwer, Governor of the Dutch Indies. Sadly, he was unable to be with us that day, and though he did plan to visit us on a later date the war made the visit impossible.

As for production, our first results were published on 31 December, 1940. Unfortunately, I no longer have those results in my possession. I can give only those of the second, and last, period: from 1 January, 1941, until 21 February, 1942, the profits totalled about 503 000 florins.

Our personnel included 65 Europeans and about 1000 natives. The whole area, of course, profited by the development.

When the Japanese invaded Java, early in 1942, most of the Europeans were called up for military service. The ensuing shortage of sufficiently skilled technical staff eventually led to the closure of the mines.

An emergency formation was set up by the Government, consisting of reserve militia and staff who were thought vital to the establishments on which they worked. Exemption from military service was granted to those of us in the emergency formation, at least until the situation in Java dictated otherwise.

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My function was apparently thought quite important, and I was enlisted in the emergency formation, for the time being.

On many of the Javanese establishments, territorial forces were formed. So that we could form our own at Tjikotok, I underwent a training course for territorial commanders, in Bandung. When I had completed the first part of the course, I was promoted to the rank of sergeant, first-class. Circumstances changed, and the second part of the course could not be started.

I was an enthusiastic hunter in those days, and familiar with the use of weapons. Most of the territorials had to be taught how to handle a gun, and needed intensive training. Some useful exercises were staged around Tjikotok, together with troops from the Royal Dutch-Indies Army and under the command of a colonel. For further training we acquired the assistance of some professionals, including Sergeants Sieraad and Plaisir.

In October of 1941, I was offered the position of general manager of the mining and shipping department of Erdmann & Sielcken in Batavia, who managed several mining and shipping companies in Java and Sumatra. I accepted gratefully.

My temporary administrative successor on the mine was E. Kuonie, a Swiss, who would later succeed G. Tauw Jr on Lebong-Tandai (Simau-Sumatra). My military activities were taken over by Ir G. Goekoop, my close friend and colleague.

The board of directors had appointed Mr Tauw as my successor, but the fall of Singapore to the Japanese and subsequent events on Sumatra affected him so much that his doctors in Batavia advised him to rest for some time. For that reason, Mr Tauw took up his work in Tjikotok only after the territorial forces had been disarmed by the Japanese.

When the Japanese invaded Java, the women and children living in Tjikotok were evacuated to Tjitorek, a refuge in the woods of Tjitjatrap, near Lembak Sembada, where our geologist, Paul Vogt, was working. The spot was isolated, and inaccessible by car. From Tjirotan, 18 kilometres distant from Tjikotok, one went on horseback or by foot along a narrow path that climbed steeply up a mountain to a large forest. The refuge was built by Paul Vogt, by a clear stream. The journey took about three hours on foot, and a few of the men went along, armed with rifles and revolvers, to protect the women and children against the gangs of robbers who frequented the entire area.

Vogt, a Swiss national, lived not far from the refuge, with his wife and children. He would come down to Tjikotok at weekends to discuss the results of his activities, and he would then stay in our pasanggrahan.

My own wife and children had been with friends in Bandung for some time, and I meant to join them there. The board of directors planned to move the company’s headquarters to Bandung, where I was to be manager. However, despite numerous efforts, I was unable to obtain the necessary residence permit. I returned to Batavia alone, and was sent back to Tjikotok by the general military staff in Bandung a few days before the capitulation of the Dutch to the Japanese.

I had been made a member of the home guard in Batavia, but as I was in the emergency formation my duties were very limited. I had to wear a uniform to the office, and take part in light exercises after office hours. When the general mobilization was ordered, on 21 February, 1942, I had to live in barracks, downtown, where I was given command of a ‘raid truck’, an open, canvas-hooded truck seating sixteen men. Our orders were to patrol downtown and the road to the harbour, during the day or evening.

One day, early in the morning, I was summoned by my commanding officer, Captain Hoonstra. General headquarters in Bandung, he said, had ordered him by telegram to send me back to Tjikotok, at once, where I was once again to take command of the territorials, from Goekoop.

Back to Tjikotok! Not easy in that chaotic period. All troops were withdrawing to their bases in Bandung... traffic was in confusion as cars, buses, and other vehicles were being confiscated... but luck was with me.

Having completed all the formalities, handed over my command to sergeant Eland, and said goodbye to my fellow home guards, I went to Erdmann & Sielcken’s office to explain the latest developments to my boss, H. Fechner.

He told me that Ir A.van Damme had arrived from Tjikotok the day before, bringing with him a load of gold bullion. Knowing that the city would soon be occupied by the Japanese, neither Van Damme nor Fechner could decide what to do with the gold, until we finally agreed it was best returned to the mine and hidden.

I made use of the opportunity, and went with Van Damme and the truckload of bullion. We reached Tjikotok the next day.

The situation was confused and everybody seemed rather nervous. Rumour had it that the Japanese were advancing,

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and that there was not enough transport for those of us who wanted to get to Bandung. Among such would-be travellers were members of the demolition brigade and some civil service officers who had orders to report there.

The truck in which Van Damme and I had arrived solved the problem. The eldest of the civil service officers handed over to me the civil command of the district and, despite the possibility that the ceremony was purely symbolic, I was very moved. If nothing else, it was a sure sign of the gravity of our situation. Moreover, I was suddenly burdened with responsibilities that made me realize normal authorities, including the police, had ceased to function.

Our territorial force was left to look after Tjikotok, with two raid trucks and two ordinary motor cars. And we had the problem of what to do with those thirty-two bars of gold bullion.

Eventually, we took them back into the ground from which they had been won. We hid them in an old, abandoned mine shaft, and flooded it.

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CHAPTER 2: OUR TERRITORIALS ARM AND TRAIN

The inferior armaments supplied to our territorial force worried me, especially because of the possibly imminent confrontation with our Japanese enemy.

We could cope with the gangs of robbers, and our morale was excellent. However, I feared that we should be entirely lost when faced with the enemy’s fighting experience and superior weapons. With our antiquated Lee-Enfield rifles, six handgrenades and a few shotguns we should not have very much to say, I reckoned, though at least we had the advantage of familiarity with the territory.

During our training period, we had used only imitation guns and two machine guns that produced nothing more than noise. Twice we had been allowed to use a few handgrenades, so that the men could see their effect. Thereafter, we practised with imitations.

Even so, our group remained enthusiastic. They exercised, patrolled, and stood guard, all with a dutiful and disciplined attitude. There were so few weapons, though, that they were issued only to those men who were actually on guard.

The home guard and territorials were part of the Royal Dutch-Indies Army, and we were given invaluable support by our two instructors, Sieraad and Plaisir.

Our territorial force consisted of a hundred and twenty-five men. This number included quite a few of our native workers and some Chinese members of staff, who had come forward voluntarily in response to our request. The force was divided into five sections of twenty-five, and each section was put under the command of a sergeant. In addition, sections were split into two platoons, each headed by a corporal.

Saturday afternoons became our regular training period, and everybody attended with enthusiasm. We included exercises on how to cope with the situations that might arise in our rough environment. Those manoeuvres we held around Tjikotok with troops from the Royal Dutch-Indies Army, under the command of a colonel, were highly instructive and were to help us greatly in later action. So, by the time our two instructors were recalled, in February 1942, we were able to look forward to whatever was coming with quite a degree of confidence. Certainly, we were dependent only upon ourselves, but our morale was such that the only weak spot was the lack of decent armaments.

But suddenly, unexpectedly, my worries evaporated.

Immediately after capitulation, we were telephoned by the managers of neighbouring plantations, who told us their territorial units had been disbanded and they had been instructed to hand over all their equipment to us, including arms, ammunition, handgrenades, and so on. Some had their materiel delivered to us, while we collected from others. A few days later, we had an unimaginable amount of arms and ammunition. There were four light machine guns, some tommy guns, revolvers, pistols, hunting rifles, and cases full of two types of handgrenade.

We were surprised by the quantities, and by the suddenness with which they had come to us. We could not understand how those other territorial units had acquired so much while we had managed to lay our hands on so little.

Some time after the war I learnt that some trucks, loaded with weapons and ammunition, broke down in Pelabuhan Ratu on the way to our undertaking, ahead of the advancing enemy troops. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some of the arms finally reached Tjikotok, for which many thanks. Anyway, every man now had a rifle and either sabre or handgun, and that was most reassuring. We had plenty of grenades with which to practise, and everybody bore responsibility for his own weapons.

Now we could be more confident about going forward to meet the future.

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CHAPTER 3: BLACK MAGIC AND BADUJ PROPHECIES

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

Hamlet.

Most of us have heard of the predictions made by Nostradamus. Many who have lived in the Dutch East Indies will also have heard of those made by Djojobojo, about which an article was published in Astrologische Wereldschouw in 1955{1}.

Prince Djojobojo was, from 1130 to 1160, ruler of Daha, in Kediri, which is now a town in East Java, but was then a separate kingdom. His rather peculiar statements have been passed down over the centuries by word of mouth, and now exist as summaries of what he said.

The explanation and testing of Djojobojo’s predictions is a very delicate, even perilous business. Most of them are symbolic, and everybody may therefore interpret them to his own liking. Such interpretations are influenced by personal views and ideas, and an understanding of the colloquialisms of the time. Nevertheless, nobody can deny that Djojobojo made some striking predictions.

For example, he told of the armed forces of the yellow king who would beat the army of Java and overthrow the government. And he told of the eventual defeat of those armed forces, as well as the phenomenon that would precede that defeat: a “djamurpajung” or mushroom illuminating the skies. This prediction was not quite what the Japanese invaders would have liked as propaganda, and they prohibited, on pain of death, all talk and speculation concerning it.

The predictions of Nostradamus are widely known. Those of Djojobojo less so. As for those of the Baduj, they are hardly known at all outside South Bantam. Perhaps that is because they concern not world events but events restricted to South Bantam. Even so, they are no less surprising, and I was able to witness the fulfilment of three of them, open mouthed. Before I go any further, I should explain a little about the Baduj tribe. They live in an almost inaccessible region south of Rangkasbetung, west of the line Bogor-Sukabumi, not far from Lebak. Many people have heard of Lebak, even if only thanks to the famous author Multatuli (Douwes Dekker). Multatuli centred his “Speech to the Chiefs of Lebak” on the town.

The Baduj, or Orang Kaneke, are said by some to have been the original inhabitants of Bantam. When Islam came to Java, in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, they refused to accept the religion, and retreated into the almost impenetrable inner country of Lebak Parakian, where they could remain faithful to their traditional beliefs and customs.

Others claim the Baduj were refugees from the once-famous Hindu state of Padjadjaran, of which numerous remnants were found in the hills around Bogor. These remnants included “batutulis”, or inscription-bearing stones.

Old Baduj folksongs have much in common with those of the eastern part of the province of Djakarta and Preanger regency. Some researchers have even connected the name “Baduj” with that of the arabian desert’s inhabitants, the Bedouins.

Little is known about their religion, other than that they honour invisible spirits, amongst which the most important is “Batara Tunggal”. Their holy place is called “Artja Domas”.

Home to the Baduj is on the slopes of Pagesaran, one of the peaks of Mount Kendeng, and is bordered to the north by the River Baduj, to the west by the village of Babakan, and to the east by the Barani river. The area is actually a sanctuary, and non-initiates have always been prohibited. Under the old Dutch Indies government, people were forbidden by law to enter the reserve, and I believe the current Indonesian government maintains that law.

Despite the isolation of the Baduj, interesting information has been brought to light over the years. For example, there are two types of Baduj. The first are known as Orang Kadjeroan or Orang Kavem, who live on the holy ground in the centre of the reserve. In 1908, there were 156 Orang Kadjeroan. The second type are known as the Orang Kaluaran or Orang Panamping who live in the area away from the holy ground. They numbered 1433 in the year 1908.

The division is important, and exactly 40 families, no more, no less, live on the holy ground. The “overpopulation” live outside, and form a link of sorts between the true Baduj and the outside world. Should the number of families inside the holy area increase, the new family has to move out; should it decrease, a family of outer Baduj moves in.

The area directly around the inner hamlet is unfavourable for settlement, and the outer Baduj gradually moved south, to the neighbourhood in which we began our mining operations. From them, we learnt that the Artja Domas is situated in some woods and surrounded by thickly vegetated mountain slopes. Hundreds of stone statues are scattered

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about the area. Tradition had it that Siliwangi, the last ruler of the Hindu state called Padjadjaran, had fled to this spot after his capital had been taken by Moslem conquerors. But as punishment for their refusal to accept the Moslem faith, Siliwangi and his 800 warriors were turned into stone.

The Baduj are musical and have stringed instruments, flutes, and angklongs, which are sheaths of bamboo and are rattled together to produce an unusual musical sound.

Angklongs are known throughout the Sunda countries.

Normally, the Baduj make little use of colours or finery but prefer to wear white, especially on festive occasions. They shun contact with other peoples, and their women and children are not ever allowed to leave their reserve. The spiritual leader of the Baduj, called Girang Pu-un, who is supposed to possess great magical powers, is not allowed to leave even the inner, holy area, or be seen by anybody other than inner Baduj.

Their means of existence is austere, depending on their agricultural efforts and foraging in the local woods. They are a peaceable tribe. They know no violence, and few transgress their tribal laws. In fact, the Baduj doctrine is one of non-violence, similar to Gandhi’s, and intruders from the outside world are dealt with in the Baduj’s own subtle way. First, anyone who tries to penetrate their territory is met by a group of inhabitants who give warning not to go any further. If the intruder does not comply, he soon finds himself surrounded by a circle of dancing men who, gradually crowding in on him, force him gently outside the boundaries.

Should the technique not work, the intruder is cursed.

Such curses are not to be taken lightly, as a certain Dr Van Tricht and his friend Colonel Thompson discovered. Thompson had seen and experienced just about everything possible in the Dutch East Indies, but he had one unfulfilled wish: to visit Baduj country. He had promised himself and his friends that he would make that visit before repatriation. He joined up with Dr Van Tricht, who wanted to visit the tribe out of scientific curiosity.

Neither man had permission to do so, and they penetrated the area against the will of the Baduj.

Thompson wrote about the experience and his story appeared in a Dutch newspaper. He even described the passive resistance he and van Tricht had overcome. He talked about a secret weapon of the Baduj, too, the hidden powers feared all over Bantam, the magic art the Baduj mastered above all.

Thompson fell ill after the visit, and died aboard the ship that was taking him back to Holland.

Dr Van Tricht was repatriated some time later, and took a first-class cabin aboard the steamer Philippar for himself and his wife. His two children travelled second class in the care of a nanny, whom they fully trusted and to whom they had given strict instructions to retire with the children each evening immediately after supper. They were not to leave the cabin until dawn.

The nanny disobeyed her orders, and locked the children in their cabin so that she could mix with the other second-class passengers. A fire broke out and both children died a terrible death, helplessly trapped.

Of course, any link between the events and the Baduj is pure speculation. But there was also the experience of a Mr D. Koordes, who was one of the first men ever to penetrate the area. His health was terribly affected, so much so that he was unable to make anything of his notes, which have never been made public. He died in 1869, five years after his visit.

I myself experienced many “magic” phenomena in Java, and could write at great length about them. This would deviate too far from my original subject, however, and I shall limit myself to one episode, and then only to the main issues.

Some three weeks after having been appointed to a position of responsibility in a housebuilding company I discovered a serious case of fraud, which resulted in the dismissal of seven or eight native employees. However, I was sure that they were not the only culprits.

Some weeks later, one of our servants came to me complaining that the supervisor of the block of houses in which she lived had demanded money from her. It was, the supervisor said, for a permit the tenant needed for the construction of a garage for her house. Such permits were given by our company, normally free of charge. Anyway, the supervisor, who was Ambonese, found himself dismissed from his position and transferred to my office as a clerk.

There was a canteen in the building, run by a Chinese person. Every day, I drank my morning coffee there...Chinese coffee seasoned with herbs and sweetened with burnt sugar. One morning, the coffee smelt strange and I told the waiter to bring me a clean glass. It came, and though the coffee still smelt strange it was less noticeable and I drank up.

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Some hours later I felt sick enough to go home early, and I retired to bed in a rising fever. The doctor came, and diagnosed severe enteric influenza, which developed rapidly into double pneumonia. The illness continued to worsen, and those around me began fearing for my life.

One of these people, a young female colleague, had witnessed the whole story. She had actually insisted that I should send the coffee back, after smelling it herself, though was not so forceful about the second glass, despite its odour. She had been born in Indonesia and lived there all her life, and had a stronger feeling for native superstition, black magic, and other mystical things than either of her Dutch parents. Her unwillingness to fuss about the strangely smelling drink was due to her fear of being ridiculed, but she eventually overcame this fear and made her mother bring a silver crucifix to my house, with instructions that it should be placed under my pillow, without my knowing.

My wife objected to such patent nonsense, but was finally persuaded. Almost immediately I was over the crisis, and my health improved quickly... whether because the crucifix had driven out the evil spirits, or because of my wife’s good and loving care, I cannot say. All I knew was that I was on the road to recovery, and only later did I find out about the silver cross.

Soon I was back at work, where I learnt that my Ambonese clerk had not been seen for quite some time. Then a few days later, I was visited by an old woman, who need both a stick and a maid to support her. She asked whether I remembered her, and I was shocked to discover that she was the lady who had applied for the permit to build a garage on her house. This once lively and healthy woman was now a human wreck, fat and swag bellied, who found even the effort of talking almost too much.

Slowly, she managed to explain what had been going on. She knew about my illness, and what had caused it, she said. The wife of the ex-supervisor was a notorious poisoner who practised guna-guna, or black magic.

This crippled woman now told me that she too had been ill, firstly with enteric influenza, then pneumonia, just like me. In her case, it had taken a native wise man from a neighbouring village to halt the illness. He had searched her house and discovered a picture of her into which pins had been stuck. A search in front of my house had brought to light a clay figure also stuck full of pins.

The wise man was apparently a very powerful man, because the curse returned to my ex-clerk’s son. He showed the same symptoms that the servant and I had had. The Ambonese soon came to his female victim and begged forgiveness, which she agreed to on condition that he should come to me and confess. I doubt whether I could have been quite so generous as she had been, and the sad tale came to an end about a year later, when she died without ever having fully recovered.

Of the Ambonese, no more was heard. He certainly never came to see me and was untraceable by the time the police had gathered sufficient evidence to charge him with murder. have wandered quite far from the subject of the three Baduj predictions, in order to emphasize that we Westerners tend to explain everything in our own terms, and dismiss as superstition those phenomena that are beyond our understanding. My experiences in Java make me think twice before doing so.

With that, I shall return to the Baduj. Long before the establishment of our mining company, and even before the exploration of Tjikotok and environs for gold and silver, the few poor farmers who lived there told of a prediction made by the Baduj. It related to Tjikotok and Bajah, the simple fishing village. Bajah consisted of a few mean houses that at night were lit by single oil lamps. No ray of light from these lamps ever reached the sky. Up in the hills, hardly visible from the sea, was Tjikotok, a collection of bamboo huts.

Originally worded in poetic and symbolic terms, the prediction was that there would come a time when Tjikotok would rise to the skies as queen of the night, giving light to the whole environment and serving as a beacon to guide fishermen back to Bajah.

Company staff had been investigating the area for many years and had been told about the “queen of the night” by the locals. By the time we began mining in 1939, we all knew the story. I do not know whether anybody else has ever written about it, and sceptics will say, irrefutably, that the prediction can have no scientific basis whatsoever.

But the fact remains that, after the initial site work had been done, roads made, houses, offices, hospital, barracks, and pasanggrahan built, and electricity connected, the skies above Tjikotok glowed brightly for hours after the sun had set.

The second prediction was even more remarkable, and several of us witnessed its fulfilment. It was told as follows: East and West Java will be connected by an iron snake when soldiers of the ape-like yellow people, in their flag a spot of blood, flood the island, shuffling on three legs. Then Bajah will appear in the sky as a sparkling diamond, obscuring

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Tjikotok’s light and serving as a beacon to the fishermen of Bajah. There will be a connection with the iron snake and it will call for many lives.

We puzzled over the meaning for a long time, though the references to the railway and Japanese forces were clear enough. That ape-like appearance was due to the heavy-rimmed dust spectacles they liked to wear; the third leg was probably the long sword most trailed behind them. But as for how Bajah could ever outshine Tjikotok, and why it would be connected to the iron snake, that was a mystery.

We did know brown coal existed at Bajah, and we actually had a concession to exploit it. Our investigation proved it to be uneconomical, however.

After my escape to Djakarta, I learnt from the director of my company that the Japanese had told him of their plans to mine the coal, as soon as possible. I suddenly realized that the second prediction could describe these plans, and indeed it was so. Nobody could have imagined the metamorphosis of this little hamlet of Bajah, but in the space of a few months a high-tension cable had been led from our power installation, and machines, supplies and everything else of any use had been transported to the hamlet. The electricity supply at Tjikotok was cut off.

A railway connection was made, from Rangkasbetung to Bajah, with the labour of tens of thousands of natives. They had been persuaded by the Japanese and Sukarno, with false promises, and worked under inhuman conditions. Some 35 000 died of illness, malnutrition, maltreatment. Sukarno was much to blame, people said.

Well, Tjikotok shone no more, Bajah was the new mining centre, shining at night in a flood of electric light, and the second prediction had been accurately fulfilled.

Now for the third prediction.

When by order of the ape-men a bridge on the River Tjimadur has been built it will be destroyed by heavy floods and afterwards rebuilt. The bridge will again be destroyed, at which time will end the ape-men’s rule over Java. I heard this prediction shortly after the capitulation of the Dutch East Indies forces on 8 March, 1942. The chief of police, himself a descendant of the outer Baduj, related it to me. At that time, we had still not encountered any Japanese near the mine.

The fact was, as I have said, that while we were building our plant, supplies came only via Bajah. We had planned to develop the footpath from Bajah so that it could be used by motor vehicles, and to build a bridge over the Tjimadur. However, once the roadway to Pasir Telaga had been built, neither plan held any significance since we no longer needed any connection with Bajah. This being so, I could see no earthly reason for the Japanese to build the bridge.

In November, I was interned by the Japanese at Kedung Badak. I had even less idea why a bridge would be needed, because the invaders had made it clear they were not interested in mining at either Tjikotok or Tjirotan. I discussed it with my fellow prisoners, and told them of the other Baduj predictions. None of us could help believing in the prophesies, at least to an extent, and waited hopefully for news.

But the months dragged by, with monotonous regularity, with the hunger, misery, and terror routinely inflicted by our Japanese guards. Then, towards the end of 1943, a group of prisoners who regularly left the camp on fatigue duty smuggled in a copy of the newspaper Indonesia Raja. And to our delight we read that the Japanese were indeed going to bridge the Tjimadur.

We decided to encourage the other prisoners in the camp, and carefully spread the story of the third prediction. I myself was now a firm believer.

Incidentally, encouragement also came from another source, a member of a Javanese club that dealt with paranormal science. This amiable man was well known even outside Java for his abilities as a seer, and it was very sad that he was unable to cope mentally with camp life. Nevertheless, he told us he had seen the gates open to freedom on 21 November, 1943. The prediction was all too easy to accept, since the Americans were now recording their first successes in the Pacific. We all hoped and expected these would lead to an Allied landing on Java.

As the date approached, our medium’s health declined, and so did our hopes; the news reaching us via our clandestine radio was not at all good. And then on the eve of the 21st, our medium passed away. As he had foretold, the gates opened the next day, for him at least, and he was delivered from his suffering. We all stood outside, in two lines, to pay our respects, as his body was taken to its last resting place, pushed on a cart by his closest friends.

In March, 1944, the great news reached us. The bridge had been destroyed by flood! It was none too soon, since the conditions in our camp were deteriorating daily. There were more sick and more dying, but less food and in lower

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quality. Another seventeen months went by, somehow, and no further news of the bridge was heard. But then it ceased to matter, because the Japanese surrendered.

I was never able to determine whether in fact the bridge had been rebuilt and destroyed for the second time, but after all is said and done, the fact that it was built and destroyed once was miracle enough for me.

FOOTNOTES

{1} . Vol.15 No.7 July 1955

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CHAPTER 4: AN UNEXPECTED VISIT

At the start of our thirty-two kilometres of roadway from Pasir Telaga to Tjikotok was a sentry box and barrier, manned twenty-four hours a day and with a direct telephone line to our central exchange in Tjikotok. When we were expecting a visitor, we would tell the guard beforehand and he would simply telephone through when the visitor had passed the barrier. However, he was not to let any unexpected visitor past without having obtained permission. In this way, we were able to stop unwanted guests, and the arrangement had always worked quite satisfactorily.

Then on Friday, 6 March, 1942, the manager of the plant at Pasir Telaga called us to say that he had seen two military jeeps heading in our direction, but could give no details. We immediately tried to contact the sentry, but in vain. He had fled, most likely, in fear of the Japanese.

I set about warning everybody at Tjikotok, because it was indeed possible that the Japanese were on their way. The trip from the gate would take some time, up the curving road, and I took the opportunity to post some of our territorials at the point where the road reached our main plant. There was a pillbox there, and a stop sign in the centre of the road.

We waited apprehensively for the arrival of the two jeeps. Then at last they came, and much to our relief we saw that they held no Japanese soldiers.

I left my hiding place to meet the British officer who had alighted from one of the vehicles. He introduced himself as Colonel Laurens van der Post, and showed me a written request from our General Headquarters in Bandung. We were, it said, to render every assistance to the Colonel and his five men, whose orders were to carry out “a special mission”.

In his party was a Dutchman, First Lieutenant Christoffel, acting as guide and interpreter. I showed the Colonel and his group to the pasanggrahan, where I was given more information about the aim of their visit to our plant. It was top secret, and I gave my word that nobody else on the mine would be told.

Colonel Van der Post said that if we had any hopes about the further course of the war, we had better drop them. It would not be long, perhaps a few days, before Bandung, our last stronghold, fell to the enemy and the Royal Dutch Indies Army would surrender. The Colonel had flown from Ceylon, three days after the fall of Singapore, with instructions from Allied Headquarters to hide behind the enemy lines in preparation for Allied landings on Java. The landings, he said, could be expected in another six to eight weeks.

He had at his disposal a complete wireless transmitter, and the six of them could rely on a vast quantity of arms and ammunition, and on provisions to sustain them in the jungle for five to six months. In the jungle, the Colonel would be assembling as many stragglers as possible, and collecting any important information for wiring through to Colombo or Sydney, or for radioing to Allied submarines, which were expected in the Indian Ocean.

After the war, it became known that submarines had indeed been in the area, and their crews had even succeeded in landing several three-man parties. But they never managed to contact Laurens van der Post or his men, because nobody in the party was capable of operating either radio set. This lack of a wirelessman could well have been fatal to No.43 Special Mission.

During our conference in the pasanggrahan, with the aid of some maps, we deliberated on the best place for the group to be accommodated. I recommended Tjirotan, the now-vacant yard offering sufficient housing and storage as well as a small office with a direct telephone line to our exchange at Tjikotok.

We agreed that I should stay at the plant for as long as possible, taking care of the supply of rice and other necessities. We also agreed that, should the situation become untenable, I was to join the Colonel’s party and be sworn in as an officer of the British army. That way, if I fell into the enemy’s hands, the Japanese would have no reason to consider me a franc-tireur. Just how the Japanese would react to such a solution, however, was something I should have to discover for myself; I had my doubts, knowing what had happened in other parts of the archipelago.

On the Saturday, 7 March, I was sitting in the pasanggrahan with Colonel Van der Post, going over the details of our co-operation, when an alarm was sounded. Uttering an apology, I put on my cap, buckled my belt, and hurried to my men. Colonel Van der Post sat where he was, smiling at me as I left. Neither he nor anyone in his group attempted to interfere with my command of the territorials, then or at any other time during their short stay with us. Nor should I have tolerated any such interference. Furthermore, none of them took part in any of our actions or patrols, and, as far as I know, not one member of No.43 Special Mission left the plant during their short time at Tjikotok.

Later that day, we heard over the radio that we should tune in at eight o’clock the next morning; our Governor General Van Starkenborgh Stachouwer would broadcast an important announcement.

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CHAPTER 5: AFTER CAPITULATION

Sunday, 8 March, 1942, arrived. I had invited most of the staff and their wives to the pasanggrahan, and we sat together listening to the Governor General’s speech. His announcement that the Dutch were capitulating came as a shock. There was general consternation, and emotion, of course. Some wept. But there was no enmity, no grudge whatsoever against Colonel Van der Post’s little party. On the contrary, we respected them for their refusal to surrender and their determination to retreat into the jungle and face the associated risks.

We quietly discussed what we should do. In the first place, it was decided that the few families still living at the Tjitorek camp would be called back to the plant, where they would be safer and more comfortable. In the isolated woods, they were in increasing danger from the marauding gangs of natives. Moreover, Tjitorek had to be free for the use of the Colonel and his men should they ever have to flee from Tjirotan.

A serious complication arose, however, because Lieutenant Christoffel, the guide and interpreter, declared his intention as a member of the Dutch forces to withdraw from the Mission and return to Bandung. What to do? It would be impossible for the British to continue as planned unless they had with them somebody acquainted with the land, the natives, and the language.

A thought struck me, and I mentioned our prospector, Paul Vogt. Paul knew better than anybody the inhospitable area north of Tjirotan, and he was familiar with the native population and language. If he were willing to co-operate, the Mission would gain considerably. Colonel Van der Post grasped the idea enthusiastically, and I sent a message by runner to ‘our Paul’ asking him to telephone me as soon as possible. He did so later that afternoon.

My idea paid off, and Paul immediately declared his willingness to collaborate with the Colonel. He said he would tie up a few loose ends at his Tjitorek home and join Van der Post the next day.

At noon on the 8th, the Mission moved out quietly, in the two jeeps, and made its way north to Tjirotan. As soon as they had settled in, they dumped the vehicles in a nearby ravine, so as not to advertise their presence to the Japanese, and set up a twenty-four-hour roster for manning the office and telephone connection to Tjikotok.

Meanwhile, my vice-commander Sergeant Goekoop told me that instructions had been telephoned by General Staff’s Lieutenant Schmidt in Sukabumi. We were to maintain peace and order until the Japanese took over. News of a more unpleasant nature arrived too. A man by the name of Effendi (a white Arabian who spoke flawless Dutch) and four Indonesians had deserted our territorial force. These men had been in charge of guarding our warehouses at Gombong, and had taken with them their arms and equipment. Thank goodness the guards at our so important hydroelectric power station had decided to stick to their post.

There were indications that Effendi had made for Bajah; a section of our territorials searched there, unsuccessfully. He had probably gone even further. It finally transpired that he had in fact reached Bandung, where he became a collaborator with the Japanese.

As soon as I had telephoned Lieutenant Schmidt and obtained confirmation of our orders from General Staff, Goekoop and I hurried away to Gombong by truck, with a party of territorials. There, the inhabitants of the compound across the river had broken into the unguarded warehouse and were busy stealing the expensive rolls of heavy filter-cloth we used for washing the gold. They were already on the other side of the river, but we fired a few shots, and wounded one of the thieves. They dropped their haul and fled into the nearby bush.

It was almost night by then, and I ordered a few of the men to stay overnight. They were to shoot anybody who tried to retrieve the cloth under cover of darkness. Sure enough, the thieves did make the try, with the help of small oil lamps, but a few warning shots were enough to make them retreat again.

Next morning, we crossed the river with quite a party. Some of us retrieved the stolen goods, while others made the rounds of the compound in order to show the flag. The inhabitants had obviously anticipated our move, and every little house was shut up tight. If by chance we did catch sight of someone, he would flee like lightning.

There was another desertion by a territorial, this time by the son of a Tjamat, or chief, of one of the nearby villages. He had vanished with his equipment and gun. I thought it best to set an example and had the village surrounded the next morning. First we overpowered the ‘tong-tong’ guard, so that he could not sound the alarm. Then, very quietly, we approached the Tjamat’s house, expecting at any moment to be betrayed by a dog’s barking or cock’s crowing. Somehow, we surrounded the hut undiscovered, and woke the family, calling for the son to give himself up to us.

The Tjamat came out and protested vigorously, threatening revenge as soon as the Japanese had arrived, but we persisted and told him we should get his son for ourselves and shoot him unless he came out voluntarily.

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Finally, the Tjamat went back inside, and reappeared with his son, who handed over the weapon and equipment.

We left immediately, under renewed threats by the Tjamat and the hostile gaze of the villagers, and marched back to the plant.

Apart from those two incidents, the Chinese and natives in my territorial force behaved admirably, and I have nothing but praise for them.

Some days after the capitulation, I took the radio equipment from our anti-air-raid post, and together with Suradal, our driver and trustworthy old servant of the company, left for Tjirotan. Now Colonel Van der Post had two transceivers; we should certainly have no more use for one! On our way back, at nightfall, we saw a group of people coming from the direction of Pasir Nangka, on foot. They were loaded down with all kinds of goods. What exactly they were up to was beyond me, and I told Suradal to stop the car. I took my tommy gun, got out of the car, and approached them. In the light of the headlamps, I saw they must be a gang of thieves.

I let loose a few warning shots into the air, and they panicked, running into the elephant grass beside the road and leaving behind everything they had been carrying. It was an unforgettable and ghostly sight, in the glare of the headlamps; it had something reminiscent of a scene from a horror movie. I fired some more shots here and there, when a second group of people appeared, carrying bright carbide lamps tied to long sticks.

About to fire again, I suddenly realized, with relief, that they were not more thieves, but the thieves’ victims... Chinese shopkeepers from Pasir Nangka. There followed enthusiastic gratitude and thanks while they gathered all the goods the thieves had so rapidly abandoned.

This was the first sign of organized looting and a warning for us to be more careful in future. Bantam had always been notorious for its gang robberies, and now there was little support we could expect from the police.

We decided to connect one of the Chinese shops to our telephone exchange, and when the next bunch of thieves appeared our territorials reached the scene of the crime very quickly. The robbers had no time to escape by road and managed only to retreat into the bush behind the shops. From there, pathways curved up a hill, and two of our men guarded each path, ready to shoot anybody who appeared at the crest of the hill.

In fact, one of the robbers did attempt a break, but a few warning shots dissuaded him and his colleagues. They were trapped like rats.

Assisted by more territorials, and together with some of the shopkeepers who lit the area up with their carbide lamps, we crowded in on the gang. Most were flat on their stomachs in the elephant grass, and refused to budge when ordered to stand. A prick from a bayonet, on the backside or legs, was what they needed to show them their game was up, after which they begged for forgiveness.

The whole gang of twelve men, apart from one wounded, was handed over to our chief of police, and locked up in the barracks. Our territorials had to guard them, however, since the police constables had fled by this time. The wounded man had been hit with a bottle on the nose, by one of the Chinese. Our doctor treated the wound and bound the man’s head in a most excessive fashion; we took him back to his compound, where his bandages served as a terrifying warning to the rest of the inhabitants.

We had no more trouble from that quarter.

In the meantime, Colonel Van der Post had retreated to the former women’s camp in the woods at Tjitjatrap, together with most of his ever increasing group of men. Five, and later ten, were left as a permanent force at Tjirotan, to maintain telephone contact with us at Tjikotok and guard the supplies of rice and other food and of course the arms and ammunition. Daily necessities were carried up the steep mountain path from Tjirotan to Tjitjatrap. Late one afternoon, I had received a telephone call from the Wedana of Pelabuhan Ratu, a man with whom we had always had good relations before the Japanese invasion. He told me he was in a rather thorny situation. A group of some forty Australian soldiers had come to him, exhausted and starving, asking for help. Their instructions had been to go to the gold mines, via Wijnkoops Bay, but were too poorly clad and shod to walk the difficult route to far-off Tjikotok.

I spoke to the commander of the group, a Captain Guild, who explained that most of his men were in a very poor way. From what I could gather, his orders were to reach Colonel Van der Post. I promised him assistance, and asked the Wedana to feed the Australians, explaining that I would send two trucks, with trustworthy Indonesian drivers, to collect them. Fortunately, our hospital had but one patient at that time, and he was well enough to be discharged; we had room for the Australians, for a night at least.

Of course, our physician, Dr Leon Van Noorden, had to know what was going on, and was prepared to give me

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every help. Sergeant Goekoop had to know, too, though not in detail. I preferred to take full responsibility for my own actions, without involving others more than necessary, and believe I managed reasonably well. However, despite all the secrecy, some of the facts were discovered by the staff living at Tjikotok, and there were sharp protests from our technical-staff member J van Rijn. His family still lived at Tjitjatrap, and he feared reprisals from the Japanese. He claimed to have heard of Japanese plans to bombard Tjikotok and Gombong and would hold me responsible in such an event. Whenever I was absent, Van Rijn would go into the barracks and create unrest amongst the territorials, and eventually I had to ban him from the barracks.

The hospital held only twenty-eight beds, and we had to collect mattresses and blankets from here and there before the visit from the Australian military. And I had to telephone Tjirotan and let them know what was happening.

Our trucks were met at Pelabuhan Ratu with great excitement by the now-fed Australians, who really were poorly clad and exhausted. Many had no weapons. But at least they were happy that they could get to Tjikotok without walking. I paid the Wedana for his services and thanked him for his assistance, and then made the acquaintance of Captain Guild and his aide First Lieutenant Allen. Then we all climbed aboard the trucks and set off for the mine, where we arrived late that night. Every man was allocated a bed or mattress, and Dr Van Noorden busied himself attending to the numerous foot injuries.

Very early the next morning, the men were driven up to Tjirotan, where they were issued with weapons and new equipment. Some time later, First Lieutenant Allen and I made a very interesting trip to Colonel Van der Post’s hideout, and Allen wrote an article about the visit, saying:1

On 15th March we learned that there were some British officers in the mountains nearby, and a Dutch patrol leader acted as a guide to Capt. Guild and myself. We went to the gold mining town of Tjikotok. This patrol leader offered us every assistance. His name was Sgt. Kreek. We decided to bring the troops up from Pelabuhan Ratu under cover of darkness on the night 16th-17th March, but at 05.00 hours we climbed back aboard some Dutch Army trucks and moved off for the gold mines at Tjirotan, about 12 miles further into the mountains. On arrival at Tjirotan Capt. Guild met Dutch Army Capt. Donk and arrangements were made to billet our party in the mine buildings. Later a Swiss named Sweister volunteered to lead a party into the mountains to make contact with British officers, and I was detailed to go. We went after lunch for Tjiteuraup and there we met another Swiss named Paul Vogt - a geologist employed by the gold mining company. He had organized a refugee camp for the miners' families and he sent a native off to tell the British officer of my arrival. One of the British officers – Lt.Col. L.V.D. Post - returned with the native and stated that he had been appointed to make provision for collecting personnel should the Allies suffer defeat. He was in possession of a wireless transmitter and receiver and said that if he could not arrange for the evacuation of the troops he would organize guerrilla forces. He had cached a quantity of rations in his mountain hideout. With Lt.Col. V.D. Post were three other British officers - Lt.Comd. Cooper and Capt. Black and Le Mier. Capt. Guild decided to join the party and additional ammunition and arms were obtained from the Dutch Army post. W.O. (II) F. Philips and 10 men were left as a rear party to follow on later, and the remainder marched out. Many of the men were suffering from dysentery and malaria and after marching for five hours in very heavy rain, the party arrived at a large hut which had been erected for the British party. Food was plentiful here and money was made available by Lt.Cmd. Cooper. During the next few days the men rested and regaled themselves on water-buffalo, poultry and native fruits.

Incidentally, “Kreek” would be the spelling used by an English speaker who had only heard my name.

(“Le Mier” is also a phonetic rendition. The officer was Captain Deryck Watts Le Mare. This information was submitted by his cousin, Peter H Le Mare, in August 2006.)

One day, the man at the Tjikotok switchboard connected me with the sentry box at Pasir Telaga. An English officer, introducing himself as Captain MacDonald, asked for permission to drive up to the plant, where he wanted to meet me unseen. I suggested meeting halfway, at Tegallumbu.

There I learnt that the Japanese had established a camp in Garut for English and Australian prisoners of war. Captain MacDonald had been appointed by the Japanese military authorities to trace wandering soldiers and take them to Garut. For this purpose he had been issued with a passe partout for both himself and his English driver. Now he wanted to make use of the opportunity to help some important officers avoid internment, by having them join Colonel Van der Post’s No. 43 Special Mission.

We established a plan whereby we could execute the idea, and managed to help several high-ranking officers and

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some private executives (including the director of a British bank) reach Van der Post. A few of them decided not to stay, including Captain Vellenga of General Staff and his aide Sergeant Hendriks de Bock (also known as Willemse Krijger), though I saw neither of them. Probably, they made their way down to Pelabuhan Ratu on foot. A Captain De Lange also spent several days with Colonel Van der Post.

Later, when I was interned in the concentration camp of Kedung Badak in Bogar, I met the first two of those men and was there when Captain Vellenga was taken to the Japanese Kempetai for interrogation and subsequently executed for his part in resistance activities elsewhere in Java. Captain De Lange suffered a similar fate.

Anyway, Donk, the captain of our constabulary, had reported to the plant with three native brigades. He had been ordered not to surrender, but to wage guerrilla against the Japanese in the Bantam area. He now found himself in a difficult situation, because he had discovered that all the secret caches of army supplies between Rangkasbetung and the plant had been looted. He was in no doubt that other caches had likewise disappeared. In other words, he and his men would be dependent for their survival on the goodwill of the population, which, in view of his recent experiences, seemed a frail hope. He was equally unsure of his men, who wanted to go home; some had already deserted. I told him about the presence of Colonel Van der Post, and advised him to go to Tjitjatrap to discuss the situation. It seemed questionable to me whether No. 43 Special Mission would benefit from nearby guerrilla. It would, I reasoned, attract the attention of Japanese troops, and so jeopardize Colonel Van der Post’s chances of staying behind the Japanese lines and out of contact with the Japanese for as long as possible.

So we decided Captain Donk’s men should join the territorials under my command, and be housed in the barracks. They could support our efforts to maintain peace and order in the locality. The sleeping quarters became somewhat crowded, though everybody was able to find enough space to lie down. Everybody managed to get along together too, and we were very glad of the reinforcement.

However, I now wrestled with a large problem. Time and time again I had asked myself what we should do when, during one of our patrols, we contacted the enemy. It would have been all right before capitulation, and we would have fought. The men were prepared for battle. But now, the situation had changed. Halfway between Tjikotok and Pasir Telaga lived our roads supervisor, Jan Mulder. Jan was an ex-sergeant of the Royal Dutch Indies Army, and a real Amsterdammer, good humoured and always ready for a joke. On one occasion, before the war with Japan, we had a visit from the Commissioner of Bantam, who wanted to see our installation at Tjirotan. The road from Tjikotok to Tjirotan was steep and curving, carved out of the rock with dynamite, and had deep ravines on the one side, sheer rock walls on the other. The Commissioner insisted on being driven up in his own car by his own chauffeur; he was to be met at the top by one of the mining engineers, who would take him down to the deepest level of the mine, some 900 metres into the earth.

Halfway up to Tjirotan, there was Jan Mulder, busy with his team of men, repairing the road. The Commissioner’s car, flag in front, stopped by them. The Commissioner asked Jan whether he was on the right road for Tjirotan. “Sure, Mr Commissioner,” came the reply in his best Amsterdam Dutch. “If you can just stay on the side where the houses are, you can’t miss it.” The remark was never forgotten by the plant personnel.

We had given Jan Mulder a telephone link with Tjikotok, and whenever he was away in Bandung it was his habit to leave the place in his servants’ care. Nearby lived a Chinaman, “Bapa Balok” or “Daddy Balk”, in quite a sizeable house. He supplied us with wood. Locally, he was considered rich.

One afternoon, Jan Mulder’s servants telephoned for urgent help; Bapa Balok was being threatened by armed robbers. Immediately, we despatched a platoon of territorials by truck, but the engine stopped not far from Tjikotok and refused to restart. The second truck was ordered out to pick up the territorials and take them onto the scene of the crime, but this one would not start at all. As a last resort, the two cars were used, and thank goodness they worked without problem. Even so, I feared we should be too late, and we really hurried towards Tegallumbu.

As we approached, we heard gunshots, and there came running out of Bapa Balok’s house his two daughters. They led us to where Bapa and his wife were hiding, and we saw Bapa had a pistol and, apparently, some rounds of ammunition in his possession. The robbers stood out of range, up in some bushes, probably armed with sabres and hunting guns, while Bapa Balok sheltered behind a small rise in the ground, letting off a shot every so often just to keep the robbers at bay. His wife had joined him, wearing trousers and armed with a chopping knife.

Quite likely the robbers were waiting for darkness and for Bapa to use up his ammunition; they would then come down and take whatever they wanted.

But the cowards fled as soon as we fired our first round in their direction. We followed for quite some way, into the woods, along narrow paths, but it was useless. Just to show the flag, we searched for a few hours, asking here and there for information. I still believe our demonstration that there were still armed military men in authority – despite

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capitulation – made an impression on the locals.

When we gave up, we returned to Bapa Balok’s house, to find the family in high spirits. We had to sit and listen to his long-winded story about his lonely battle against superior power and unenviable odds. The dramatic truth of the matter was that he actually fired his last bullet just as we arrived.

But now, what to do? I needed my territorials very much, but it would be irresponsible of me to leave the Chinese unprotected. The solution was to leave Otto Kohler, an apprentice technician, with the family together with a very few territorials. Otto was a bachelor, and Bapa’s two daughters were very pretty, and so Otto accepted the command quite happily.

The very next day, we installed a telephone for Bapa so that he could call us immediately next time trouble occurred. After a few peaceful days had passed, we recalled Otto and his men, and no would-be robbers ever troubled the family again.

We continued with our regular patrols of the locality, and found Captain Donk’s constabulary very welcome. Furthermore, there were continuous watches to be kept at Gombong, to protect the beneficiation plant and the hydroelectric installation, and a permanent guard of six men at the barracks, plus the need to keep a force of men ready to be sent out for any emergency.

One such emergency call for help came from the rubber plantation at Gunung Madur, which had been attacked by a gang of robbers. The manager was hiding in a small guard house in the middle of some nearby paddy fields. The plantation was about twenty-five kilometres south west of Tjikotok, and was accessible from our direction only by foot. Goekoop had just returned from a lengthy patrol, and it was evident that a heavy job faced us, in a hostile area that was completely unknown to us.

Goekoop and I looked at each other. This was going to be a tough night job, and being close friends we drew lots as to which of us should lead the patrol. It fell to Goekoop. Two fresh platoons were ordered to prepare for the trip, and supplied with extra ammunition, lamps, and food for the day to come. They returned the next afternoon, tired but satisfied, together with Mr Scheld, the plantation manager, who was grateful and as happy as a child. He stayed with us for several months, and during our years of internment he decided to stick with our group. We became good friends, and I keep a letter he wrote me in 1969 and in which he said:

Toward nightfall (12 or 13 March) I returned to the plantation, to find it totally deserted. My house had been thoroughly looted; doors and windows smashed, well you know what I mean. I decided first to spend the night in the head mandur’s house, in a compound about one kilometre north of the plantation, but I considered this unsafe and went to a small guardhouse in the middle of a rice field, from where I could partly overlook the area. Meanwhile, my luggage was stolen by the bearers. The only one staying with me was my houseboy. I was not sure how to act the next day. I half expected to be tjing-tjanged (chopped to pieces) by the clearly hostile population, and I was determined to fight for my life.

The length of this report is necessary so that anyone who reads it might gain an idea of how grateful I was to the territorials from Tjikotok. I had fallen asleep from tiredness and emotion and in the middle of the night found myself surrounded by men in uniform who had closed in on me without a sound, presuming I was armed, and they turned out to be the territorials from Tjikotok under the command of Goekoop. I then learnt that my mandur had reported to the assistant chief at Tjikotok, who had in turn briefed the territorials about my predicament, resulting in your despatching a patrol to find me.

On its way to Gunung Madur the patrol enquired about me several times from the local population, and heard each time they asked that I had been killed. Fortunately, they chose to disbelieve the information. I went with them to Tjikotok, where I was hospitably received. I spent about three months there, at the house of Goekoop. If I am not mistaken, the first Japanese soldiers visited the gold mine when I had been there for about two weeks.

It was then that the territorials were disarmed and the remaining Dutch men were left with only a few hunting guns for protection. This was about three weeks after the Dutch capitulation. Meanwhile, I had noticed that your territorials, of whom you were the energetic and organizing soul, patrolled day and night in and around Tjikotok. Thus Tjikotok was spared the miserable fate that befell my plantation.

And I think it most probable that thanks to the territorials’ activities all the Europeans in that isolated spot had not been killed before the Japanese arrived. Not to speak of the incredible assistance you gave to the Australians who did not want to surrender to the Japanese but instead wanted to carry on a guerilla in the mountains, which attempt unfortunately failed.

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Now back to those two trucks with the engines that refused to run. Shortly before capitulation, we had collected as much petrol as we could for our vehicles, from various filling stations, and had gathered quite a supply to keep them rolling for some considerable time.

Well, the trouble with the trucks seemed to be due to sand that had found its way into the works, and a boy from a nearby compound was subsequently arrested because he had been seen loitering near the vehicles. He was accused of sabotage and threatened with a good caning unless he confessed. Despite the threat, the boy continued to plead his innocence, so passionately that I began to think he was telling the truth. Rather than see him punished for no reason, I told the territorials to hand me the cane and keep the boy in custody in my room. I meant to keep him there until the next day, when I expected some answers from our laboratory in Gombong, to which I had sent samples of the petrol taken from the affected vehicles. As it turned out, the results were telephoned through that same night.

The material found in the petrol was not sand at all, but a chemical sediment. The chemical had been added to all stocks of petrol by order of the Dutch authorities immediately after capitulation, so as to make the fuel useless to the Japanese. Needless to say, the wrongly accused boy was released immediately and taken back to his compound.

Fortunately for us, our English chemist, after a few experiments, discovered how to purify the petrol, and we were fully mobile once again. It occurred to me at about this time that the general drift of people to our gold mines was no coincidence, but part of a resistance scheme prepared by our General Staff. It had all started with the telegram from Bandung, ordering me to leave Batavia and return to the plant. This had been followed by the arrival of Colonel Van der Post and his small party, Lieutenant Schmidt’s instructions, and the supply of large quantities of arms and ammunition. Then there was the meeting with Captain MacDonald, in which I learnt of his plans to help important Allied officers avoid internment. Last but not least there were the forty or so Australians.

Surely more than coincidental. Anyway, to return to Captain Donk’s predicament of being ordered to wage guerilla against the enemy while having no caches of food left, he and I decided to visit Colonel Van der Post in his mountain hideout.

At Tjirotan, we were joined by the Australian Lieutenant Allen. The three of us, on horseback, encountered a gang of robbers on the narrow mountain path just before Lembak Sembada, and managed to frighten them off with a few shots.

Further on, as we were crossing the wide Tjimadja river, Allen’s horse suddenly went down, and the Australian vanished under the water. For a split second, I thought he had been shot, but there was no sound of gunfire and I realized his horse had merely tripped. Man and horse suffered no worse than a thorough soaking.

We arrived at Van der Post’s camp only to find him suffering badly from an attack of malaria, a souvenir of his time in Ethiopia. Several of his men were also sick of tropical diseases, including dysentery. The poor hygiene in the camp helped the diseases flourish.

There was no chance of any sensible conversation with Van der Post, and I advised Donk to hang on for a few days, until the Colonel’s fever abated, and Lieutenant Allen and I left again that same afternoon. I said goodbye to Allen at Tjirotan and continued alone to Tjikotok.

A few days later, Captain Donk rejoined me, having failed to be convinced that he and his men should join Colonel Van der Post. Donk realized that his own men would be unreliable in any confrontation with the Japanese, since most wanted nothing more than to return to their homes and wives and children. What’s more, the lack of food and other supplies struck Donk as being an insurmountable problem.

So he gathered his men, told them he intended returning to Bandung, and gave them the choice of either following him or returning to their own compounds in civilian clothing.

I regretted Donk’s decision, since we should be a lot less strong without him and his men. Nevertheless, I assisted with transportation and numerous other things. Then I began to wonder about my own situation. Colonel Van der Post had previously agreed that I should stick to my orders, which were to maintain peace and order in the neighbourhood and avoid any confrontation with the Japanese.

But, in the long run, how were we to manage that?

Soon, the inevitable happened, and the message came through from Pasir Telaga that a car was on its way up to Tjikotok, flying the Japanese flag on the bonnet. Prepared for the worst, we once again hid near the entrance to the plant, with a stop sign in the centre of the road, and waited.

Soon, the car appeared, Japanese flag and all, and out jumped two men... laughing their heads off. Not Japanese at

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all, but Chinese! They wanted to know whether we were in need of any provisions for our shop...

A few of the territorials failed to appreciate the joke of it all, and wanted to give the Chinese a beating. I stopped them, of course, though sympathized with their anger at seeing, for the first time, the Japanese flag. As for why the two Chinese flew it: “It’s so useful!” they laughed. “It serves us as a safe conduct, and we go where we like without trouble!”

With a little less luck they would have been in a lot more trouble.

FOOTNOTES

1 . 2/2nd Australian Pioneer Battalion p 132

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CHAPTER 6: BETRAYAL AND ESCAPE

One day, I was returning from a visit to Colonel Van der Post, who had now moved deeper into the jungle on the slopes of the Sangabuana. To my complete surprise, I encountered a party of five Australian soldiers, who were loaded down with bags, weapons, ammunition, and so on. They were the men who had been guarding our office at Tjirotan, and they told me they had been ordered to leave Tjirotan by the plant manager there.

I did my best to convince them there had been a misunderstanding, since I myself was the manager of Tjirotan as well as Tjikotok. They refused to believe me, perhaps because they were dog-tired from the steep climb up the mountain, and simply did not want to go back.

When I reached Tjirotan, I called Goekoop on the telephone, and he told me that Van Rijn (our electrical engineer who had complained so strongly about the possibility of Japanese reprisals) had himself come up to Tjirotan, without permission. Furthermore, Van Rijn had, on his return to Tjikotok, telephoned the Wedana of Pelabuhan Ratu, though about what Goekoop had no idea.

I straight away called the Wedana myself, the man who had so generously assisted the Australians on their way to Tjikotok.

After some hesitation, he admitted that, yes, Van Rijn had approached him and told him about my activities and Van der Post’s, and included a warning that he was taking a chance if he kept the knowledge to himself.

Well, a Japanese detachment had settled at Pelabuhan Ratu only a few days previously, and the Wedana was indeed in a spot. I sympathized with him, which encouraged him to confess that he had already told the Japanese commander what was going on in the mountains. The Japanese would be coming for me the next day, he said, to remove me from Tjikotok.

I thanked the Wedana, stressing that he had done me a favour by being so open. My next move was to speak to Goekoop again. I told him I should be staying overnight at Tjirotan, and would call him again the next day. It seemed highly unlikely that the Japanese would be a problem for Goekoop, and I asked him to tell them that I had gone hunting. The story was quite plausible, and everybody on the plant could confirm that I hunted often.

If there were any problems, Goekoop knew I would come down and report to the Japanese. Everything turned out as I had expected. Two trucks loaded with Japanese arrived the next day; Goekoop was asked as to the whereabouts of Kriek; the Japanese accepted without comment his answer that Kriek was hunting in the neighbourhood of Tjirotan. Next, Goekoop was ordered to line up his territorials, who were then disarmed but for a few hunting guns with which they would be able to ward off any gangs of robbers.

Eventually, even those guns would be confiscated, and a permanent garrison of Japanese settled at the plant; from then on, the Japanese would be responsible for our safety.

Anyway, I telephoned Goekoop, and he said that the Japanese were going to stop over until the next morning, so I decided to stay at Tjirotan for another night. I called again the next day, to learn that the invaders had left for our beneficiation plant at Pasir Gombong.

The main road from Tjikotok forked twice; the first spur led westward to Gombong, the second northward to Tjirotan. Being somewhat suspicious, I hurried to a viewpoint from which I could watch the upward curving road, and my caution was justified as I saw two trucks creeping up towards me.

I made my way back to the end of the road at Tjirotan, intending to remake the three-hour ascent up the steep and narrow pathway to Van der Post’s first hideout at Lembak Sembada. My horse, Rita, had other ideas. It was raining, the tackle was wet, and Rita wanted to stay just where she was. Even some quite insistent work with my heels failed to produce the desired results.

Rita obviously remembered the ascent we had made only three days previously and was thinking “never again”. She had always been a willing animal, never giving any trouble.

There had been the one problem, I remembered, when my wife and I became concerned about Rita’s overly large and growing stomach.

We had consulted our Swiss geologist, Paul Vogt, who knew a great deal about illnesses in humans and animals. He had taught himself over the years, and his isolated way of life in the bush gave him plenty of opportunities to practise his knowledge. He examined the mare and concluded that the sickness was “ein Grassbauch”... she had been overfed with grass, he said. We took his advice and changed Rita’s diet, with the incredible result that she produced a delightful

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little foal one week later.

From then on, anybody suffering from any sickness had “ein Grassbauch”.

But this was no time to reminisce, with two truck loads of Japanese hot on my heels. I would be an easy target, alone on that narrow path, and here I was stuck on an unwilling steed. In desperation, I dismounted, cut a switch from a bush, climbed back on and, thank heavens, a few light strokes from the switch persuaded Rita that I meant business. Despite the knotty situation, I simply had to admire the majesty of my surroundings. There was no other living creature in view, just rocks and stones and the soft susurration of a mountain stream somewhere way below. Even Rita seemed to forget herself, and plodded on with no more sign of her erstwhile resistance.

But suddenly, a dreadful thought made my blood run cold. Here I was, thinking only about my own neck, unthinkingly leading the Japanese to Van der Post’s hideout. A confrontation would be inevitable... the very confrontation that had to be postponed for as long as possible. What to do?

It seemed obvious. I should have to face the Japanese alone. But at least I had time to choose a spot that would be the most advantageous to me, and I began to observe my surroundings carefully.

Soon, the mountain path curved sharply and there I was with a steep unclimbable wall on my right and a deep ravine to my left. At the bottom, a fast running river, on the other side of which was another perpendicular wall of solid rock.

The river foamed about numerous small rocks, but there in the middle was one large slab of stone, forming a solitary platform some twenty-five metres from the bank. An ideal spot, I thought, on which to wait for my pursuers, and certainly a setting worthy of an old-time Western.

I took Rita a further hundred metres on, round another bend in the path, and tethered her. My descent to the river and the rock was quite a job, loaded as I was with tommy gun, ammunition, pistol, and hand-grenades. But I managed without getting too wet.

It sounds incredible now, but that rock could have been carved out specifically for my purpose. At the base, a sort of platform, just above the water. On the side towards the path, a raised part that would protect me from enemy fire. And on the right, a niche from where I had a good view of both path and river. It was there that I settled myself to wait for the Japanese.

I felt no fear at all, maybe because I was judging my situation too lightly (believing inwardly that not a single Jap would get round that bend alive!), but the chances are I was subconsciously suppressing my true emotions. One thing was for sure: I had no desire to play the hero. After all, if I was shot and killed, nobody would ever get to hear of my lone stand against the yellow invaders...

Even so, my position was strategically ideal, and I should have a strong element of surprise on my side.

After a while, I found myself hoping that they were not following me at all, or at least not in strength. An hour went by, during which I continued to assess and re-assess my position. And another hour, until I began to doubt their coming. The trip along the mountain path would take three hours at least, and I took it for granted that the Japanese would know it. Surely they would not want to be overtaken by darkness, any more than I wanted to stay on that rock all night.

Eventually, as dusk was beginning to fall, I decided to move, and made that climb back up to the path and Rita.

We returned slowly towards Tjirotan.

Still outside the camp, I dismounted and tied up my horse again. Creeping towards the camp, I kept my eyes peeled for a Japanese sentry, who would surely be posted at the beginning of the path if they were still here. I saw nobody.

I crept past the houses. The first stood open and was obviously empty. The second building was a warehouse, and through its open doors I could see it was completely empty, with not even a single bag of rice left. Still no Japanese in sight, and I quietly made my way on to the office. No trucks in the parking area. I concluded that the visitors had returned to Tjikotok, taking with them everything that had caught their fancy, including the stocks of rice and other foods left by the Australians, as well as the Australians’ weapons and the Chevrolet car that had been left behind by an American officer who had once visited the camp.

I called Goekoop, who confirmed my suspicions, adding that the Japanese had continued on down to Pelabuhan Ratu.

They would soon be back.

By now I had no choice but to spend yet another night at Tjirotan, and somehow I managed to feed both Rita and

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myself. I must have been quite inventive, since their was not a tin of anything edible to be found in the office, the warehouses, or any of the other buildings. The next morning, I descended to Tjikotok and discussed our situation in detail with Goekoop. What he told me was not pleasant. Van Rijn had had a long talk with the Japanese commanding officer, through an interpreter, and about what could hardly have been misunderstood. And Goekoop had been instructed to tell me to report, immediately on my return from my “hunting trip”, to the Japanese commanding officer at Pelabuhan Ratu. Everybody else was to stay at his post, and Tjikotok was shortly to be permanently garrisoned.

My next move was obvious: I had to get to Batavia. Just how was not so obvious. There would be a Japanese sentry post on the road near Pelabuhan Ratu, and no way for me to get past it now the Japs had expressed interest in me. It would be stupid for me to rejoin my family in Bandung, because the Japs would be keeping a watchful eye on them if they wanted me.

The chance came in the form of a telephone call from Pasir Telaga. Captain MacDonald told me that a high-up officer of the Royal Air Force... “second-in-command on Java”... was on his way to join Colonel Van der Post with some documents that were most important to the Allies.

I briefed Captain MacDonald about the developments of the past few days, the loss of our facilities at Tjirotan thanks to Van Rijn’s betrayal, and the consequent loss of the escape route.

I also told him of my decision to flee to Batavia, and asked if he could collect me and get me to either Tjibadak or Sukabumi. Of course, he was unable to help. The possibility of his being stopped at Pelabuhan Ratu held too many risks. Well, I could hardly argue, but I carried on talking and persuaded him that a face-to-face meeting was important; I wanted him to understand the full consequences of Van Rijn’s actions.

Eventually, MacDonald agreed to meet me at Papa Balok’s house and take me to Pasir Badak or the Wilhelmina Plantation.

One of our drivers took me to Papa Balok’s, where I left my gun; to continue with it would be inviting summary execution should I meet any Japanese. I bade Papa Balok farewell, and waited a hundred metres down the road for Captain MacDonald. A few minutes later, we were on our way to the Wilhelmina Plantation, which he apparently knew through previous visits to collect stray Australian and British soldiers.

Dalmeyer (the acting manager) and his wife welcomed us warmly, and I explained the reason for my visit. We lunched together, after which Captain MacDonald left for Pelabuhan Ratu and I set out on foot for my first objective:

Tjibadak, some sixty kilometres distant.

A mandur came with me, to show me how to find the road to the nearby plantation of Tjikidang. We went through tea and rubber plantations, then by a narrow path through woods, along the spurs of the Gunung Halimun, without meeting a single soul. Then came the point at which my guide confessed that he dared go no further. He begged forgiveness as he asked my permission to return. The gangs of robbers were his main fear... a revelation that was hardly encouraging to me. I gave him some money, thanked him for his help, and pressed on alone.

The road seemed endless, and my hours of walking were filled with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I felt more alone than I had ever done, and the tension of the past few days combined with the uncertainties of the future to really work at my mind. Furthermore, there began a nagging doubt as to the rightness of my decision to leave Tjikotok.

But there could be no going back. I had placed my bet and the dice had been thrown. At the end of the forest, I at last took a break, and sat for a while, drinking tea from my canteen. Ahead lay a barren, sloping plain, ending at more woods on the far horizon. There was no sign of human life. No house, no hut, nothing. I stood up and began the descent.

Halfway to those woods there was a small footbridge over a rill or drain cut deep into the ground. Further ahead, I suddenly saw a group of people coming out of the woods, making towards me. Robbers! Regretting painfully that I had left my gun with Papa Balok, I realized that to turn back would indicate weakness. I had to go on. I had no weapon, but perhaps I could bluff my way through...

We all reached the rill together, where they split into two groups and stood either side of the bridge. There was nothing for me to do except walk between them.

I stuck my right hand in my jacket pocket and gripped my spectacles case, thrusting it forward as if it were a gun. A childish reaction in retrospect, but it was the best I could think of. The robbers carried no firearms, I could see, only goloks, or hacking knives.

Luggage in my left hand, spectacles case in my right, I crossed the bridge and passed between them. Not a word was spoken, not a greeting, and I feared it was all up.

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Surely they would stab me in the back, now!

But nothing happened, and I walked on, in disbelief at my good luck.

Even now I am unable to say whether they simply had no thought of doing me harm, or had been fooled by my bravado. Nightfall, and I reached the Tjikidang plantation. I was shown to the manager’s house, and I realized that the area was Japanese occupied. Their propaganda shouted from loudspeakers everywhere.

The manager had been interned a few days previously, and I was “welcomed” by his Japanese-appointed successor. My arrival had caused a commotion, and the acting manager refused to believe that I was David Kriek, Dutch manager of the gold mine at Tjikotok. I had to be an escaped Australian prisoner, as far as he was concerned. Soon, his head mandur took him to one side, trying to convince him of something or other. What it was, the acting manager told me when the mandur had gone, was that the natives were protesting about my presence, terrified for their lives when the Japanese found out.

Finally, I persuaded him to call the manager at Wilhelmina, who confirmed that I really was Kriek from Tjikotok, and no Dutch-speaking Australian.

It took a lot longer to convince the head mandur, and he had to discuss things with his men several times before they were convinced that my presence was no threat to them.

Ultimately, I was allowed to stay overnight, on condition that I was on my way first thing in the morning. I dined with the acting manager, and took the opportunity to recount my meeting at the footbridge. He brushed off my suggestion that they were plantation workers, claiming that looting had started in the neighbourhood and the mandur and his men had been warned by the Japanese to be on their guard. Anyway, he still preferred to take responsibility for security without Japanese assistance, and had managed quite well so far, it seemed.

He asked about my plans, and when I told him I intended taking the train from Tjibadak to Batavia he told me to forget it. For one thing, I should never be able to board without an identity card, and for another there was no direct connection any more. A bridge had been blown by the Dutch army, and passengers had to cross by an emergency structure on foot, to board another train on the other side as far as Sukabumi.

But that was my chance! The passengers crossing that bridge would all have tickets and passes, and I figured I should be able to join them unnoticed and board the train to Sukabumi. Next morning, I said goodbye to my host, thanking him for his hospitality, and struck out through the rather more populated country. There was now a greater chance of an unwanted meeting with Japanese soldiers, but everything went well. After a hot, tiring walk I reached the destroyed railway bridge near Tjibadak and surveyed the situation.

It looked far from favourable.

The train from Tjibadak had arrived, but the one from Sukabumi had not. Moreover, there were Japanese sentries at the ends of the bridge and the passengers were not lined up as I had hoped, but were scattered about, not being allowed to cross.

There was a small roadside eating place, which I decided to visit. There, one of the few European travellers explained that everybody had to show both ticket and pass to get onto the bridge. My plan was worthless. So my informer advised me to try to board one of the demmos, or small three-wheeler buses, that drove to Sukabumi.

Not a bad idea, for although the journey was uncomfortable, I was soon in Sukabumi, near the railway station, where I could reappraise my situation with ease.

At the entrance to the station there was a Japanese sentry. I began to puzzle on how best to get past him when a car stopped nearby. Four Australian military men got out and made a lighthearted show of wanting to go into the station. The sentry shouted loudly, and a number of Japanese appeared from nowhere, running up to the Australians and arresting them roughly.

A discouraging sight. I retired to a small restaurant across the street and sat there reflecting on the possibilities. The place was crowded, and I found myself sitting next to a lady. We talked, and I learnt that she and her husband owned a fish shop in Sukabumi. They regularly bought fresh fish for the Japanese garrison, which meant they had frequently to travel by train to the fish market in Batavia. She and her husband had the necessary passes, but by now the Japanese knew her husband so well that he never had to show it.

I told her my problem, and she immediately solved it by offering to lend me her husband’s pass. He arrived himself a little while later, and without hesitation agreed to his wife’s idea.

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They were both on their way to Bogor, and we agreed that his wife and I should board the train first, and he would follow a few minutes later. So she and I entered the station, I showed her husband’s pass and bought a ticket to Batavia.

On the platform, one of those odd coincidences happened, and I almost collided with an Indonesian who happened to be a driver for Brunsman in Sukabumi. Brunsman was a transport company, and used to bring victuals up to the plant before capitulation. The driver knew me, of course, and greeted me in a friendly way.

Well, my temporary companion and I got on the train, and her husband joined us as planned.

It was a pity I had to give him back his pass, for if there was any control at Batavia station I should be caught. Nevertheless, I was on my way thanks to these two people, and I returned the document with heartfelt thanks. I wish only that I could remember their names; I should have liked to meet them again.

Before we parted company, they warned me that the station at Batavia would be crowded with Japanese, and I spent the rest of the journey contemplating the problem.

In uptown Batavia, called Weltevreden, I had the use of a small pavilion next to a large house belonging to the Billiton company (shareholders in our mining venture) and inhabited by one of their staff members and his family. As luck would have it, the train went straight through

Weltevreden and on into downtown Batavia.

I wondered now whether to hide in the lavatory as we pulled into the station, and just wait to see what happened. But now luck was with me! The train slowed at a railway crossing, enough for me to jump for it, and I took the barrier without a thought and a few minutes later was in my precious little pavilion in Weltevreden. Looking back, I can hardly believe it, but that is the truth.

I slept like a log that night, and reported to my neighbours in the Billiton house the next morning. From there I called Mr Fechner, my boss, to tell him I was in town.

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CHAPTER 7: THE PASS OF THE SMILE

Fechner and I spent hours discussing the situation, and I learnt that the Japanese economics authorities were negotiating the reopening of the mine. He himself had been questioned as to the whereabouts of David Kriek, and threatened with execution if he refused to tell them. Up until now, he had truthfully been able to say that he had no idea. I learnt too that Mr Weehuizen at Sukabumi had been similarly threatened and equally uninformative.

I had just returned to my pavilion after my meeting with Mr Fechner when there was a knock at the door. I was absolutely stupified to open it to Mrs Kimmenaede, previously the manageress of our pasanggrahan at Tjikotok and proprietress of the Grand Hotel Trianon at Tjibadak.

Mrs Kimmenaede told me her hotel was now the headquarters of the Japanese commander of the area, into which Tjikotok fell. There was a middle-aged Japanese lady at the headquarters, who was married to a German named Schwarz and acted as interpreter.

Mrs Kimmenaede got on well with this lady and having heard my name mentioned during a conversation between the translator and the commander decided later on to ask about me. It turned out that Effendi, the territorial who had fled from Gombong, was now working for the Japanese and had been told that I was on my way to Djakarta. His informant had been the Brunsman driver who had seen me at Sukabumi station. The Japanese had then put a price on my head of 500 florins... nothing to be proud of since I put a far greater value on it, but alas it was not up to me to make a counter offer.

So I consoled myself with the thought that for Effendi 500 florins would be a great deal of money. Which is why he had asked the Japanese for a warrant for my arrest in Djakarta.

As soon as Mrs Kimmenaede had learnt about this, she told the commander, through the interpreter, that she thought it completely unnecessary to have Effendi look for me since she was confident she could find me. I would, she had told him, report voluntarily on learning that I was wanted.

Her interference rather upset me, because I was not so sure that Effendi could find me, especially if I stayed indoors during the daytime. But I agreed to think about it, and give her my decision the next day, after having consulted Mr Fechner. His opinion was much the same as hers... that I should give myself up. It was easy for him to say that, I told him, since it was my head at stake, not his. But since he now knew my whereabouts, perhaps it was his too. In addition, I could no longer stay at the pavilion, since quite a few people knew I was there, yet I could think of no safer alternative.

Fechner told me something else to influence my decision, too: Mr Tauw, who had been selected as my successor at Tjikotok, was suffering from severe depression, and was undergoing treatment in Djakarta.

So there appeared to be nothing for it but to report to the Japanese commander at Tjibadak, no matter how dangerous the choice. Accordingly, I told both Fechner and Mrs Kimmenaede.

She and I were to take the first train to Tjibadak the next morning, according to her carefully planned scheme. As for the travel pass, I had none, so would pretend to be her son. An Indonesian lady-friend of hers, plus small granddaughter, would accompany us, and the four of us would act as one family. Furthermore, Mrs Kimmenaede would arrange a meeting for me with the Japanese interpreter, in which I was to be as amiable as I could, since first impressions, Mrs Kimmenaede was convinced, were the most important.

We encountered no problems at the station thanks to Mrs Kimmenaede’s document; it bore a long story that worked miracles.

In the train we managed to secure an entire compartment for ourselves... two benches each designed for three people, and a table... but just before the train pulled out a Japanese soldier joined our happy family group. Our immediate reaction softened quickly as we discovered he could speak a little Malay. He was interested to know about our family, about our respective ages in particular. Everything seemed quite normal.

In one adjacent compartment was a Mr Willekes, Apostolic vicar of Djakarta, whilst in the other, close to the door to the next carriage, was a well-known Sukabumi tailor who had recently acquired a whole new circle of clients: Japanese officers, for whom he was making uniforms. He had been given travel documents for Djakarta in order to purchase cloth.

Suddenly, the door to the next carriage opened and a Japanese officer appeared, dragging a long sword behind him, and followed by a dwarfish train controller... probably a Korean, who were rumoured to be even more cruel than the

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Japanese themselves.

Uttering a loud shriek that meant he wanted to exercise his authority, the officer picked on the tailor, who immediately produced his pass. The officer rewarded him with a heavy punch in the centre of his face. For a moment, I thought the tailor was going to die on the spot. Willekes paled, and was obviously hesitating as to whether he should interfere or not.

Thank goodness the train controller interrupted and told us all that the officer wanted to see tickets as well as passes. Now everybody hurried to produce both items, except for me, that is. And what would happen to me, who had no pass, if the tailor could be assaulted like that merely because he had failed to produce pass and ticket at the same time?

Mrs Kimmenaede whispered that I must just leave it to her, and I realized I had better keep quiet.

Well, the officer approached us, and I just pointed at “granny”, who smiled a lovely smile and showed her pass and our four tickets. The officer now examined us closely, and the goodwill we had bred with our Japanese soldier suddenly bore fruit. He took it upon himself to explain to the officer the inter-relations of our little family group. I assume he joined me with the Indonesian lady, pointing out the child as our daughter and Mrs Kimmenaede as my mother-in-law. The gestures were clear even if the Japanese was unintelligible.

The officer was apparently touched by our sweet little group, and marched off, a hint of a smile on his lips.

The reason for that smile became clear to me after the war, when Mrs Kimmenaede wrote to me: Kasama was sitting in his room listening to the radio. When I came running in he got a terrible fright, jumped from his chair, the radio fell over, and Kasama fled to the guard, crying for help. They caught me immediately and interrogated me in the Japanese fashion. I was not afraid, just kept on chattering, and told them I did not want to run away and if they wanted to chop off my head they should do so. The fellow with the spotlamp hit me, and I hit him back. This saved me from worse, since they now declared me stark raving mad! They gave me a tumbler full of champagne to drink; I swallowed it and asked for more. They gave me another bottle and sent me home. But before I left I asked them to destroy the report, which they did. You see, again I escaped by an inch!

Her “pass of the smile” was translated after the war and she told me in her letter that it said: Bearer of this document may act strangely sometimes; do not take her too seriously, she has a very comfortable hotel, so assist her as well as possible.

Anyway, the incident on the train encouraged us to face what lay ahead.

On arrival at Tjibadak, the Japanese interpreter took me to the commander, Captain Nakajama, who looked me over very carefully before uttering something in Japanese. The interpreter led me out of the room and told me I should be interrogated the following day.

So Mrs Kimmenaede showed me to my room, saying that she had invited Frau Schwarz to have a drink with us that evening, as we had agreed. And Frau Schwarz turned out to be very pleasant and willing to assist me in whatever way she could.

She told me about Effendi, too, saying that after his desertion from the Tjikotok territorials he had kept in regular touch with our head clerk, Subir, the foreman of the nationalist “Tiga A” movement at our plant.

She also said that the charges against me were mainly that my plant was a hiding place for English and Australian soldiers and I had fled on arrival of the Japanese for I had been missing for five days.

Well, I told her that I had not fled, but had gone to Djakarta as I had been ordered by my boss. As for the first part of the charge, surely not a single Australian or Britisher had been discovered by the Japanese when they arrived at the plant?

I repeated my story the next day, in the presence of the Japanese commander, explaining too that I had been returning to Djakarta in connection with negotiations between the Japanese economic authorities and Mr Fechner about the reopening of the mine.

To understand what happened next, a little history is needed, relating to the declaration of war on Germany by the Dutch, on 10 May 1940. That night, I was told to co-operate with the chief of police at Sukabumi by ordering all German members of my staff to prepare themselves and their families for internment. A very unpleasant task, since many had been good friends and colleagues for years. Among them was a Mr Von Blacha, our electrical engineer, and his wife.

The whole German group was taken to Sukabumi that night, to be interned in a camp that had been prepared

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already.

Little did I know how my action would come back on me.

After capitulation, the tables were turned, and the German women and children were released while the Dutch families were interned. And Mrs Kimmenaede told me that a Mrs Hubner was in charge of one internment camp.

And what did happen next, after my successful interrogation by Captain Nakajama, was that Mrs Schwarz was called into private consultation with the commander. Some little time later she came back to me with an expression on her face that could mean only trouble. But what?

Well, that afternoon, Mrs Von Blacha had talked to the camp manageress, Mrs Hubner, and told her of my part in the internment of the Germans. Mrs Hubner had subsequently called on Captain Nakajama, with the result that Mrs Von Blacha came that night to the Grand Hotel Trianon to charge me personally.

She was accompanied by another woman, and they informed Captain Nakajama about the stocks of petrol, hidden weapons, gold, secret radio transmitters, telephone connections to report on the advance of the Japanese troops, and last but not least the hiding of English and Australian military at the plant.

The story changed everybody’s mild disposition towards me into panic. Mrs Schwarz dared stay with us no longer, but made it abundantly clear that there was no chance of my returning to Djakarta. The commander was upset and very angry with her. And I had to report to him the next day.

A sentry was posted outside my door, but where could I run to this time, even if I could escape? That night I hardly slept. The idea of reaching Van der Post’s hideout kept coming to mind, but there was no way in which I could get there. And when I wasn’t thinking about that, I was thinking about Mrs Von Blacha, wondering how she had discovered all that information. Chances were that Effendi had told her, the traitor!

And on top of it all, I had to work out some way in which to justify what I had done. Probably best to admit to the hiding of the gold, now that the Japanese knew about it. The telephone links could hardly be hidden either. As for the wireless transmitter, I decided to claim that I had destroyed it, on orders from headquarters, immediately after capitulation. For the rest, I had to rely on my lucky star.

I reckoned the interrogation would be well larded with typical Japanese violence, and Mrs Kimmenaede tried to encourage me with kind words when she brought breakfast in to me the next morning.

Pretty soon after that, I was sent for by the commander. Apart from the interpreter and the commander, there was a young Japanese lieutenant in the room. His name was Oja Nage, I learnt later. I found myself talking to him quite easily, though am unable now to say whether we spoke Malay or English.

Then the commander started. I had lied, I had withheld information, he told me sternly. I denied both charges. Then he had Mrs Schwarz read out the list of accusations against me as suggested by Mrs Von Blacha.

So I admitted having taken petrol from unmanned petrol stations, for the use of our territorials. How could we have maintained peace and order in South Bantam until the arrival of the Japanese without petrol?

The same argument held for the weapons we received from neighbouring plantations, I said. The very same weapons we had handed over when the territorials were disarmed.

What about the stolen gold, asked the lieutenant. It had not been stolen at all, I replied. We had hidden it away merely to keep it out of the hands of the local gangs of robbers.

They seemed to accept my story. Then the captain and the lieutenant produced a map of South Bantam and began a lively conversation. I was unable to follow what they were saying, though suspected it had something to do with the “secret” telephone lines and the hidden gold.

Suddenly they pushed the map under my nose and told me to point out the locations of both gold and secret telephones, which, I should add, had been there for years. I managed to do so and the lieutenant marked the appropriate places with red crosses.

The interview was now over. And none of the physical assault I had expected had been dealt out. I thanked those lucky stars and went back to my room.

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CHAPTER 8: TJIKOTOK AGAIN, UNDER GUARD

An hour later and I was in a jeep. Beside me, a Japanese soldier with a large gun stuck between his legs. Next to the driver, Oja Nage, who told me we were off to Tjikotok. That was about the sum total of the conversation until we reached Pelabuhan Ratu.

There, the lieutenant ordered the driver to take us to the beach, where I was told to get out. To my surprise, the lieutenant, smiling encouragingly, handed me a loaded pistol “just in case we are attacked by robbers” as he put it.

Then my three travelling companions went for a walk along the beach of the magnificent Wijnkoops Bay, where I had spent so many pleasant moments in the past. I recalled the times I had been there for the day with my wife and children, others when I had been alone, perhaps when on a tiring trip to or from Batavia. The peace and the white-crested waves breaking on the shore were always enjoyable.

But now I was in a totally different situation, hardly one in which to indulge in philosophic contemplation. Except, perhaps: well here you are, David Kriek, a prisoner equipped with a loaded weapon, and what are you going to do about it? After all, this was war!

And however amiable they might have been towards me so far, their mood could, I knew, take a turn for the worse at any moment. I had heard too much about their atrocities to cherish any illusions.

On the other hand, I saw that this was a unique opportunity to escape. Or a trap, to test me?

Here on the beach, my chances would be slim, since there was a sentry at the barrier on the road just outside Pelabuhan Ratu. Alone, I should never get past. But a little way past that barrier was the curving mountain path, and that was where my chances lay.

So, to begin with, I should have to pass the barrier together with my Japanese companions, then eliminate the soldier at my side, rule out the lieutenant, and finally press my handgun into the driver’s neck to force him to stop the jeep. A scenario fit for a Hollywood movie!

And once free, I could risk meeting a gang of robbers and joining up with them. We should be able to kill and rob a few Japs between us, though there would always be the risk of their turning against me for no more reason than that I was a Dutchman. Their disposition was not too kind.

What was the alternative, I wondered. Only to join Van der Post. But this would eliminate Tjikotok for ever, as a link for No 43 Special Mission.

Well, the Japanese came back, we moved on, passed the barrier, and I finally decided to go to Tjikotok after all.

As we approached Pasir Telaga, where the area of our plantation began, I pointed out to the lieutenant where our first “secret” telephone connection was. We stopped at the barrier and were met by the mandur who was on duty. I told him to show the telephone to us and we followed him into the guardhouse... except for the driver, who stayed in the jeep.

The Japanese cut the telephone wire and removed the signal horn, presumably to serve as evidence or perhaps to prevent quick repair.

Then we continued, over the Tjibareno bridge and up our steep and curving road towards the plant. We reached Jan Mulder’s place (Jan was probably in some or other prisoner-of-war camp on the island) and repeated the procedure. The phone wire was cut, the horn removed.

To me, it all seemed a bit childish really; the connection would be repaired in a day or two at the most.

It also occurred to me that the people we passed would not know what to make of the situation, seeing me sitting there in the jeep, with the Japanese.

Before long, we were pulling up in front of my office, where, to my complete surprise, the Japanese sentry stopped the lieutenant, uttering some incomprehensible sounds. At the same time, people began to surround us; Mr Tauw, my successor, was among them. That struck me as odd, since Fechner had told me that Tauw was with his mother in Batavia; obviously, Tauw had returned to work without Fechner’s knowledge.

My first reaction was to ask about the gold. To my great relief I learnt that it had all been recovered. On orders from the Kempetai (equivalent to the German Gestapo) of Rangkasbetung the old mine shaft had been dewatered, the gold

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brought to the surface and sealed in the safe.

After a while, the Kempetai officer arrived and allowed me and the lieutenant to step inside the office, together with Tauw. I showed Tauw the handgun, and it surprised him as greatly as it shocked the natives; the result was a re-establishment of some of my lost authority.

The seals on the safe were broken by the Kempetai officer, and when the door was opened I was allowed to look at the gold bars, heaped neatly on top of each other. I was so relieved, I could have kissed each and every one of them; Oja Nage showed his delight by tapping my shoulder appreciatively, as though I had worked some kind of miracle...

The safe was closed and sealed again, with much ceremony, and the two officers retired into an adjoining room. The date was 27 April, 1942.

Nobody other than the two Japanese knows what they discussed, but it seemed to me that the sole reason for our visit to the plant was their lust for gold.

Later, Oja Nage told me very apologetically that I should have to spend the night in the barracks, and our return to Tjibadak would be only the next morning. At least I was allowed to send to the pasanggrahan for my dinner. Not a word had been said about stocks of weapons, radio transmitters, or English and Australian soldiers in the mountains. The benevolent attitude toward me gave me hope, until I managed to have a few words with some of my colleagues; the atmosphere at the plant was not so pleasant, and Subir and his Tiga-A movement had begun to stir more and more. The new manager seemed not to know how to cope. The next day, back at Tjibadak, Mrs Kimmenaede gave me my room again at the Grand Hotel Trianon, and soon Frau Schwarz visited me with happy news: the Captain had chosen to be satisfied with the results of the trip and would see me the next day.

I felt no confidence about the interview at all, until it began. The Captain treated me very courteously, thanking me for my co-operation. He even presented me with travel documents to allow me to return to Batavia.

Not one to let the grass grow under my feet, I thanked the ladies Kimmenaede and Schwarz, took a demmo to Sukabumi station, and boarded the first train to Batavia.

It was clear that my luck was still holding, though I did of course owe thanks to Mrs Kimmenaede for her initiative and courage. She had certainly influenced the Captain’s attitude towards me, making him much milder than I should have dared hope.

Rest and relaxation at last, I thought. I was wrong.

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CHAPTER 9: BATAVIA, AND OTHER PLACES

Fechner congratulated me on my safe return to Batavia and expressed pleasure at my having taken his advice. I told him I was happy, too.

He went on to describe his progress with the Japanese economists and the agreements that had been made relating to the exploitation of coal on the coast at Bajah. The agreement necessitated the maintenance of some of the company’s staff at Tjikotok, and Fechner wanted me to take charge there once again. The idea suited me well, considering my agreement with Colonel Van der Post; I should be able to keep in touch with his group after all.

It would be another gamble, but I kept on hoping that the two radio sets in the mountains would enable contact to be established between Van der Post’s people and those submarines alleged to be in the Indian Ocean. Perhaps I’d be able to keep myself out of the Japanese internment camps and even escape to Australia or Colombo and make myself useful over there.

During one of the economics meetings that I witnessed it became apparent that the Japanese supreme command wanted each of the larger islands of the Indonesian archipelago to be made economically self supporting. In other words, each was to become independent of imported raw materials, agricultural products, and other items, because of the vulnerability of the usual shipping routes.

As a consequence of the idea most Javanese steam locomotives then ran on wood, an elaborate and uneconomical business.

An important character who attended the meetings was a mining engineer by the name of Ikeda. He spent some days at Tjikotok later on, and discussed things quite openly on one occasion in Weehuizen’s house. He even told us something of his private life and showed us pictures of his family. He and his wife appeared to be close friends of the “Imperial Family in Tokyo”.

From what he told us, it was clear that the intentions of the Japanese supreme command excluded any re-establishment of the gold-mining activities on Java and Sumatra. Coal was much more important than gold to economic self-sufficiency.

So we were now at the starting point of the peculiar development that would see the fulfilment of a Baduj prophecy. Good coal had been discovered on Celebes, where our company owned a highly valuable development from which, in pre-war times, Java and other countries had received first-class coal. Of course, the company had long been aware of the large deposits of coal at Bajah, and in fact we had the concession to exploit them. However, the coal was of poor quality and in an unfavourable location. We were unwilling to mine it.

Not so the Japanese. They cared little about the quality, even less about the high cost of exploitation. They had to have fuel at any cost, and it was always more efficient to burn coal rather than wood. Cheap labour was plentiful, and the Japanese really had no choice but to extract Bajah’s feeble mineral offerings.

So the orders were given, and I received details from Mr Fechner. Weehuizen, at that moment in Bogor, had been told to make a list of the technical people and mining experts the job would need, and I took the opportunity to get to Bandung, collect my family, and move them to Batavia.

There we spent a few quiet days waiting for Weehuizen’s list (in which my name had been included) to be completed and approved by the Japanese. There were some financial arrangements to be agreed, too.

While we were waiting, we spent some time trying to find somewhere in Sukabumi for my family to live. The town was much easier to reach from Tjikotok than either Bogor or Batavia. Fortunately, a Swedish planter, Mr Munthe, was willing to rent us, very reasonably, his huge residence on the Selabintanah road.

Eventually, the Japanese gave us permission to return to Tjikotok, and I agreed with Weehuizen that I should first take my wife and children to Munthe’s residence at Sukabumi. Weehuizen would collect me there and take me on up to the plant by car.

The arrangements worked out all right, despite a rather unsettling experience in Sukabumi, which can be understood only with a little background to the political situation of the time.

It was pretty generally known that the administration in the Dutch East Indies faced some problems from nationalism, and a nationalist movement was agitating for complete independence from Holland. There were some, though not many, supporters amongst our native personnel, but the movement bothered us very little, thanks largely to our isolation.

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My head clerk Subir, an excellent worker, was a foreman of the movement, and his activities had led me on one occasion, before the war, to reprimand him. He had been distributing inflammatory pamphlets amongst the rest of our employees. I believe he took my warning in the spirit in which it was intended, and our personal relation was not harmed. For instance, we played badminton against each other on the festive opening of the court we had built for the employees, and Subir won the hard fought game. We both enjoyed the following party equally.

Even so, I kept an eye open after the invasion, knowing Subir would use to the nationalists’ advantage the Japanese anti-Dutch propaganda.

Anyway, when my family and I arrived in Sukabumi there was a telephone call for me, and I was told, in a mixture of Dutch and Malay, that Tuan Nippon, the Japanese boss, did not want me to return to Tjikotok. If I did return, the anonymous caller informed me, it would mean death... It seemed highly improbable that the caller was Japanese!

In fact, it was quite likely that the caller was either Subir or one of his colleagues. He understandably did not want me anywhere near the plant. What was less clear was how the news of my forthcoming return to the mine had reached the plant so much before me, unless Tauw had been spreading it about. Fechner had warned me that the plant had become a fertile breeding ground for rumours about anything and everything.

Rather than worry my wife, I kept quiet about the threat. And perhaps because of Fechner’s prediction, I called him to tell him what had come about, and of my suspicions.

So according to plan, I left my family in Sukabumi and arrived at Tjikotok again, in the company of Weehuizen and his wife.

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CHAPTER 10: IN JAPANESE SERVICE

Subir had certainly ingratiated himself with my fates, whether or not he had had anything to do with that threatening telephone call. On arrival at Tjikotok, I discovered that he had put one of his men’s large Chinese family into our living quarters. And learnt from the company’s doctor, Van Noorden, that the place resembled a madhouse.

Tjikotok had become the home of a corps of Japanese sappers,under the command of a captain. Their purpose: the upgrading of the footpath between Tjikotok and Bajah so that it could support motor traffic. In addition, there were quite a few repairs needed to the various roads serving the plant.

The sappers worked efficiently and bothered our employees little. They were quartered in the lower part of the camp, and their captain made sure there was no meddling with the affairs of the plant itself. The situation was ripe for Subir’s fertile schemes, and he had gained control of the entire plantation, terrifying the other staff and Tauw as well.

There was even a plan that all Dutch male employees should be evicted, leaving their wives and houses to be shared among the other employees. Several of the executive functions had been promised to certain people; general control would be in Subir’s hands.

There were several problems Subir needed to overcome before he could implement the plan, Van Noorden told me. Though the problems still existed, the situation had become unbearable, and tension was running high.

Van Noorden’s news convinced me that Subir had been behind the telephone call, at least. In pre-war days, as I have said, one of our trucks would be driven to Batavia once or twice a month, to deliver the bullion, which would be shipped from Tandjong Priok for refining in the USA.

The truck would generally return with spare parts, tools,materials, and other equipment.

Now there was no more bullion being produced, but the regular transport of other goods between Tjikotok and Batavia continued throughout the Japanese occupation.

On my return to Tjikotok, I found that Subir had travelled on one of the trucks with f.500 in his pocket for Mrs Tauw in Batavia. The old lady had received but f.300, and complained to Fechner. I confirmed with Tauw that he really had sent f.500 with Subir.

One of the plant employees was an uncle of Subir’s who, being the eldest of the family, had some influence over his nephew. I told the old man about the missing f.200, and explained that the Japanese would take drastic action against Subir should they find out. Their philosophy of punishment was that a thief should have one or both hands cut off. Whether or not the Japanese actually practised such forms of punishment I cannot say; the mere rumour was enough to terrify most would-be wrongdoers into law-abiding ways.

Anyhow, I convinced the old man that Subir was in trouble and I was going to lay charges. It was quite late in the day, and I said I should visit the chief of police the next morning. My intention was that the old man would tell Subir, who would panic.

My hopes worked out well, and the next morning bore no signs of Subir anywhere, nor any of his three most troublesome colleagues. In fact, I never saw any of them again, though I did hear that Subir had gone to Bandung and teamed up with Effendi in a campaign of lies against me. Thank goodness the attitude of the chief of police remained constantly loyal, even after the arrival of the Japanese. He deserves my thanks for his co-operation and support on several occasions, and I believe he was as happy as I was to see Subir’s departure. I slept the first night in the empty house of chief engineer Van Loenen, a reserve officer who had been called into service on the outbreak of war and who was now in a prison camp somewhere. His house was in a favourable, even strategic location, at the highest point of the development, just where the footpath to Bajah began. The spot was just outside the circle of nightly Japanese patrols, and so I should quite easily be able to keep in touch with Van der Post’s party.

The next morning, the doctor and I had a serious conversation with Tauw, who was in a highly nervous state and refusing to return to Batavia. He was not open to reason. From his confused stories I gathered that he had been taken up the mountain by some Japanese soldiers and told to lead the way to Van der Post’s party. They failed to make any contact, and the Japanese officer decided that further pursuit was too dangerous, given the impenetrable nature of the terrain. On the way down, they had come across the bodies of two Australian soldiers at Tjirotan, their throats slashed. The gruesome sight had sent Tauw into a state of shock, and he was also suffering badly from the pressures exerted by Subir and his nationalists.

He absolutely insisted that he had never met Van der Post. L.H. Vincken, our mining foreman, told me that the

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Japanese officer in charge of that trip to Tjirotan had said that Van der Post could hardly go anywhere and would simply be left to starve, whereupon everybody had returned to the plant.

As a matter of fact, Tauw had been told by the Japanese to write a note to Colonel Van der Post ordering him to surrender. According to Vogt, they were showered with such notes from the very beginning; Van der Post referred to them as “love letters”. Anyway, Van Noorden convinced Tauw that psychiatric help was needed, and promised to give him a letter to take to a specialist. In addition, I pointed out that a ship could have only one captain, and there was no doubt as to the opinion of the board of directors.

Some hours went by, even so, before he finally agreed to leave for Batavia, in Weehuizen’s company, for the medical care he so obviously needed. Tauw became very emotional, and the journey was plagued by problems. Weehuizen exercised a great deal of patience and gentle persuasion before he finally got his charge into the loving care of his mother in Batavia. Although Van Loenen’s house had the advantages I have already explained, some disadvantages soon made themselves obvious. My house servants would go to their homes at night, after clearing up the dinner things. I dared not risk their becoming aware of my nightly contacts with Vogt’s messenger, and because of the chance of the unexpected, I took to sleeping in the outhouse, clandestine gun under my pillow.

The messenger would wait until all the lights in the main house had been dimmed, which indicated that there were no unwanted guests around, and then come to the outhouse.

Another reason for sleeping out there was that thieves and burglars would be unlikely to find me.

One night, Van Noorden and a few of our staff were with me,chatting about this and that, when we heard the sound of a military patrol coming up the slope. We were unable to figure out what the Japanese wanted, because, as I have explained, the house was outside their area of patrol.

There was a knock at the door and a Japanese lieutenant came in. He brought a message from the captain to the effect that it was ridiculous, my living in the biggest and most beautiful house while the captain lived somewhere down the hill. After all, I was the vanquished, he the victor. I must report to the captain at 11 o’clock the following morning.

I promised to be there, but added that the lieutenant should tell his master that, were I forced to vacate the house, I’d be unable to stay on as manager of the plant; my eviction would mean such loss of face for me in the eyes of the natives that further management would be impossible. An internment camp would be the preferable option.

Off went the lieutenant. My colleagues asked me if I had lost my mind. They predicted a terrible beating for me, or worse. I was not too optimistic myself, but had decided to gamble on the eastern mentality and would go through with my decision. And anyway, what I had said was more than likely the truth. The next morning I reported at the captain’s humble residence as instructed, and was given a chair in the best room. There was a terrifying silence about the place, as if everybody in the houseãd ãwas going on tip toe. Finally, a door opened, and in walked a Japanese with a trolley loaded with glowing charcoal and some long iron skewers on a metal plate. Not a reassuring sight!

Then here came the captain, greeting me and taking a seat in front of me. He was followed by a lieutenant to act as interpreter.

The silence was broken finally by the lieutenant who, on a sign from the captain, told me that my reply to the captain’s message had been insolent; I deserved to be punished severely. However, the captain was a reasonable man, and understood my work and the difficult position in which I found myself. Even so, he could not accept the existing situation.

I would be allowed to stay on at the top of the hill, but the captain simply had to move to a more suitable residence. It seemed fair enough, and I suggested that he might like to move to my old house,which boasted a large garden and fish pond. It was currently occupied by Thio Ben San, one of Subir’s most faithful followers. From this house, I said, though it was lower than my present quarters, the captain would enjoy a magnificent view of the bay at Bajah.

The captain, thank goodness, liked the idea and accepted it immediately.

I was very happy and should have liked to have applauded his decision, but instead the captain clapped his hands. The door opened again and in came servants to serve dinner! Large dishes loaded with all kinds of delicacy were brought in and I was invited to share the meal. For the first time in my life I tasted sukiyaki; sake flowed generously. So now the captain was my closest neighbour. Even so, there was enough space between the two houses for me to continue with my undercover role undisturbed.

One day, two officers of the Kempetai arrived and ordered me to break the seals on the safe. The gold was removed, and I was given a receipt in the form of a Japanese statement. I still have it, and it reads, in translation:

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On the 15th day of the sixth month the undersigned made Kriek open the safe of the gold mine for business reasons.15th day of 6th month 1942 The Commander of Malingping

Some days later, the Weehuizens and I were about to leave the tennis court after a few games when another little incident occurred. There were a few Japanese sappers working on the road, toiling with sand and heavy rocks under the burning sun, and they had obviously been aware of our sporting activity. Suddenly, one of them came running down to remonstrate with us, for enjoying ourselves while they slaved. He approached me with obvious hostility – picking on me rather thanãd ãWeehuizen because I was the shorter, perhaps – while his colleagues stopped work to watch the confrontation.

The Weehuizens made to leave, indicating that I should go with them. Instead, I grabbed Weehuizen’s racket and offered it to the Japanese, inviting him to play. He had no idea how to react to my unexpected move, and, flustered, refused to take the racket. We took advantage of his confusion and left the court without any more ado.

I complained that evening to the captain, saying that one of the sappers had threatened us. He roared with laughter at my story, but the joke was completely lost on me. Anyway, I was glad that the incident had not developed into anything serious. I had some sympathy for the sapper’s feelings, since he was one of the victors while we were the beaten enemy; it was ridiculous that we should have fun while they sweated so hard. One night, soon after my return to the plant, Vogt’s messenger brought me a small package containing a broken radio valve and a note asking for a replacement. I told the messenger when he could expect me to obtain one, and began wondering who would fetch one, and how, from Sukabumi.

I would have given the task to Brunsman, our transport man,had he still been at Tjikotok. The Armenian who ran “State Supply” was now delivering rice to the plant, but I dared not trust him. Then there were the ladies at Bumi Resni to whom the Japanese had given permission to buy vegetables and other necessities for the families still living at the plant; once a week Van Damme went to collect the goods by truck.

I put my trust in Van Damme and somehow he managed to obtain the valve without anybody’s finding out about it. Vogt sent for the item as arranged, though I never discovered whether the troubles with the radio equipment were solved.

As for the daily routine at the plant, I had practically nothing to do with the coal-mining effort. The Japanese at Bajah managed the project, while all we had to do was deliver an electrical supply to them. Which meant we had to maintain the hydroelectric plant.

Of course, there were strict limitations on our use of the power. Street lamps had been permanently put out of action, and Tjikotok was no longer the fisherman’s beacon it had been; that honour was now Bajah’s, just as predicted by the Baduj.

Once, on my way to Tjitjatrap, I bumped into Van Noorden, who was all alone and on foot. I asked him where he was off to, and if anything was wrong. He told me it was Van der Post’s party. He could face the situation no longer, up in the mountains; there was no medicine, no disinfectant, no hope. The sanitary conditions were appalling, he explained, and many of the party were now gravely ill and beyond his help. His advice, he said, was always ignored and he had come to the conclusion that he would be of more service at Tjikotok.

My own trips up to see Vogt and Van der Post continued to be disguised as hunting excursions, since the Japanese were apparently quite convinced by my explanations. The captain understood my passion for the activity, and realized, too, that hunting was sometimes a necessity.

Around Tjikotok there was precious little left to hunt, but the area of Tjipitjung and Gombong was rich in game, especially wild boar, that damaged the farmers’ precious crops. Packs of feral dogs sometimes affected the safety of the two places as well, and night watches were stood, simply to chase off the offending animals; there were not enough hunters for a proper drive to be organized.

Another animal that raised concerns about safety was the spotted panther, a regular sight around Gombong. A number of the staff housesat Tjirotan were on stilts against the hill, near the edge of the forest. For some time, the chickens and rabbits kept by the occupants had been a favourite attraction for the panthers.

The predators endangered not just the domestic animals, but the children too. There were complaints that the children could not walk to school safely, since the footpath went through the woods,where two black panthers had been noticed. Even so, I was asked to do something about the problems only when a small dog owned by one of the employees was taken by a black panther one night.

My young son had just been given a pet goat for his birthday, and I borrowed the animal, put it inside a small mesh-

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sided cage, and drove with it to Tjirotan. Near our surveyor’s house I found just the right spot: a rather flat piece of land, in front of the building, at the end of which I placed the goat in its cage. Schweitzer, the surveyor, sat with me on the front porch, waiting for the panthers to show themselves. He told me that his dog, now lying between us, had had a close shave with one of the panthers, but had managed to escape to safety, losing no more than a chunk of fur from his tail.

To our left was a thick, impenetrable hedge, about two metres in height, giving us a sense of security. Just behind the caged goat was the footpath leading into the woods and to the school. The darkness of the tropical night began closing in fast, and the crickets chirped as loudly as a choir. A night bird shrieked from time to time.

Now it was dark, and hours passed. I began to think that the night was going to be a long one indeed, when suddenly the dog became very restless, scratching himself and whining softly. I realized with a shock that all the noises of the night had stopped completely, and there was dead silence; the night seemed to have drawn a deep breath.

A moment later, and an anxious bleat from the goat broke the quiet. It was followed by the sound of a blow against the cage. I switched on a spotlamp and caught the glittering reflection from four fiery eyes, two each side of the cage. I squeezed of my first shot at the beast on the right, and saw the other bound back past the cage and along the path into the woods. I fired a second shot after him.

Once again there was a dead silence.

After reloading the rifle, Schweitzer and I, flashlight in hand, carefully walked towards the goat. We checked that it had suffered no harm, and walked a few steps further to the black outline of the first panther. We were cautious, I might add, and I kept the gun aimed at the beast in case it still had enough life in it for one last attack. But it was stone dead; the bullet had hit him right between the eyes.

We walked further, along the footpath, and there was a trail of blood. So I had hit the second one, too! But the trail was difficult to follow in that thick bush, which soon became impenetrable. We decided to go back to the house, and Schweitzer promised to have another go in the morning, with the help of a few natives. He did so, I learnt, but without any result.

I also learnt that he had discovered, in the light of day,that the two panthers had actually jumped the two- metre-high hedge to land a few metres away from the porch on which we had been sitting; no wonder the dog had been agitated!

Well, no panthers were seen around the area again, and the children were able to get to school and back in safety. And I had the dead panther as a souvenir; a magnificent pure black specimen, with none of the usual spots. One of the employees, Mr Jansen, skinned the ãanimal for me in exchange for the carcass. Panther meat is considered a delicacy by many, and Jansen was a connoisseur.

The skin was prepared properly in Singapore, and decorated our living room for some years, until the Japanese confiscated it.

The incident added to my reputation as a hunter, which now led to a somewhat tedious experience. It began when the Japanese captain sent for me and introduced me to a sergeant, the commander of a party of explosives experts, whose assistance was needed in the road-building effort.

Some of the party, it transpired, wished to go to Gombong for a fishing trip up the Tjimadur. I had fished there myself, with my children. However, the sergeant told me in fairly good Malay that he wanted to shoot boar. I was to take him to a suitable spot, but one from which he could return to Tjikotok in the afternoon.

I explained that a drive was the best way in which to hunt the animals in daylight, and only after some quite extensive preparation. But he insisted. He would should boar, with me as his only companion, while the others fished. He let me choose from a generous supply of hunting rifles and we departed for Gombong, fishermen and all.

None of the anglers had any rods or other equipment apart from a few landing nets, but I did not realize why. Anyway, we were off, and the sergeant and I left the truck before Gombong while the others continued to the beneficiation plant on the river. We were to meet there later. The sergeant and I went in search for a wooded area, where we wandered around for a couple of hours without seeing game of any kind, let alone boar. Only some fresh boar tracks.

As time went by, my companion became progressively more nervous,consulting his watch more and more often. It became obvious that he wanted to go back. So I walked ahead, leading the way. Passing a small ravine, I spotted a wow-wow monkey in a tree, observing us calmly. These monkeys are tame and gentle animals, and were popular amongst the natives as pets for their children. Suddenly a shot rang out and the wow-wow tumbled out of the tree and

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down into the ravine. The Japanese looked at me impassively and walked on, as if he had done nothing more than shoot an apple.

Usually, I can control my feelings very well, but now I wanted to shoot his brains out. His act had been senseless, and nothing to do with hunting.

We exchanged not a word for the rest of the walk to the plant,where the fishermen were waiting. They had caught a good quantity offish with those nets. But then I learnt how. They had gone upstream to the large reservoir near our hydroelectric plant, where they had fished with the aid of hand-grenades, risking serious damage to the concrete.

I reported the technique to the captain when we returned to Tjikotok; he was suitably alarmed and that style of fishing was never used again. As for Van der Post, his group retreated further into the jungle,and contact became more and more difficult. Which is why I cannot say exactly when he surrendered to the Japanese. In his secret reportÇ The Story of No. 43 Special Mission Dictated statement by Lieutenant-Colonel L.J. Van der Post. WO 106 5035 X/K5502 (See Chapter 13)Ç he says “towards June”, but there is evidence that it was April 1942; we learnt about it in May.

Meanwhile, more and more Japanese came to the plant, on their way to Bajah, most of them, including an economist, who invited me once to the house in which he was billeted.

His name was Ikoba, and he had lived on Java for many years already, spoke Dutch tolerably well, and was not militarily minded in the slightest. However, he had been given military rank and sent to Tjikotok as a clerk.

At first, I was suspicious of his motives, but as I got to know him it became clear that he had no faith at all in ultimate Japanese victory. He supported this opinion by citing several examples of severe setbacks to the Japanese effort in the Pacific.

So when he did invite me to his house, I decided to accept. He showed me an unsealed and excellent radio set that enabled him to listen to foreign news broadcasts regularly. He was completely up-to-date with the true course of the war.

I listened to the broadcasts myself for a while, but the risk was high, and I settled for Ikoba’s reports instead. I passed on his news to Van Noorden, Van Damme, and Goekoop, who in turn passed it on further, thus keeping everybody’s spirits up.

But back to Van der Post’s surrender. Without him, the group carried on further into the jungle, under command of a captain Cook and our Paul Vogt. The men had split up into groups of ten, each with its own leader. Contact thus became impossible for me, and I became seriously concerned for their continued survival.

My fear was soon justified. The captain told me one day that high-ranking visitors were on their way from Serang and I should expect the worst. The other Japanese were visibly nervous.

Our visitors included the chief of the Kempetai of West Java, a Colonel Horeje or Onoje... I do not remember the name clearly... a powerful and much feared figure.

I was unhappy about the idea of this man’s making the long journey from Serang, via Batavia, Bogor, Pelabuhan Ratu, and the tiresome road up to Tjikotok, just for a talk with me. Perhaps his visit was connected with the two dead Australians at Tjirotan. Or something else. Anything, I hoped, rather than a grilling about Van der Post’s party. But I heeded the captain’s warning and prepared myself for the worst. The limousine arrived, Japanese flag flying, and the colonel was given a ceremonious welcome by the captain, who had exchanged his usual shabby outfit for his Sunday best uniform, complete with trailing sword. He had even organized a guard of honour from his men. The colonel was accompanied by the governor of Serang, who was a member of Java’s reigning family. His presence reassured me, for some reason; perhaps I saw him subconsciously as an ally, perhaps because he greeted me in Dutch.

I showed the party to my office, where they sat around the table while I served cold drinks... much to their appreciation,after that long and tiring journey.

Meanwhile, the colonel and the captain had been talking in Japanese, which I still did not understand at all.

And now it was my turn. Through the governor, the colonel told me that there had been a number of complaints made about me, concerning the Australian and English soldiers hiding in the mountains north of Tjirotan. It was considered very serious, and I had better be honest and confess the whole story.

I didn’t like that idea at all! And as they had not shown me even the slightest shred of evidence I decided to claim that I had never met a single Australian or Englishman at the plant. The captain,who had now lived at Tjikotok for some time, could surely confirm my claim, I said.

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There followed a heated conversation between the two Japanese, and they then told me that the foreigners were not hiding at Tjikotok but higher up in the jungle, past Tjirotan. Well, I got a brainwave, and invited the visitors to follow me into the adjoining drawing office. On the wall was a large map of our concession, showing some 170 000hectares in all. I asked the colonel to point out where he thought the fugitives were hiding and, after some hesitation, he pointed to a spot near Sangabuana.

I was indignant, and said that, since I had never set foot near the place, I could hardly be held responsible for an unknown group of people hiding there. Had they been close at hand, I said, on the plant or in the immediate neighbourhood, then it would be different and I should be willing to accept responsibility. But not for a group in an area that could be reached from any direction other than that of Tjikotok!

I felt that the governor might support my argument; indeed,he accepted my story and said so to the colonel, who slowly began to look less grim-faced. After studying the map a little longer,he turned to me and offered his hand. I cannot remember the exact conversation after all these years, but it boiled down to the fact tha the accepted my tale and considered me innocent. The governor added that he himself was glad of my innocence.

Thank goodness the colonel wanted to be back in Buitenzorg that night; he said goodbye and left me to break the good news of my investigation to my anxious colleagues. In the middle of that September, Ikoba told me that a group of English and Australian soldiers had surrendered from their hiding place in the mountains and been taken to Serang. This, then, was the end of Van der Post’s mission, and the realization hit me like a whiplash. I managed to keep my feelings from Ikoba as I thought about all the effort,frustration, and sacrifice that had gone into the exercise. And what would happen to Paul Vogt and the others?

I knew my hopes of flight to Colombo or Australia had come to nought, that there was no hope now of any contact with Allied submarines. Maybe there would still be some purpose for me at Tjikotok,but no further thoughts of escape.

Vogt later reported that there were only nine of them left when they surrendered; five English, three Australians, and Vogt himself. They had agreed to surrender when they discovered that the Japanese were planning to revenge themselves on the population of Bantam in general and the Europeans of Tjikotok in particular. Vogt wrote of the Kempetai at Serang: “...he placed the point of his bayonet between my shoulderblades, while the second one stood in front of me and placed his bayonet to my chest. I was to confess speedily that the Europeans at Tjikotok had assisted me continually. If I refused to confess, the soldiers would make the thrust. I kept denying that I had ever been in touch with the Europeans referred to, after the capitulation. Help from them had never been received.” I cannot be grateful enough for Vogt’s courage and resolution. He went on to state that he had also been accused of hiding gold worth more than two-million guilders somewhere in the bush. That can only have been the gold that was hidden in the mine.

However, I must point out that Vogt never mastered the Dutch language too well, and where I quote him I have taken the liberty of correcting serious errors of language.

(In his original Dutch manuscript, David Kriek leaves these errors as Vogt wrote them and adds his own interpretation in parentheses. It is impossible to translate Vogt’s errors into English, and so only Kriek’s interpretations appear here. They are both few and insignificant to the overall intent of Vogt’s report. PJC)

For instance, he wrote that some ten members of his group were in a condition that would not let them survive the rigorous existence in the jungle and had therefore been transported to the hospital at Tjikotok, during which journey two had died. In fact, not one of his group was brought to the hospital and the two who died were actually making for the south coast when they were set upon and killed by the natives along their way. They were captain Guild and lieutenant Stuart.

It might be argued that the two dead men found by Tauw at Tjirotan were members of a party on their way to Tjikotok, but that does not explain what became of the rest of them.

Anyway, in a later report, Vogt wrote:

“As for the first contact with Colonel Van der Post it should be said that D.W.N. Kriek, manager of the mining company Tjikotok has made the above-mentioned contact possible by sending someone to me with the request to go to Tjikotok as soon as possible, because captain T Christoffel, appointed guide by General Staff, refused to co-operate and returned to Bandung. (See Chapter 13 paragraph 15.) After that, Mr D.W.N. Kriek did everything to assist us, which was very important for No.43 Special Mission. After having equipped several hiding places with food, ammunition, weapons, etc, and having speedily built a useful hut for the sick, where they could be treated until we had helped them through their crisis, and while the Japs started looking for us, Col Van der Post exempted all the Aussies and American troops that had joined us, to surrender to the Japs or to find their own way at their own risk in the direction of Australia;submarines would be at their disposal, at certain times, in certain places, either this, or stay with us and accept

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all eventual consequences.

“After several weeks, Guild and Stuart decided to try for Australia. Col Van der Post granted me permission to take the two officers to Wijnkoops Bay, passing villages and rivers because I knew the population and their language, the area and also the robber gangs, and because I was convinced those two would never succeed along a normal route. Moreover, there were gangs, organized by the Japs, who had orders to track down any strangers, and permission to kill them or hand them over to the Japs. Capt Guild and lieutenant Stuart found they could not accept my help, because they thought my presence with the remaining group to be of overriding importance. I then sketched a map of the area and urged them not to leave the route along the river villages and never to take ordinary roads. They were well equipped with food, weapons, and medicines, and we had set the day, hour, and place at Wijnkoops Bay for a submarine. We had made connections and they had made promises. In case of failure I advised them to take the same route back. Then lieutenant Stuart handed mean open letter to his mother in Australia. This was the most beautiful letter I had ever read, but I destroyed it along with other documents before we surrendered to the Japs. In this letter lieutenant Stuart said goodbye to his mother, incase he did not return, and he told her that all that might happen to him was great, no matter what happened. Stuart supposed I should take the letter to his mother personally if I might survive, and asked me to do what I could to help his mother.

“No more was said and Capt. Guild and Lt. Stuart left for Wijnkoops Bay without any native knowing. Some 18 days later I learnt that the two officers had left the village to try to spend the night in an old guard hut on a ricefield. That was their second day. During that night the two Australians were attacked, killed, robbed, and cut to pieces by a well-armed gang of robbers. Some of the robbers got wounded in the process, which was the cause that I came to know about the tragic event later on. (See Chapter 13 paragraph 21.) The Japs killed members of the gang, because of their plundering the plants.”

So ran Vogt’s emotional tale. Then at the end of November, Weehuizen and I were sent for by the captain. He told us that the next day we should both be sent to the internment camp at Bogor. We wondered why only us two, but could elicit no reasonable explanation.

And so it was that we arrived at camp Kedung Badak at Bogor.

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CHAPTER 11: INTERNED!

“Colourless the chain of days behind grim barbed wire.

Questions from the hearts arise

What will happen next;

Together we have stayed

Like a herd in a stable.

The battle to come

is to survive this misery. “

(From a poem by Nico de Bruin)

We were welcomed by many an old friend, including Mr Coert, who was the former governor of Serang, and captain Vellenga. I learnt that Vellenga and Willemse de Krijger had, while I was in Batavia, searched up in the mountains and made contact with Colonel Van der Post. Neither had stayed there long, but decided to make for Pelabuhan Ratu, ending up in Sukabumi. Vellenga had been taken to hospital there and then gave himself up to the Japanese for internment at Bogor, claiming to be a planter called Smit. His adjutant was also interned at Kedung Badak. Naturally, everybody was keen for news from the outside. They had all thought I was dead; the most improbable stories about my doings had reached the camp, and I was very happy that they were wrong! Those whom I could trust I told about the course of the Pacific war, just as Ikoba had told me, and I told them about the prophecies of the Baduj

Then after two days in the camp, two Japanese came for me in a car, with orders for my return to Tjikotok. I was given no time to pack anything, and had to join them in the car at once. Not a word was spoken throughout the entire journey, and we drove non-stop apart from a short break at the Pelabuhan Ratu barrier. Once at the plant, I was taken direct to a Japanese sergeant, who had a Chinese as an interpreter, though this man spoke only a few words of Malay. He managed to tell me what the matter was: a complaint had been received that I had stolen about f.30 000 in hard, pre-war currency, and given it to Van der Post for the purchase of food and soon.

I knew immediately what it was. Some eight months previously I had given Van der Post a sum of f.7500 from our territorials’ resources, so that he could buy what he needed for his party. And I gave f.300 out of my own pocket to an American officer called MacDonald (not to be confused with the British MacDonald whose task it had been to collect stray soldiers and take them to Garut). As soon as Van der Post had heard about the latter donation, he demanded the f.300 from MacDonald for his own group. Anyway, Van der Post had given me a receipt for the entire amount, a receipt that seemed a rather risky possession. Which is why I had told Goekoop about the money and then destroyed the evidence.

I still believe my action had been correct, but now I had a problem.

There was no need for me to consult to books to be sure that we had never experienced such a high cash balance. The bookkeeping had been the responsibility of our man De Graaf, but he was no longer around and I had no idea where he might be. But the books were there, and creating my problem. Fact was that separate books were kept for income and expenditure, and the cash balance could be determined only by subtracting the total of the one book from that of the other. However, there was no way in which I could get the interpreter to understand.

The Japanese was equally unwilling to comprehend, and kept pointing to the total of about f.30 000 that appeared in both books, claiming that the amount had vanished.

Discouraged, I showed the interpreter some subtractions on a piece of paper, but it was clear that he knew nothing about bookkeeping. Then an idea hit me. I asked the interpreter to have the Japanese send for the Chinese shopkeeper, trusting that the man would have enough knowledge to help me out of my predicament. The Japanese agreed, and the Chinaman was soon looking through the books and listening to my explanation. As soon as he understood the situation, he started a vehement argument with the interpreter, who then started talking loudly to the Japanese. It was clear that they wanted to find me guilty, but eventually had to acknowledge that they had been misinformed.

My relief was considerable when they told me to go back to the internment camp, and they rushed me to the car before I had a chance to thank the shopkeeper. Many months later I discovered from Goekoop that he had told one of

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my staff, a Mr Morbeck, an assistant supervisor, about my financial dealings with Van der Post, and I imagine Morbeck briefed Sair, the uncle of Subir, and the story must have thus reached Japanese ears. Well, I had hardly got over the shock of the confrontation at Tjikotok when the Japanese came for me once again. This time, they took Weehuizen too. The Indonesian driver was none other than our faithful old Ijah from the plant; next to him sat a Japanese officer, while we sat in the back.

Strangely, Weehuizen, the driver, and I were allowed to converse freely. Ijah told us that all Dutch houses had been searched by the Japanese. We speculated on all the things with which the Japanese might charge us, composing the arguments we might use during the interrogation we expected, to ensure that we did not contradict each other.

Of course, we both assumed that the interrogation would relate to the business matters with which Weehuizen and I had been involved, and it was quite easy to pick out the points that might have displeased the Japanese. One such was the so-called support fund, a social measure that the Japanese hated because they always connected the idea somehow with illegal activities; the death sentence was mandatory.

This worried us. While we were living at the plant we had always reckoned with the eventual possibility of Japanese internment and had therefore put money aside to look after our families. The fund had started with a donation by one of the members of the General Agricultural Syndicate, who had given a substantial sum to Weehuizen to start things off. All European staff had subsequently contributed to the fund a certain percentage of their salaries.

Before I was interned, I gave the money chest to one of the women for safekeeping, while to another I gave the key in a sealed envelope in which the contents of the chest were summed up.

The difficulty appeared to be in accounting for the original sum donated by the syndicate, since this was not mentioned in the inventory. So Weehuizen and I agreed that, should we be asked about the money, we’d say that we both had deposited our bonuses from 1940 into the fund, bonuses that had been granted at the end of 1941.

Our fears proved correct. During the house searches, the money chest had been discovered and the woman who was in charge of the key and inventory had been forced to hand them over.

Another problem was that Vincken had had two guns in his house, and his wife had managed to dispose of only one while the Japanese searched the place. Vincken talked his way out of the situation by saying that he was very fearful of the gangs of robbers, a motive that even the Japanese found credible; they let him get away with it. He wrote about the event later:

“There we were, without any territorials, without weapons, in the middle of an area in which gang robbery was the order of the day. Fortunately, I was in possession of two guns, which were hidden in a closet. Though my wife said I should hide them outside the house, I never bothered to move them. One night we sat listening to the radio, and suddenly heard loud noises on the front porch, and shouting. That must be the Japs, I thought. I called to my wife: “Hurry, throw the guns out of the window!” There was insistent knocking on the front door. I waited before opening up, to give my wife the opportunity to throw the guns into the bushes. The door was barely open when two Japs stormed into the room. Behind them came the chief of police, who addressed me by saying that the ‘gentlemen were looking for weapons. Did I have any in the house? “No!” I said, but at the same moment saw my wife, one of the guns in her hand, standing by the bedroom window. I was at a loss for words, but called out to her: “Bring us the gun, the gentlemen are searching for weapons!” She was all shivers when she came out of the bedroom, and one of the Japs snatched the Colt from her hands. Without batting an eyelid, the chief of police asked for the ammunition. I went to the closet in the bedroom to get the bullets. At the same time I saw the other gun, wrapped in a cloth and lying on the window seat. For just one second the thought occurred to me that I should hand over this gun too, as I was not sure the Japs had not seen it there. But for some reason, I did not. Meanwhile, the children had woken up and started to cry, which gave me a reason to close the bedroom door. I gave the box of ammunition to the Jap, who responded in Broken Malay with: “Bagus, bagus, djangantakut orang Nippon” (fine, fine, don’t be afraid of the Japanese) while patting himself on the chest. This little ceremony came to an end and the chief of police made a strong attempt to leave. The Japs followed hesitantly. We were very relieved, but my wife was still trembling. When she had recovered, she told me that when she was about to throw the gun outside she had seen ten or more Japanese faces on the other side of the window. She managed to interrupt her action and instead closed the window. As she had not be able to get rid of both guns she put one on the window seat. I kept wondering why the chief of police had not reacted to my lie, when I had told him I had no guns. From our front porch we watched the Japs searching Ben Lok’s house, which was empty apart from his nephew, who acted as caretaker. My wife went to the telephone to warn all the other Europeans at the plant. I don’t think any more weapons were found, at least I never heard so. But that same night, I took my wife’s advice and hid the other gun.

Now back to that interrogation. There were two officers of the Kempetai; Weehuizen and I were taken to separate

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rooms, to be interrogated individually. And we were, as I had expected, quizzed about the support fund. My interview was in English, and went quite smoothly. But from the other room I heard the Japanese shouting, and there was the sound of blows. This intrusion obviously inspired my man to action, and he rose to take a stone-hammer from the wall. The instrument had a sharp edge and a long handle, just right for the splitting of rock samples.

He sat down again, playing with the hammer, slowly bringing it into a position from which he could hit me over the head. Our eyes met, and I looked into his without showing any signs of fear. Eventually, he lowered the hammer, and left me alone while he looked in on Weehuizen. After a while, he returned, with Weehuizen and the other officer. They wanted me to explain my strange method for keeping the money safe. Why the money chest in one place and the key in another? I told them that we had wanted to make it impossible for the chest to be opened by the lady who kept it, for fairly obvious reasons. Well, the Japanese thought this tremendously funny, and laughed accordingly. All we could do was join in, and our laughter broke the ice. Fortunately, Weehuizen’s blows had been none too severe; later, he told me that he had merely been a little slow in answering one question, and his interrogator had shown his displeasure in typical Japanese style.

Now the interrogation came to an end, and all Dutch employees and wives were called together. The Japanese explained that our bad behaviour deserved serious punishment, but, since the Japanese army was not as bad as some people said, we should all be spared. The men were to be taken to Bogor camp, the women to Sukabumi. The ten of us men were each allowed to take one bag of clothes and f. 50 in cash. We were fortunate in that we were allowed to stay together in the camp, where we were housed in a separate stone building.

Thus ended our employment by the Japanese, and thus began three long years of existence under Japanese social welfare. We were granted a daily allowance of 30 cents, though received nothing until many years after the war. And the Japanese government that made the settlement told us that we should all be very grateful for the money for, after all, had we not enjoyed three years of free board and lodging? At the camp, Captain Vellenga told me in strict confidence that he had been building up an organization, in the camp and outside, designed to support an invasion by the Allies, when such an invasion took place. We all expected it, of course. Naturally, I put my group at his disposal, and he allotted one task to me. When the invasion came, I was to occupy the hydro-electric station at Ubrug, of key importance in the electricity supply of West Java. I should be able to count on the co-operation of a number of Ambonese ex-soldiers of the Dutch army, who still lived outside the camp. They knew where trucks had been hidden away and would take care of them when needed. They would be our supply drivers, too, and had access to stores of weapons, ammunition, and explosives.

Should permanent occupation by the Allies prove impossible, our technical people had been briefed to remove vital and irreplaceable parts from machinery and equipment, and destroy as much as possible, so that the Japanese would not be able to use it.

But as time went on we all became rather depressed, since there was no news about any Allied advance. Just rumours of small landing parties from submarines, the same rumours that, earlier, had reached Van der Post’s men and persuaded Guild and Stuart to make their tragic escape bid. One day, Vellenga was taken from the camp by the Kempetai. A bad sign. Shortly afterwards, Sergeant-major Stam was taken too, Vellenga’s trusted right-hand man and liaison officer between Vellenga and myself.

Stam was back after a few days, safe and sound. He told me the Japanese had uncovered the secret organization through the capture of some young helpers as they were transporting some weapons. Stam made it clear that Vellenga would mention no names, under any condition, but would take full responsibility himself.

And Vellenga kept his word. Nobody else was ever interrogated about the matter. But he, brave man, was horribly tortured and eventually put to death by the Japanese. For him, the Allied landing came too late. The Japanese capitulated on 15 August, 1945. Shortly afterwards, I bumped into Colonel Van der Post again. It was at the Baros camp, at Tjimahi, and he was in the company of a Dutch officer, making the rounds of the internment centres, telling those in charge to make sure that nobody left the camps just yet. He greeted me in a friendly enough manner, but declined my offer of assistance; perhaps later, he said.

I left for Batavia at the beginning of September, and Van der Post arranged lodgings for me in a hotel opposite his headquarters, promising to meet me the next day. I waited for him in vain, and went back to join my wife and children a few days later.

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CHAPTER 12: No. 43 SPECIAL MISSION – SUCCESS OR FAILURE?

How should we gauge success? It is not easy for me to judge Van der Post’s mission from that point of view. He himself recorded that the mission had been doomed to failure because of the impossibility of radio contact with Colombo or Australia. Sadly, he went on to blame the Dutch for that inability; no Dutch radio man had volunteered to join the mission, and the liaison officers in the Dutch army had refused to order anybody to go.

The question arises: could the Dutch have forced somebody to join a resistance group?

Perhaps more to the point is that Van der Post’s mission was put together too hurriedly, hence the omission of a qualified radio operator.

How different the tale might have been had radio contact been established with the Allied submarines that, I believe, really did appear from the Indian Ocean and land and retrieve shore parties. In this respect, there was a useful report made by Lieutenant Koops Dekker and brought before the Behaviour Committee at Batavia on 16 January, 1947:

Meanwhile, Surabaja had been bombed for the first time in July, 1943. With relief, I realized that the Allies had supremacy in the air, and our information had probably got through. Soon afterwards, Noach heard from a friend from Blitar that people from Australia had landed on the south coast. I sent Siwabessy direct with a few men to make contact and perhaps bring back a radio telegraphist and apparatus. To my great surprise he returned two days later with two fully equipped radio men, sergeants Nicolay and Dezentje. They belonged to a party, under the command of a Lieutenant Brocks, that had been landed by a submarine. Their orders were to reconnoitre, attempt to contact guerillas, transmit information to Australia, and generally maintain contact. This solved my problem of how to code messages. I explained to Siwabessy that, if the signals could be received in Australia, the Japanese on Java would also pick them up, and could find out where the transmissions were coming from and catch those involved. So post guards to warn you in time, and get away before the Jap reaches you. I sent them to Pasuruan with the following instructions: Become part of the local community as soon as possible, try to get a valid pass from the village chief, but never transmit from where you live; you must transmit at least 30 kilometres from the house; preferably from the south coast. Furthermore, for each group, never use personal names; and keep the names of the radio operators strictly secret. If the Japs catch you in possession of radio equipment you’re really in for it; that is even worse than weapons, because you’ll be tortured until they extract names from you. The radio-telegraphists had orders to keep in touch with each other and transmit information to Australia. Next morning, Siwabessy went south with a few men. In a coffee plantation near Dampit they found a good hideout; they posted a guard where he could overlook the road. The radio- telegraphists got to work and soon made contact. After a while, some Japanese aircraft came over; one circled the area. He couldn’t see our men, so they kept on with what they were doing.

I learnt of yet another instance in which a landing party was put ashore on the far eastern point of Java, south of Banjuwangi, near the Straits of Bali. It is said that the party made radio contact with three prisoners from the Kesilir camp, some six kilometres from the south coast. The prisoners had escaped and were collected at an agreed point on the coast, whence they were taken out to the waiting submarine. However, the story reached me as hearsay, and I cannot swear that it is true. Despite this, resistance groups working with transmitters are recorded in the report of the Committee for Awards at the chambers of the Supreme Commander. Pages 45 to 49 of the report provide details.

The report tells of a powerful radio installation with the Australian guerillas under the command of Colonel Van der Post in the hilly area of South Bantam. The installation had been given to the guerillas so that they could keep in touch with Australia.

The orders were that the guerillas should occupy the Japanese troops until May 1942, when Allied assistance could be expected. The report goes on to explain that the transmitter was initially unserviceable; it had been damaged in transit. There is evidence that repairs were made some time later, and contact seems to have been made with Bogor, with a request for technical personnel. In addition, Bogor broadcast information to Van der Post’s men, information that concerned the resistance and guerilla movement. The information was received and understood by the Australians.

However, nobody seems to know anything about the achievement of the main task - contact with Australia. Such contact was made through a transmitter near Bogor (at Gunung Hambalang), with Port Moresby and two other places. The Bogor men had the relevant code books for the three Australian stations, and initially the system was thought to have worked well; three times the Allies responded to transmissions about shipping, with aerial bombardments.

Later on, however, it became obvious that those bombardments had nothing to do with the broadcasts. None of the information was ever received in Australia.

I have a report about another landing, of three naval men from a submarine, on the south coast. It must have been around Easter of 1942. The report names a priest, Gerard Boonekamp, who took pity on one of the three men, a

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lieutenant, who was immobilized by foot sores. The lieutenant was taken by the Japanese and put to death in 1945; the priest was horribly tortured and given a life’s prison sentence. He survived the war and died in Batavia in 1974.

Paul Vogt, too, claims radio contact with several resistance groups on Java. He explained to me that the transmitter from Tjikotok was cannibalized to repair Van der Post’s unit. In my opinion, the betrayal by Van Rijn, our electrician, was a major cause of the lack of success of No.43 Special Mission. His telephone call brought the Japanese to Tjikotok earlier than they would otherwise have come, and seriously affected the lines of supply and escape. Moreover, nobody will ever know exactly what he told the Japanese when they were at the plant.

At that time, the Australian outpost at Tjirotan was hurriedly evacuated, the men taking with them only what they could carry. All because Van Rijn had pretended to be the manager of the plant. The abandoned weapons and ammunition were seized by the Japanese; just how much, nobody can say.

The worst part of it all was the loss of Tjirotan as a base, and the consequent inability to maintain telephonic contact with Van der Post’s group.

After the war, Van Rijn was sent to Makassar by the army technical-service branch of RAPWI to get the power station working again. And he was made a colonel! I protested in vain against the promotion, and was told that it was a matter of economic necessity and the promotion to high rank was for the prestige it conferred. A good thing Van Rijn and I never met again; I certainly did not feel like jumping to attention for him!

Another factor that militated against success was the poor physical condition of most of the group. Van der Post was in very bad shape, suffering as he did from regular and heavy attacks of malaria. I understand completely why he surrendered so soon to the Japanese, but must add that the action would have badly demoralized his men, despite the devotion, courage, and ability with which Captain Cooper and Paul Vogt subsequently led them.

Of interest is written confirmation of a rumour that had made the rounds at Tjikotok:

that about April/May (dates differ from report to report) the following news item was received by radio almost all over the Dutch East Indies: “We are coming soon.” This information, to be read in different reports from different places in the Dutch Indies, and is also confirmed by an oral statement of a witness, indicates that the commander of the guerilla forces in Bantam, Colonel Van der Post, received orders to tie up as many Japanese troops as possible until May 1942, when Allied reinforcements were to arrive.

That tallies completely with Van der Post’s explanation of his orders, but the original plan had to be changed quite a lot more than the Allies could ever have predicted. And I believe this must be the viewpoint from which to judge the value and importance of No.43 Special Mission.

Colonel Van der Post closed his report on the venture by saying that within two weeks of the Mission’s coming to an end, a Japanese division was directed from “the vasts of Bantam” to the Solomon Islands. The claim is confirmed by Japanese documents, but the connection between the two events is, to my mind, more than a little far fetched. Admittedly, the presence of the resistance fighters in South Bantam was a thorn in the Japanese flesh, and that is proved by the many threats I received, the written demands to surrender, the interest in me by the Kempetai. And, therefore, some Japanese were effectively tied up. But a whole division, never! The original target of the Mission, then, was missed, but since it played some small part in disturbing the Japanese advance towards Australia, perhaps the description “useful” is applicable, though it is sad that the Mission itself demanded so heavy a price from those who participated. As far as I know, Colonel Van der Post has never given the slightest attention to this miserable aspect of the adventure.

As for the aspects on which he did concentrate, these are examined in detail in the following chapter, in an attempt to distinguish between the fact and fiction of Sir Laurens van der Post’s story of No.43 Special Mission.

His report, still classified as secret by the British War Office, is reproduced in full, and commented on wherever the truth is compromised.

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CHAPTER 13: VAN DER POST’S SECRET REPORT

Note: DWN Kriek’s comments are marked with bullets.

After the war, Laurens van der Post made an official report on the history of No.43 Special Mission. The report is registered at the Public Records Office, London, under the reference WO 106 5035X/K5502. I came by a copy of this report some years later, and read it with total astonishment. It is a confused mixture of supposition, hearsay, and romanticism, and it is difficult to relate it to the truth.

It contains several statements that are absolutely beneath criticism, many more that are libelous. I shall be criticized, no doubt, for including the report in this book. I shall be even more harshly criticized for annotating Van der Post’s history, though let me make it clear now that the contradiction of each and every false statement would not be appropriate to my purpose. I limit myself to those statements of direct or indirect concern to me and the people with whom I worked, and mention facts relating to those statements.

Anyway, official history it is: “a true account of how the Mission was formed and what happened to it subsequently”. And I include it, verbatim. The report uses the old spellings of Javanese places and rivers; phonetically, there is little difference between the old and the current, and they are therefore left as in the original (The report includes many errors of grammar and syntax, which Van der Post would no doubt have corrected had he ever seen the typed document. PJC.) together with other official correspondence of the times (in the Postscript) to show how the anti-Dutch policies of the British led to so much unnecessary suffering, so many cruel deaths of women and children on Java.

SECRET

THE STORY OF NO.43 SPECIAL MISSION

Dictated Statement by Lieut-Colonel L.J.Van der POST

1. This statement is made with considerable diffidence, for in the course of the war in Java and of my imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese, I lost all the records of No.43 Special Mission and I am relying entirely on my memory. In fact, I am so diffident that I would not have made the statement at all if I had not been strongly urged by MO.1 (Records), to do so, and understood that the position of Captain P. Vogt could not be regularised until a consecutive history of the Mission was available, which had not hitherto been so.In view of the fact that there are no written records available, details of what I am about to say may, therefore, from time to time, not be absolutely accurate but in the main lines, it is, so far as I know, a true account of how the Mission was formed and of what happened to it subsequently. Van der Post says that his report was made so as to regularize Vogt’s position. Vogt was awarded the Order of the British Empire on 12 November 1948.DWNK.

2. I arrived at General Wavell’s Headquarters at Lembang, outside Bandoeng, in Java about three days after the fall of Singapore. I had just come after many vicissitudes from Middle East. I had understood in Middle East that on account of my experience in Abyssinia I had been highly recommended for guerilla work in the Far East, by amongst others, Brigadier C. Wingate, who had been my commander in Middle East, and I understood my destination was very likely to be Burma.

3. But there I was in Lembang and on reporting to General Wavell’s DMI (Director of Military Intelligence. PJC), Brigadier Field, I was told that conditions had so much altered since my leaving the Middle East that there was no question of serving anywhere except in the immediate neighbourhood of the Dutch East Indies. The DMI showed me reports that he had, of the last days of Malaya and it was clear from these that considerable bodies of British Troops had been left behind the Japanese lines and were wandering round the countryside in improvised units and as yet, unmolested by the Japanese. There was reason to believe that in Singapore Island many of the high ranking officers were still at liberty and the DMI asked me if I would be prepared to organise a party to go to the rescue of those units that had been left behind in Malaya and let him know how it could be done.

4. I reported to him the next day, I think it was in February, 1942, and said that I thought if I could get on to the east

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coast of Sumatra I might be able to use the considerable native sea traffic there normally was, between the Malayan-speaking coast of Sumatra and British Malaya, to evacuate some of these units from Malaya and Singapore but that it would be an uncertain and hazardous operation.

The Brigadier thought that even if a small number of personnel could be rescued from Malaya and Singapore, the information they had to give us would be so valuable that the operation would be well worth it. Would I do it? I agreed to do it and he asked me to look around Headquarters and organise a suitable party for the operation at once. This was the beginning of 43 Special Mission.

5. My first concern was to find a suitable naval officer and his second-in-command, and with the help of Captain Bell, the senior naval staff officer in Batavia, I found a willing and able volunteer in Lieutenant-Commander Cooper of the Royal Naval Malayan Volunteer Reserve. Captain Black, an officer in the Intelligence Corps a last minute evacuee from Singapore and a senior Malayan civil servant volunteered to go back with us, and Lieutenant or Captain (I regret I cannot remember his rank) Derek le Maire, a senior official of the Malayan Directorate of Fisheries, was commissioned by me as a fourth member of the party.

6. We had to work fast because Palembang in Sumatra, Makassarin the Celebes and Tarakan in Borneo had already fallen. The Japanese were closing in on Java at a dishearteningly fast rate. I was, however, able to get a passage for my party on a coastal steamer which was sailing for Sumatra from Batavia. It was likely to be the last ship to leave Java for Sumatra but at the last moment, I received an urgent despatch from Headquarters telling me to cancel the arrangements and report back there at once.

7. At Headquarters I saw the DMI and I think General Playfair. I was told that the situation was deteriorating very fast and that there could now no longer be any question of sending rescue parties to Malaya and that there was in fact a very grave danger that the resistance in and around Java would collapse so quickly that General Wavell and his entire staff might fall into the hands of the Japanese. I was not told precisely why the situation had changed so radically within a few hours but the implication was that the Dutch who were gravely disheartened by the fall of Singapore and Palembang, were seriously considering throwing their hand in and leaving us in the lurch. Whatever happened the Commander-in-Chief could not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Japanese and I was ordered to make my way with my party to the south coast of Java and find somewhere a beach that could be readily defended and held as an emergency evacuation port for the Commander-in- Chief and his staff. Although none of us knew the island, the situation was so desperate that we readily undertook this mission. It was not quite as difficult as it sounds because the south coast of Java is a wild and inhospitable coast and the beaches that could be used for possible evacuation were very few. We completed our task within three days and recommended that in case of an emergency, evacuation should be by way of Pemangpeuk on the south coast of Java. I was told, however, by the DMI that the situation had improved in my absence and that General Wavell and his staff were about to be evacuated from Java through the port of Tjilatjap in full agreement and co- operation with the Dutch.He told me, furthermore, that our reconnaissance had not altogether been wasted, because it was obvious that whatever resistance there was going to be in the Island of Java would not last long and that considerable numbers of our troops,both RAF and Naval as well as military, were likely to be stranded on the island after the capitulation, just as numbers of them had been in Malaya, and that he would ask me to do now in Java what I had been prepared to do in Malaya. I said with a sinking feeling that for myself I would do whatever he wanted, but that it seemed to me very hard on the rest of my party who had been chosen, because of their expert knowledge of Malaya for another task altogether and were really little more than civilian volunteers, and that I would have to give them the choice of leaving with the rest of Headquarter’s staff as well. He agreed that I should do this. I put it to the rest of the Mission but they all said that if I stayed, they would stay as well. I reported back to the DMI and we discussed the proposed role of 43 Mission in considerable detail. Certain points I made to him, particularly the point that I should be in absolute command after the capitulation whatever the seniority of any officers who joined me, were referred to the Chiefs of Staff and finally my task was verbally outlined as follows. I was:-

(a) to establish in the area I thought best in Java, a semi-permanent evacuation centre for British and Dutch personnel.

(b) I was to be equipped with a wireless transmitter and suitable operators to keep in touch with our forces in Ceylon and to report fully my requirements, and on the post-capitulation situation.

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(c) I was to co-operate fully with the Dutch and in view of their sensitiveness to any suggestion that the British were leaving them in the lurch and did not think they could resist the Japanese seriously, the necessity for my acting with them in a guerilla capacity as a cover for my evacuation activities was clearly foreseen and approved.

(d) as GHQ were leaving, I think it was that very night, I was told to make whatever arrangements I thought necessary with the Dutch. The DMI told me that Captain Lovinck of the Dutch Governor General’s personal staff, and Director of the Far Eastern Department of the Dutch Government had been informed of my existence and requested to give me all the help possible and that Rear Admiral Palliser, who was staying behind as General Wavell’s Staff Officer with the Dutch Naval Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Helfrick (Helfrich...DWNK),would be responsible for me and my party. It would be made clear to all concerned that after the capitulation, I alone was in Command.

8. That night GHQ moved out and the following morning at the deserted Headquarters, I was shocked and discouraged by the conversations I had with the Dutch officers who came to take over. They all were understandably very bitter about us and defeatist and for the first time I began myself to fear that the Dutch resistance when the Japanese landed would have little heart in it. What was more disquieting still was the change I noticed in the attitude of the natives. Over-night they had thrown away the traditional headdress of their country and had all donned the new fangled black fez of the extreme native nationalist and anti-Dutch movement. As the success of our mission was going to depend a great deal on the goodwill of the natives, this evidence of a certain shallowness in their adhesion to Dutch authority was a very bad sign.

● The black “fez” dated from Islamic tradition and had been the usual headdress for ages, and not just in West Java. Our house boy, for instance, used to wear his inside the house and outside, and only when serving meals would he change it for a turban. As I have mentioned, I travelled to Tjikotok from Pelabuhan Ratu on 4 March 1942; I noticed no change in the usual headdress of the natives, and certainly saw no stacks of cast-away turbans! Nor was there anything unusual at the plant. DWNK.

9. That day I saw Captain Lovinck and he agreed fully with my mission and promised me all the help he could, but said quite categorically that unless I agreed to help in a guerilla function first and as an Anglo-Dutch evacuation Force secondly, the Dutch could not agree to my mission. I told Captain Lovinck, therefore,that I would fall in with whatever wishes he considered essential. A day later I was promised two Dutch officers for my staff. They were to be my experts on the natives and the wilder parts of the island. My attempts to find a wireless transmitter crew at Headquarter’s met with complete failure, because the signal officers refused to order their subordinates to join my party and I could find no volunteers. I asked Admiral Palliser to ask the Dutch for two coastal vessels to help us with a snap evacuation immediately after the capitulation and he promised to do his best to get them from the Dutch authorities. Meanwhile, I collected an enormous number of supplies,mostly medical, kept my party reconnoitring possible evacuation areas and learning all that I could myself about the Dutch and natives of Java. We had very little time, however, and a few days later on Sunday, March 1st, the Japanese landed at two points on the island. The day before I had one interview with General Sitwell in which I pointed out to him the area in which I proposed operating after the capitulation and remembered saying to him that no doubt I should see him there! I was never under his orders and did not see him again.

10. This area roughly was that lying between the main Merak-Serang-Soekaboemi road in the north, the Sunda Straight in the west, the Soekaboemi-Pelaboehanratoe road in the east and the Indian Ocean in the south. This area was little known to Europeans, had very few roads, and struck me as being by far the best area in which to lead a discreet military existence. On the morning of March 1st, when the news of the Japanese landing on the Sunda Straight came through, I went to join the rest of my party who had preceded me at Soekaboemi. There we were to be joined by the Dutch members of the Mission. After waiting for three days in vain, I sent Lieut.-Commander Cooper to Lembang to enlist the help of Admiral Palliser in getting action out of the Dutch. They came back with the news that Admiral Palliser had left Java two days before and with the message for me that he was very sorry he could do nothing to help us. The picture they gave me of conditions at Allied H.Q.was very sad.

11. On that day, however, one Dutch officer, who in private life was said to be a famous hunter and explorer, turned up with the surprising news that he would be the only Dutch officer. That same day I had done a patrol in the direction of the so-called battle front and had, after a brief tommy gun skirmish, established contact with General Blackburn’s Headquarters. The whole of Blackburn’s force, as his improvised and small British Army was called,

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was engaged in fighting what I believe was the only real and organised battle fought in the whole campaign of Java, and I was told that Blackburn’s force could not contest the field much longer. About three o’clock that night General Blackburn himself withdrew his Headquarter’s to Soekaboemi. I saw him at once and talked the situation over with him. He told me that he was merely continuing the action until twelve o’clock the following morning in order to keep the main line from Batavia to Bandoeng open long enough to enable the Dutch General in the capital time to withdraw the last of his troops. I told him that I thought there was no point in my small party getting involved in a retreat and that I proposed slipping round the flanks of the Japanese and establishing myself behind their advancing forces in the country previously selected. He agreed and jokingly added that he would be joining me before long. The Japanese were bombing and machine gunning unopposed all along the main roads and rapidly encircling us. That very day I marshalled my small convoy and we slipped through Tjibadad (Tjibadak...DWNK) down to the coast just a few hours before the Japanese main forces entered the town.

12. Two days later I arrived at a mining village in the Wilds of Bantan (Bantam...DWNK) called Tjikotok. I found here a very well equipped Dutch territorial force of about 130 men all young and active, but demoralized because of lack of leadership. We took them over and immediately started sending out long distance patrols and putting down the very serious outbreak of looting and murder which had broken out amongst the natives. Everywhere on the roads one met Dutch planters fleeing for their lives from the natives who had been their servants for a 100 years or more. Everywhere one saw houses which had been completely deserted and I myself smashed many locked doors to let out thirsty dogs that had been left behind by their Dutch masters in the general panic. Within a day almost the results of our patrolling and energetic efforts became evident and there was much more confidence and quiet in the area than there had been since the Japanese landed.

● At the time Colonel Van der Post arrived at Tjikotok, there had been no outbreaks of panic, murder, nor

general flight. There existed not one plantation within miles of Tjikotok. And the only empty houses Van der Post could have seen would have been the residences of our staff members at Tjirotan, which we had deserted. The evacuation had taken place weeks before the capitulation of 8 March 1942, and in a quiet and orderly fashion. Not a single dog or cat had been left behind. The development at Tjirotan was, of course, the spot where Van der Post and his men enjoyed my hospitality after their temporary lodging in our pasanggrahan.

● In the pasanggrahan, each man had his own room. The hotel was apart of our development, standing on the higher ground, with a driveway for motor vehicles and a small parking lot.In the dining-room/lounge was our radio; off this room were the ten bedrooms. Our guests stayed in the pasanggrahan for two days before moving up to Tjirotan.

● I categorically deny that there was ever any question of my turning over the territorials to Van der Post. Neither he nor any of his party had anything to do with the territorials, and did not even make any contact with them. In fact, we agreed clearly that I should join his group if the situation at the plant became untenable, in which case I was to be granted rank in the British army and would put myself under his command. The same was agreed for Paul Vogt.

● And if Van der Post had taken over our territorials, he would have had a serious problem of communication, since they spoke only Malay and Javanese.

● As I have said, things were rather quiet everywhere, and the first sign of unrest was an attempted robbery at a nearby shop. My description of the event (Chapter 4) shows that Van der Post had no part in our reaction. Nor did he have any part in any subsequent action of our territorials.

● The long-distance patrols were instituted by myself, after capitulation and while Van der Post was on his way up to Tjirotan. Incidentally, in paragraph 7(d) of his report, Van der Post states that he was to be in sole command after capitulation no matter what ranking officers joined him. I held the same point of view regarding my territorials, something that Captain Donk understood when he joined us; he put his troops under my command on his arrival at the plant, and there were no problems whatsoever. DWNK.

13. Two of our patrols had clashes with what they thought were Japanese fifth columnists, but fortunately the main Japanese forces were too busy cutting the island in two to find time for us just yet.

● The point of this is unclear. Is Van der Post referring to the situation at Pelabuhan Ratu? Things might have been chaotic there, but no fifth columnists were operating. In fact, the Japanese reached Pelabuhan Ratu only on 18 March, at which time Van der Post was safely ensconced in the women’s camp at Tjitjatrap. Once again,

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I state that all actions of any importance by our territorials have been described; in none of them did Van der Post’s group take part, nor in any of our routine patrols. DWNK.

14. On Friday March, 6th, I myself took a patrol as far back as Pelahaboen Ratoe. I found that the military “destroyers”, engineers charged with the task of blowing bridges and utilities all over the island, were already in possession and expecting the signal to blow all the bridges and supply centres in that area at any moment.

● In the end, only one bridge in the whole of Java was blown and that by accident. There was also a party of Newspaper correspondents, some of them very famous press people, from Headquarters, and they gave us the first reliable news we had in some days. They told us that Headquarters was demoralized out of all recognition by a situation and task beyond their resources and control and that the end would come at any moment. One of them told me at the time that the Dutch Governor General himself had been captured by the Japanese Fifth Column, a story which I did not believe then, but which was confirmed to me later by the Governor General’s ADC, Baron Van Till. Java capitulated on March 8th, 1942: the Governor General and his Commander in Chief were captured in his house in Bandoeng on March 6th by two Japanese officers disguised as natives. They had given up all hope of getting out of Java with military assistance and had come to this little harbour to try and persuade the Captain of the one ship in port to sail them out of Java. The Captain, however, had been deserted by his native crew and could only give them a lifeboat, and the last I saw of this little party was a glimpse from the hills of their little boat tacking out of the bay with the Japanese bombers overhead. It was all very disquieting, but my own little mining community was, by this time, in such good heart and spirits that it was difficult to be permanently pessimistic. I had, however, offered once again to release my own party from their promise to carry on with me and told them that if they wanted they could join the party of newspaper people and try to get away in good time, and again they refused. Colonel Van der Post has his dates badly mixed up, since he claims to have arrived at Tjikotok on 6 March (paragraph 12),and to have taken a patrol to Pelabuhan Ratu on 6 March. He stayed at the plant, without any sorties, until his departure for Tjirotan on Sunday, 8 March. As for being informed that the Dutch Governor General had been captured (first by fifth columnists, then by Japanese in disguise), he could not possibly have heard such news, or he surely would have passed it on to me?

● As for the bridges, the Japanese general Imamura, on his way from Batavia to Kalidjati to discuss the conditions of capitulation,on 8 March, complained of a delay of many hours because of blown bridges. And as early as 1 March, the advance of the Egeshira battalion, which had landed at Eretan Wetan, was stopped because of destroyed bridges. The two dates are confirmed by Japanese sources: the diary of Imamura and the report of Japanese activities on Java in Nederlands-Indie contra Japan, part VII. In fact, the two railway bridges near Tjepu and Tjibadak were destroyed, and three others near Semarang were blown up, as well as the Demak bridge (Dutch Indies under Japanese Occupation 1942 – 1945, p 105, sub ii) DWNK.

15. On Saturday, March 7th, I was sitting listening to the wireless at my Headquarters when a very strange looking man stepped out of the jungle and asked to speak to me. He told me he did not know what I was doing there and would not ask but he felt his life “was linked with mine” and that if ever I needed him would I ask him to help. That was Vogt. I thought he was just eccentric at the time and dismissed the matter from my mind after thanking him. Just after that we were all told in Dutch on the radio to stand by for an important announcement at eight o’clock the following morning. All the Dutch people were convinced that it was news, either of a great victory or of an American landing in Java, but to our horror the next morning the wireless told us that the Allied Commanders-in-Chief had decided to capitulate and that for the moment the fighting in Java was at an end. The entire Dutch community burst into tears and we did our best to comfort them, but within half an hour, I, who speak Dutch as well as I speak English, was horrified to find that their attitude to us had completely changed and that they were muttering at us and they were saying why had we who were so cowardly as to run out of Malaya come to give them so much trouble in their own country, and the best thing we could do would be to lay down our arms immediately. I put this to my Dutch doctor on whom so much depended now, and asked him what he was going to do. He told me melodramatically, “fight to the last drop of my blood”. In the meantime, the Territorial Commander told me that he was no longer under my orders in view of the proclamation we had just heard and would regretfully have to make arrangements to surrender to the Japanese. So I ordered my convoy to pack up and be ready to move within and by that time it was quite clear that my Dutch officer had had second thoughts too. There is no point in going into what he said to me. The point is that he decided to go back to Bandoeng and ask for further orders and we never saw him again. I regret to say that all the way back to Bandoeng, he laid a trail of information against us, which was put to very effective use subsequently by the Japanese. Just at this moment a young civil Dutch doctor came to me and said that whatever anybody else did, he was not going to surrender and would like to join my party, and with this

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“gallant young man” we left our mining village, so previously friendly and amicable, with the entire population scowling and looking reproachfully at us.

● Van der Post’s ability to write fiction has seen his acclaim by the literati. Here it is out of place. For a start, he was listening to the wireless in the lounge/dining-room of our pasanggrahan, not his “headquarters”. Secondly, in the immediate vicinity of the plant there was no jungle from which Paul Vogt could have stepped, and Vogt’s possible services as a guide were suggested to Van der Post by myself, after the “Dutch officer” (Christoffel) had decided to return to Bandung. Vogt was working at that time high up above Lembak Sembada, in the north, and his occasional visits to Tjikotok were at weekends. On such visits, he would telephone us from Tjirotan, from where we would collect him by car and bring him to the pasanggrahan. We always knew when he was coming, and I can state most definitely that he never came to Tjikotok after 6 March 1942. As I have explained, I sent a courier to Vogt, who agreed on 8 March, by telephone, to join Van der Post on the ninth, at Tjirotan.In fact, Vogt himself reported:

● About this first contact with Colonel Van der Post I hereby state that it was made possible by D.W.N.Kriek, manager of Mining Company Tjikotok. He sent me a courier, with the request for me to get to Tjikotok as speedily as possible,because the guide, Lt.Christoffel, appointed by General Staff, refused to co-operate and instead wished to return to Bandung...

● As for a change of attitude amongst our community after capitulation,the claim is both false and hardly gracious in the light of our hospitality. In fact, no unseemly word was spoken, but we rather had admiration for the colonel’s party and their refusal to surrender.

● As for the statement that I (the “Territorial Commander”) was no longer under his orders and would have to surrender, I remain bewildered. For the one thing, I had never been under his orders; for the other, I had just begun to assist No.43 Special Mission and kept on assisting until long after Van der Post had himself been interned.

● Neither did Dr Van Noorden leave with Van der Post. He remained with us and was still at the plant to care for the Australians we collected from Pelabuhan Ratu. He left us for Tjitjatrap only when needed to tend to the sick Australians, and did so freely with the permission of my successor, Mr Tauw.

● Christoffel travelled direct to Bandung, with some of our employees, and had no chance to lay a trail of information against Van der Post, who could hardly have heard of such a trail while he was in his mountain hideouts. DWNK.

16. Late that evening we arrived at the end of a mining track in the mountains at a deserted mountain cabin in the jungle. There,to my amazement, the strange man I had seen some nights before stepped out of the jungle and offered to join me. I gratefully accepted and commissioned Vogt there and then. We could not have made a better choice because as a Swiss mining engineer who had spent 14 years in the country, he spoke all the native languages, knew all the natives, and what is much more, was loved and respected by them all. With Vogt’s help we marshalled the natives and transported all our supplies deep into the jungle, and there we built improvised shelters in the woods and started the task of looking for stragglers, and building up supplies.

● This is unworthy of criticism, but does underline my good choice in suggesting Paul Vogt as a replacement for Lieutenant Christoffel. DWNK.

17. By about March 28th, my party had grown to very nearly a 100,mostly Australian stragglers from General Blackburn’s last battle. This party I divided into three operational centres and attached to each,one of my own staff as a Malayan expert and guide. I myself, with Vogt and Cooper, who was our only wireless operator, established a Headquarters on the top of a mountain and tried to contact Colombo. I regret to say that we never raised a response and we never, although we listened in at the scheduled hours, heard ourselves being called. That aspect of the Mission was, from the start, a complete failure.

● I doubt, with respect, that Lieutenant Cooper was the right man to diagnose and repair radio faults, otherwise why was I asked to find a technician when there was trouble with the apparatus? Moreover, Van der Post has already pointed out his inability to find a wireless-transmitter crew in paragraph 9. Also, in a report by a Mr Aalbertsberg: “Later, Captain De Lange received a request to send a radio technician and operator who could put the group’s transmitter in working order. DWNK.

18. Meanwhile, the Japanese were hot on our trail. I myself, did all the patrolling there was at the time because most of

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my party were either wounded or seriously ill from dysentery and malaria. I very soon had a pretty clear picture of the Japanese dispositions around us but, unfortunately, we were not in a position to harass them. Fortunately, the natives and the Dutch between them had spread such alarming stories about our organisation and intentions that the Japanese were convinced the British had, with characteristic subtlety and perfidiousness, left a Brigade skilfully deployed in the jungles of Bantan. They were, therefore, very careful in approaching the area, much more careful than anywhere else in the island. For weeks they had an intense aerial reconnaissance over the area and moved in troops into all the bigger villages along the main roads, and they started sending Chinese and Eurasian agents into the more roamed parts of the area to spy out the land. They also began to bombard me with demands to come out and surrender, with the threat that if I did not do so, they would kill me when they captured us. We used to call these ‘love letters’ and we found them left in all sorts of unexpected places. I invariably got Vogt who, by that time, was also being summoned by name to come out and surrender, to answer these letters evasively in the pose of a much overworked mining engineer, who could not leave his work to report to the Japanese until the task given to him by his superiors was finished, with a promise that he would give me these letters if he ever saw me. The villagers just treated this as a joke, thanks to Vogt’s prestige, and were quite ready to sell me the meat which I converted into Biltong, but gradually the Japanese grip in the areas about us tightened and it became more and more difficult for us to show ourselves.

19. Vogt’s housekeeper, on one occasion, had already been beaten up in her native village by Japanese agents and this upset him so much I got her to join our party. She was Nji Afimah of Tjikoening, a woman of aristocratic birth. I mention her because of her knowledge of the jungle, particularly in its edible aspects, and her nursing of the sick was invaluable.

20. Just at this stage my civil Dutch doctor, contrary to my orders, deserted us with about 60 seriously wounded and sick people and from then on in addition to my other duties, I had to take over the task of administering to the sick and wounded.

● In my opinion, Dr Van Noorden was a most trustworthy man,and it is sad that he cannot defend himself against Van der Post’s accusations. But as a civilian who volunteered to tend the sick and wounded he was not under any obligation to take orders from the colonel. He was therefore unable to desert. What a shame that he never offered me the true reason for his return to duty at Tjikotok. Vogt reported that:

● Dr Van Noorden did not take any sick or wounded men back to Tjikotok, but he did hand over to me his supply of useful medicines. The sick now had to be hidden away in the forest, some place where there was enough water to wash them regularly. I dragged them through the crisis (10 days) by giving them practically nothing to eat and almost nothing to drink, except some thin rice porridge with some pawpaw juice. After ten days three of the sick men went looking for food; they found the storage and stole some corned beef; having eaten the meat they stumbled back, but before they got back to their beds they were almost dying with pain and started to bleed. I had to save some morphine for us, in case of wounds and so on. But I gave them the rest in a threefold injection, hoping to put them to sleep.But they could not sleep, the pain had come back. Later on, they were found dead, their throats cut, suicide.

● I have repeatedly asked what became of the rest of the 60, in vain. Not even Paul Vogt could answer that question, and Van der Post has never said anything about them. Were they left to a dreadful, lingering death, in the Javanese jungle? I have determined that the following died during the Mission: Captain Guild, Lieutenant Stewart, Sergeant Smith, Corporals T.Hynes and L.H.Dunstan, Privates M.C.Murray, N.R.C.Gibson, E.Marshall, and Byrne. Three committed suicide, as Vogt records. And 14 were captured: Colonel Van der Post and one Australian (as written in his ‘Yet being someone other’ pp 315-316), Lieutenant Allen and two others (The story of 2/2nd Australian Pioneer Battalion,p 314), Paul Vogt and eight others.

● The Aalbertsberg report states that three bivouacs had been made for the sick and wounded, who were ordered to hide in the woods when the Japanese were approaching.

● Nowhere have I been able to find any reference to the fate of these men.Why were they not handed over to the Japanese, when Vogt surrendered? DWNK.

21. All the time the Japanese grip around us was tightening and the natives becoming more and more rebellious. If it had not been for Vogt, they would long since have attacked us. As an instance of this I can only mention that Captain Guild and Lieutenant Stewart,who had taken out a party in an attempt to break through into the Sunda Straights were ambushed by Japanese incited or led Natives was killed with his entire party of 7, after killing 38 of

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their attackers. I could go on indefinitely, but it is clear from this narrative that we were only a force in being and that being was increasingly precarious and dangerous.

● Lieutenant Allen mentions only four names in the party to the coast: Guild, Stewart, Hynes, and Murray. Allen says (The story of 2/2nd Australian Pioneer Battalion):

● “Capt. Guild’s party preferred this to capture. They were never seen again.”

● The book explains that Allen “had been left in the mountains with the very sick and avoided capture until 2 August 1942, when at last very weak and suffering from exposure, he with Privates Vin McCrae and Stan Raade were surprised by an enemy patrol and captured.”

● Vogt’s report says this:

● “Three Australian officers decided to return to Australia, as we had a chance to direct a submarine to Wijnkoops Bay. With the consent of our commander I offered to guide the Australians to the coast, through a very deep canyon. They thought this too big a sacrifice, considering the important tasks I had to fulfil for those who stayed behind. So I provided them with maps and taught them, in a canyon, how to manage dangerous descents with the aid of a bamboo stick. I warned them several times, while other officers were listening, never under any circumstances to follow a road or hill ridge as I was certain they would be seen, followed and killed, not out of sympathy for the Japs, but only in order to rob them. They went – and three days later I got the sorry proof of their death. They had chosen a guard house in a rice field to spend the night, were surrounded, spent all their ammunition without wounding anyone but for some light leg- and arm wounds, and all three Australians were robbed and hacked to pieces. DWNK.

22. I myself, was captured by the Japanese sometime towards June, early one morning, well within my own lines. It is not necessary to go into details but the party of Japanese and armed coolies that captured me were brought to the foot of the mountain by the Dutch mining director who had been my territorial sergeant in the mining village some months before, and that the guide who brought them stealthily inside by night, was the Chinese servant of the civilian doctor who had deserted us.

● Van der Post says he was captured at the end of May, 1942.

● Lieutenant Allen’s report (The Story of 2/2nd Australian Pioneer Battalion p 133) reads: “Post No.1 was taken by surprise by the enemy on the 20th April.”

● The Aalbertsberg report says: The Japanese troops approached the resistance area via Tjikotok. They came from Pelaboehan Ratoe on the 8th April. That morning they appeared in the old evacuation camp, bringing with them Mr Tauw, whom they forced to write a letter to Vogt, urging him and his group to surrender to the Japs, otherwise all the Europeans at the plant would be slaughtered.

● Vogt gives a rather different account, saying that one fine day a Japanese patrol was seen with a number of guides. One guide with a white flag was sent to them, whereupon Colonel Van der Post decided to meet the Japanese half way, with a white flag and another officer. Neither returned from the encounter. No word about the surrender of sick or wounded.

● Recently, I received through the kind intermediary of friends on Majorca the memoirs of Captain Scott from his widow. Captain Reginald Lindsay Scott was one of the men who surrendered with Vogt. He was later transported to Japan, and nobody can ever imagine the hardships he had to endure.He recalled:

● They had then hoisted a white flag and asked for our C.O.to parley. Len Cooper (2i/c) didn’t trust this and tried to persuade Van der Post to let him go but Van der Post insisted on going himself and as a result he was arrested. (The Japs have no moral scruples about using a white flag in that way!)

● Not a word here about treachery; merely a statement that Van der Post went voluntarily into Japanese hands. Though whether he surrendered or was captured makes little difference. What is inexcusable is his accusation that I betrayed him, and his reasons are quite transparent. Any suggestion of surrender would be hateful, even though it would have been quite justified because of his terrible physical condition.

● Our correspondence, included as an appendix, shows him to be totally reluctant to amend his report, despite

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the fact that he partially retracts the accusations in the correspondence.The idea that he was referring to Tauw as the traitor is nonsense, as proved by Vincken’s tale: áá One evening, when we were preparing for the night, there was a violent knocking at the door.We first thought that it was a Jap, but it was Tauw, who wanted to enter. I did not even know Tauw was still at the plant. He fell into a chair and acted very badly upset. While my wife poured him a drink he told us this story.

● He had been up the mountain with a group of Japanese soldiers; the plan was to force Van der Post and Vogt to surrender to the Japs. However, getting in touch with them was impossible; because the Japanese commanding officer found it too risky to penetrate further toward Van der Post’s hideout, which was very hard to reach, he decided to go back. The Jap said if we starve them they will have to come down and surrender.

● Tauw added as a gruesome detail that on their way back they had seen the throat-cut corpses of two Australian soldiers.

● Whether Tauw was forced to join the Japanese on their trip up-mountain or did this voluntarily I could not grasp from his confused story.

● Another point, if Van der Post was referring to Tauw: my successor arrived at the plant on 22 March, had not been at the plant when Van der Post stayed there, and never had anything to do with the territorials, which had been disbanded on the day before my flight to Djakarta. No, the man “who had been my Dutch territorial sergeant in the mining village some months before” could only have been me.

● And yet Van der Post wrote after the war and before he dictated the secret report:

● Help given to the mission was so rare that it is not difficult to remember what Mr Kriek so gallantly did for it at considerable risk and peril to himself. I sincerely trust that his own private claim on the British purse will be settled without delay.(See letter Appendix # page #) Why the change of heart? I have never found out. DWNK.

● Vogt and Cooper kept the party going until September, 1942, and were then forced to surrender because the Japanese threatened to set alight the 10 most important native villages in their area, and the relatives of Nji Afimah slipped in to tell them the news. They chivalrously went and surrendered themselves to save destruction of native life and property.

24. Until that moment the Japanese had kept one division hunting for them in the vasts of Bantan. That was the last of 43 Mission. Within a fortnight of the mission’s end the Japanese division sailed for the Solomons from Java.

● So ended Van der Post’s incredible report, a document that led to an unsatisfactory exchange of correspondence in which he adopted a defensive half-explanation in the midst of showers of platitudes and references to irrelevant matters to distract attention from the roots of my objections. Our correspondence is included in Appendix *.

● Unfortuately, I never saw any of the correspondence between David Kriek and Laurens van der Post. PJC

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CHAPTER 14: POST-WAR JAVA

‘Not to maintain authority means asking for chaos’

SO FAR, my story has done little more than paint a picture of an area of Java during the Second World War. It has brought to light, too, the fact that Sir Laurens van der Post and I cannot agree on some of the detail concerning those years ... detail that is highly significant to me since it means the difference between acceptance as a valuable contributor to the war effort of the Allies and denouncement as a traitor.

Now, however, I must suppress personal feelings completely, and continue the story through to those terrible times immediately after the capitulation of the Japanese. Those times in which countless Europeans were horribly butchered as the nationalists paved the way for Sukarno and his excesses.

The significance of my story so far is that Van der Post had now, after Japanese capitulation on 15 August 1945, become uniquely influential in the political development of Java. And I have to ask: was he suited to the task? My original Dutch manuscript had been ready for the printer for some time when I got to know of the publication of ‘Yet being someone other’ by Sir Laurens van der Post (first published by The Hogarth Press in 1982).

The final chapter of the book, called ‘The sword and the flower’, is revealing and of interest to me and many people who were in Java during the war. I read it, and decided to add to my book, because I assume that Van der Post is writing fact here, not fiction. I feel this assumption to be valid because of information that reached me during the turbulent period after the liberation of the internment camps by officers who had been interned with Van der Post, and information from officers and figures in authority who had subsequently met him. What is more, the back cover of the Penguin edition (1984) states that the book consists of “episodes of autobiography”. On page 323 of the Penguin edition he says:

“It was strange, humbling and profoundly inspiring that the four and a half centuries of history that I carried vividly in my imagination should have brought me to a decisive role in its enactment and to a condition which enabled me at long last to fulfil my own personal feeling of a special obligation to history.”

The first part of this obligation was, he writes, to prevent the re-establishment of Dutch government in the Dutch Indies, which was actually three centuries old, not four-and-a-half. And in those years, five were interrupted by the British when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was the British Lieutenant Governor of Java and Dependencies (1811- 1816). He introduced some reformations, but made no bones about suppressing a revolt in DjoBatavia or about ending the independence of the sultanates of Bantam and Cheribon.

Only the jealousy between England, Germany, and France enabled the Dutch to regain their Indies.

But now, after the war, the British once more thought the time was ripe for a new coup: an independent Indonesia within the British Commonwealth. The Indonesian leaders readily accepted the idea; luckily, the Dutch managed to scotch it during negotiations.

Perhaps ‘Yet being someone other’ should not be considered as a documentary ... New Statesman of 14 January 1983 agrees with Penguin by saying that it is more an autobiography ... it is not, either way, fanciful. He really meant that he was destined to liberate seventy million Indonesian souls from ‘slavery’.

His special obligation to history made itself apparent some time after he had given himself up to the Japanese, which he did to save the majority of his group from capture. As he surrendered, he told his fellow officers: “You are to disperse at once and lie low. I’ll lead them away and try to escape later and rejoin you.” Then, taking the wounded Australian soldier, badly in need of expert medical attention, with me, and supporting him with my right arm under his shoulders as he was a small man, I made my way back to rejoin the impatient Japanese.

It is clear that he was not captured alone. Whether or not he surrendered is not so clear. Perhaps it is worth comparing the four different written accounts of his capture.

Paragraph 22 of his secret report is the earliest, and omits any reference to a wounded Australian. I have already given the account adequate attention.

Then in ‘The seed and the sower’ (1963) he describes on p131 how the character Celliers (himself) receives a message from the Japanese that the entire population of Lembak Sembada will be massacred unless he surrenders. Telling the Ambonese soldiers in his party (highly doubtful that there were any) to don civvies, bury their weapons, and mingle with the natives until the war’s end, Celliers decides to give himself up.

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In ‘Yet being someone’ other Van der Post describes on p314 how, one night, his group was surrounded by Japanese, who are told by their lieutenant to mount bayonets and charge. Van der Post then spoke the redeeming words (in Japanese, moreover): “Would you please excuse me and be so good as to condescend and wait an honourable moment?”

The request saved his life.Finally, in ‘Yet being someone other’, Van der Post descends to Lembak Sembada, alone and unarmed, pockets

stuffed with M&B tablets and pills of quinine, where he suddenly finds himself surrounded by Japanese, charging at him with bayonets fixed. Again, his mystical knowledge of high Japanese saves him for another honoured moment while he returns for the wounded Australian.

Perhaps it would be best to dismiss all four accounts as pure fiction, yet the man himself has consistently refused so to do. Certainly, I find Paul Vogt’s account far more credible:

One day, at about nine o’clock in the morning, one of our couriers brought a paper on which was written in Japanese/English......and they threatened that Tjikuning, Tjikotok, Tjuntjing etc would be completely massacred if...Commander Van der Post decided, after much deliberation with a number of officers, to meet the Japanese delegation together with an officer. A mission-surrender, whereby he stated that the remainder of his group consisted only of typhoid patients. And the Japs would have found those typhoid patients if they had proceeded further on.

For me, that is enough. A surrender in the company of another officer, leaving sick and wounded higher up on the mountain. But why with his pockets full of medicines? Surely they should have been with the men he left behind, who, as we know from Paul Vogt and Dr Van Noorden, were critically short of such provisions.

Van Noorden’s return to the plant was, he said, because there were no longer enough medicines. Vogt, too, complained of this lack, and said he was having to use whatever natural substances he could gain from trees and plants. And yet Van der Post writes about his capture: every pocket of my jungle-green bush-jacket was stuffed only with M&B tablets and pills of quinine for the wounded and the sick.

Why? Surely those medicines should have stayed with the wounded and the sick? After the war, I learnt from Paul Vogt that shelters had been built for the sick in the woods on the slopes of the Sangabuana. He had visited them regularly, doing for them as best he could. Apparently they had been told to seek greater security should Japanese or robbers approach, but nobody had told them how to move, or where to find that security.

It is my guess that the survivors, when Vogt and his last eight healthy men surrendered, were doomed to be slaughtered or die a slow and painful death. And my calculations show that out of Van der Post’s group of about a hundred, more than seventy were left to die.

How to explain the paradox we now have? Was Van der Post the man with a special obligation to history, an inspirational saviour of Dutch and Indonesians alike? Or was he a ruthless pursuer of individual survival? In my experience, he was always amiable and charming, but the question marks that surround him increase and multiply.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that Van der Post really was an inspired person. Recent newspaper reports have described him as eccentric, a believer in dreams and the ‘collective unconscious’ ... unorthodox. But his inspiration affected him with excessive and misplaced enthusiasm, made him a fanatic.

Such people are often uncomfortable to be with, and Van der Post himself says that in post-war Java: It soon became a common belief ... that I made British policy. As the belief spread, I started losing my Dutch friends until finally I had none left among men with whom I had endured and suffered so much. I could only negotiate with the Dutch through a noble Indonesian ...Even the last of our own generals ... ended up by not speaking to me except on points of duty.

One aspect of his fanaticism was to prevent Britain from starting a colonial war on behalf of the Dutch. He was convinced that the nationalist movement in Java had the full support of all the natives, that the indigenous population had never longed more to see the last of the Dutch.

We had not... fought a world war in order to fight an old- fashioned colonial war for others, all the more when we ourselves were in full process of granting independence to Burma and the vast subcontinent of India. It seemed to me as immoral and obscene as it was unwise. So I set out to prevent it.

One of his first measures was to ensure that all Dutch and Indonesians in the Japanese internment camps stayed put.

His reason was that outside the camps we should all be slaughtered by the nationalists. His fears were

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understandable: he had only six hundred British troops to control the whole of Java.

Not far away, in Malaya, there were ten thousand Dutch troops, passively waiting, doing nothing. With their officers and government convinced of their duty to restore peace and order on Java, they were forbidden by the British to set foot on the island.

Of course, we were also at fault, blindly accepting the order to stay in the camps, albeit with reluctance. But how could the average internee know what was going on outside, realize just how weak the British occupying force was? Immediately after the Japanese capitulation, we had begun to leave the camps... only to be slaughtered by the natives, according to Van der Post. I myself, together with my children (whom I had collected from another camp) left the camp several times, to eat in a nearby kampong or in a Chinese restaurant in town. And we were never faced by hostility or molested. On the contrary, people took pity on us, and claimed that they were looking forward to a return to the ways of former times.

Strangely enough, Van der Post himself subsequently agreed with that sentiment. In an interview by Jan Bosdriesz and Gerard Soeteman published in Vrij Nederland on 24 November 1984, he says: It was very moving to see how happy the natives were and how they pushed the Japanese away who saw the prisoners of war to the train, in order to embrace the prisoners and give them little presents. Moving to see!

Hardly consistent with page 324 of Yet being someone other:The truth was, of course, that the indigenous population had never longed more to see the last of the Dutch, and

were now ardently seizing their best opportunity...

It occurs to me that Van der Post could not have been aware of Queen Wilhelmina’s radio broadcast from London, on 6 December, 1942. Her Majesty made clear that independence for the Dutch Indies would come. But gradually, in an orderly fashion, and not overnight like Van der Post insisted on, like the Portuguese allowed in Mocambique and Angola.

In fact, in the internment camps, many of us had often discussed the future of Java, especially its independence and possible inclusion in a Dutch Commonwealth.

Anyway, Paul Vogt, with his considerable knowledge of the land and its indigenous population, helped Van der Post considerably, particularly in making contact with nationalist leaders. There is no doubt that he was in touch with Sukarno; during the Bosdriesz/Soeteman interview, he said that if Sukarno’s claims had been ignored the Dutch would easily have been able to push Sukarno aside once they had regained control.

During the Japanese occupation, most Dutch administrative personnel were interned, and Indonesians were recruited for many positions. Sukarno was released from jail and given a military position; he became the Japanese chief advisor and propagandist, recruiter of labourers, soldiers, even prostitutes.

In October, 1943, a volunteer defence force composed of and commanded by Indonesians was formed and trained by the Japanese. This force was to become the core of the nationalist army during the revolution, despite the fact that is was replaced in March 1944 by a “People’s loyalty organization”, which was kept under very much stricter Japanese control.

The following September, the Japanese announced that the Indies were to be prepared for independence, and within a year, on the eve of Japanese capitulation, summoned Sukarno to Saigon and promised immediate independence.

Sukarno returned to Batavia and came under pressure to make a unilateral declaration of independence. He did so on 17 August, 1945.

Anyway, contact between Van der Post and Sukarno was not necessarily to the British good. The Indonesian Revolution, which followed UDI, was characterized by spontaneous incidents, such as the struggle for Bandung in late 1945 to early 1946, and the battle of Surabaja which began on 28 October 1945. At Surabaja, Brigadier-General Mallaby was killed, Vogt seriously wounded. Van der Post escaped unscathed.

The incidents made the British realize that extreme measures were required for extreme actions. An experience of mine is worth relating in this respect. In Batavia, the house next to mine was being plundered by natives, though only fifty metres from a British post staffed by Gurkhas under the command of an English lieutenant. I went there for help, only to be told that they had no orders to cover such situations. After a lengthy argument, he sent six Ghurkas with me, and we reached the house just as the robbers were making off on bicycles laden with stolen goods. The Ghurkas refused to fire even a warning shot, and let the villains simply go on their way, booty and all.

A while later, a hand grenade was hurled into their post, killing a few Gurkhas. Now they decided to take action!

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Early the next morning, they surrounded a nearby compound and massacred every inhabitant.

Similar action was taken when a British Dakota was shot down.

At this time, Van der Post was Lord Mountbatten’s personal political and military representative, so perhaps Van der Post’s erstwhile friends were justified in believing that he was responsible for British policy in Java.

Whatever, chaos continued and the Japanese-trained extremists strengthened their position. Thousands died, unnecessarily. Men, women, and children. I still curse myself for not having taken some initiative. There were plenty of able-bodied men in the camps, and we could easily have combined forces with all those Ambonese ex- Dutch-army men to maintain order. And relative order there was, for the first of the revolutionary massacres began only after Sukarno’s UDI.

I am convinced that we should have been successful. After all, Captain Westerling freed Bandung from six thousand extremists, though he had only three-hundred-and- fifty men with him. And he maintained peace in northern Sumatra with a mere handful of soldiers.

The formation of a few territorial groups could have prevented terrible suffering.

But we did not, and the situation developed and worsened. All the while, Van der Post was talking to people like Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Stafford Cripps, and Mountbatten himself, pleading against a return of power to the Dutch.

Attlee told him to discuss the situation with the Dutch at The Hague, which he did in October, 1945. An elaborate and fascinating exchange of telegrams followed, between the British embassy at The Hague and the Department of Foreign Affairs in London. These are drawn- out conversations between Van der Post and the Dutch authorities and influential businessmen. They are far to lengthy to include here, but the general tone is important.

For instance, he was strongly attacked for recommending talks with Sukarno and Hatta (another nationalist-movement leader and subsequently vice president of Sukarno’s revolutionary government). He was asked why he had not given orders for the arrest of the two men. Van der Post replied that he had merely suggested talking with them, not negotiation, and that nobody had suggested acknowledging Sukarno or any other temporary government on Java.

While he was at The Hague, Van der Post also reported on a telegram from Van Mook (Lieutenant-Governor General) about the worsening situation on Java. He then analysed the telegram with Professor J Logeman, Foreign Minister in the Schermerhorn-Drees cabinet and member of the Stuw group that wanted independence for Indonesia. Both men concluded that the contents indicated a change for the better, and Van der Post went on to complain to Logeman that Van Mook apparently implied that the British officers and troops on Java were not doing what was expected of them.

That the British did not send more troops to Java and refused to put any shipping at the disposal of the Dutch troops was, Van der Post claimed, due only to a misunderstanding; the British were very friendly towards the Dutch. “If,” he said, “we have been able to transfer a little bit of their anger from Supreme Allied Command to their own government it won’t do any harm to His Majesty’s government.”

Another viewpoint was expressed by the American Admiral Leahy at the Honolulu Conference of 18 July 1944. In his book ‘I was there’, Leahy writes: There was talk about the British role in the coming operations against Japan. It became apparent from reports that in Churchill’s government there were certain elements who pleaded for a ‘controlling interest’ in the Dutch East Indies as soon as they had been reconquered.

And again, as early as 1947, H.W.J. Picard, former vice president of the Dutch East Indies Radio Broadcasting Company, wrote:

On 29 September, 1945, the first British troops (mostly British-Indian troops) landed at Tandjong Priok. Not more than 2000 men to begin with. Their Supreme Commander was General Christison, who soon gave out a statement that he had come to maintain quiet and order, and to disarm the Japanese and release the prisoners. He would not interfere with internal politics.

Facts have made it clear that this was what made the alarm bell toll for the Dutch Indies.

In October, 1945, not interfering with internal politics meant no more and no less than de facto recognition of the Republic of Indonesia... Is it, in point of fact, generally known that the majority of the Volksraad (people’s council) (35 of the 60 members) was Indonesian?

... The complete war that has raged at Surabaja, the terrible riots at Bandung, the awful attacks on the women’s camps

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of Semarang and Ambarawa, all these developments took place when the expected authority failed to show up and the furious Pemudas met with no restraint along their bloody road.

Eventually, it became too hot for Van der Post, who reported, in May or June of 1947, to General Ritchie in Singapore. In a subsequent interview, Van der Post said: ...did the British maintain their relatively anti-colonial policy. They did not permit Dutch battalions to engage in fighting, and denied permission to the Dutch government to land troops on Java and Sumatra...

After having appraised Ritchie of his view of Java, Van der Post travelled via South Africa to London, and thence back to Africa in the service of his king and country, the Javanese disaster well and truly behind him.

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CHAPTER 15: A POST SCRIPT

The ink of the last line of Chapter 14 had not completely dried when I received some highly relevant documents from a friend who knew my story. It shows that my ideas are not unique, that other people (and more influential) believe Van der Post to have been destructively anti-Dutch after the Japanese occupation of Java.

By including these documents, I shall be repeating some of the material that has already appeared in this book. I trust that the reader will bear with such repetition; for me, it adds strength to my ideas and is therefore justified.

One document is a secret report from the Dutch Liaison Officers of HQ 23 Ind.Div. Dated 5 May, 1946:

General Hawthorn at Batavia insisted on the arrest of the Indonesian General Major Didi Kartasasmita. This man brought about the attacks on the British convoys and is responsible for the outbreak of the battles between Batavia andBandung. The HQ has proof of this, and has more than once brought to AFNEI’s attention the treacherous activities of the TRO; yet the AFNEI has acknowledged the TRO as such.{1} Major General Sudibijo asked for us to send themilitary books and magazines promised to him by Colonel Van der Post. About Colonel Van der Post one must say that he was too much Indonesia minded, and being so had lost all eye for proportions. (This is also the opinion of many British staff officers.)

Books and magazines? Arms and ammunition!

Another document includes a letter of 16 May, 1945, from the Dutch staff section of SACSEA{2} Singapore in which item 1 the Supreme Allied Commander and his G.O.S.

Are urgently pressed for Colonel Van der Post’s discharge.

Item 2 points out Van der Post’s manifold nationalistic contacts and the dangers of his probably very biased information.

Item 3 touches on his “obstructive acts”, which, I learnt from a reliable source, almost led on several occasions to pitched battles between Dutch and

British-Indian troops.

Item 5 states that many considered Van der Post’s attitude to be anti-Dutch.

The third document is dated 11 October, 1945. It is a telegram, numbered 599, from Supreme Allied Command South East Asia to the Foreign Office in London, for Mr Dening, and is top secret. The following extracts need no comment:

The informant’s name is ‘undecoded’ but in the margin the name of “Van der Post” is mentioned, but even without this indication it is clear by whom it was composed, to wit “a British officer who was a prisoner on Java, and who had the particular opportunity to observe the situation since capitulation.” He also says that he feels that, if only he could get the opportunity to go to Holland, he speaking the Dutch language, would possibly be able to convince his friends there that the situation ought to be handled with care. Further, the Indonesian nationalists with the help of the Japanese had lodged themselves into key positions, in order to have control of the vital public institutions and administrations by the time of the capitulation, so it should be realized that they were able to paralyze Java. In any case it was clear that nobody in Indonesia wanted “the old gang” back. The return of Van Mook and Van der Plas{3} (who is said to have changed his opinion) filled the masses with distrust. The Dutch officers believe that shooting at them is the one remedy. And this could mean trouble for the British. So the Dutch government had to be influenced. The Dutch had to be convinced that they were no longer wanted, whether they liked it or not, especially not the way they thought about re-occupation.

Actions are unpermissible and would only cause serious trouble for Great Britain, not only in the Far East, but all over the world. Conclusion: If met with sympathy and understanding the Indonesian movement will not form any danger for the future wellbeing of Indonesia.

My attention was also drawn to certain passages in Official document concerning Dutch-Indonesian relations 1945-1950 by Dr S.L. Van der Wal. The first two parts of the document consist of a lengthy accusation against the actions and subterfuge of Lord Louis Mountbatten, General Christison, and Laurens van der Post. Some of the passages are reproduced below... out of context, obviously, but nonetheless highly revealing.

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PART 1

p 73 para 43: Note from Logeman (Minister of Overseas Places) re the preparation for the State conference, 30 August 1945, being an abstract from a radio broadcast by H.M. The Queen on 10 May 1945

I said to Netherland in my radio broadcast of 20 March that I intend to create ample opportunity to bring to my knowledge wishes and views concerning the adaptation of our regime in Netherland to the changed circumstances, now I say to the whole nation that I intend to apply this principle also to the structural adaptation of the overseas parts and the definition of their place in the realm according to the changed circumstances, whereby I will also be prepared to listen to the wishes and views of the people concerned in order to consider them seriously.

P 136 para 4: Notes from K. Posthumus{4}

A medical examination held in the Baros camp at Tjimahi, where the Japanese formed an elite amongst the internees, has proved that many of the camp inhabitants are able to co-operate immediately in the restoration and re-establishment. Many of them have been preparing themselves mentally for the task, throughout these long years; a provisional organization was set up, under the Japanese administration, and tasks were allocated and adapted to real problems and possibilities; it is most disappointing for the persons concerned that decisions are made and acted on ‘for them, without them, about them’. The disappointment will be increased by the faulty way in which preparations for and execution of relief and restoration are now made. The fact that it was almost impossible for the vice president of the Council of the Dutch Indies and his staff to contact Dutch, English, or Japanese authorities or even the Red Cross departments has also caused great astonishment and anger; they left the Baros camp only to be re-interned in the Kramat camp at Batavia.

P 142 para 82: Spit (vice president of the Council of Dutch Indies to Van Mook (Lieutenant Governor General), 19 September, 1945 Van der Plas has been here for four days. I had a fifteen-minute talk with him. Several attempts to get in touch with him failed. I definitely think he is avoiding me or trying to put me off with conciliatory words. This is creating bitter disappointment and anger amongst my staff, who are all eager to get to work. More and more members of ‘relief parties’ - well intentioned though they may be - gather at the Hotel des Indes, while we, behind bamboo and barbed wire, hear their activities and remain inactive......If it is impossible for you to come, instruct Van der Plas to try co-operating with us. I have tried my best; further attempts would be undignified. Please believe me, my request has nothing to do with vanity or wounded pride. I see matters taking the wrong course. I know that course could be altered. Our people - men, women, the old ones and the young ones - are waiting with great anxiety. Put them to work!

P 146 para 85: Major General N.L.W. Van Straten (NICA Officer, Java) to Lieutenant Governor General Van Mook

I want Dutch troops, not because I consider the British forces insufficient, but for a national show of power and in case we have to counter-attack the Nationalists, as I suspect the British of doing nothing against them or taking the wrong measures.

P 182 para 113: Van der Plas to Van Mook, 29 September 1945

S.A.C.{5} told me with much emphasis that England will absolutely not get involved with internal difficulties on Java. British troops shall not be used to suppress revolts or riots. I have emphatically brought forward your views and Logeman’s, but it is an irrevocable decision of the government, imparted to me by the British Minister of War personally...

...In consequence of this state of affairs I have strongly insisted on the highest priority for the sending of Dutch troops to Java, as the planned occupation of just a few areas at Batavia and Surabaja, leaving the rest of the island to Javanese control, will unavoidably lead to the most serious consequences, involving British troops against their will, and jeopardizing the lives of all loyal citizens and prisoners of war and internees.

P 185 para 114: Report of a meeting on 29 September, 1945

Chairman: It is feared that Mr Van der Plas, as long as he does not receive specific orders, will talk with Sukarno and others, and it would be better, maybe, to send him back to Brisbane. Again, the Governor General emphatically warns against making any deals with these unconscientious people on Java.

P 223 para 131: Meyer Ranneft (Member of the Council of State) to Schermerhorn (Minister for General Warfare), 2 October, 1945

I keep thinking that Mr Van der Plas, Member of the Council of the Dutch Indies, has played a completely false part, though with the best intentions. I read in the papers that Mr Van der Plas has promised amnesty and that General

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Christison refers to urgent requests from Mr Van der Plas to the Dutch Government. Knowing Mr Van der Plas’s character quite well, I can only come to the conclusion that Mr Van der Plas has made serious attempts to deal with the so-called Sukarno Regime. If my suppositions are only half true, I think Mr Van der Plas must be excluded from involvement in the course of affairs.

P 352 para 184: Van Kleffens (Minister of Foreign Affairs) to Michiels van Verduynen (Ambassador in London) 13 October, 1945

Our government again reminds the British government that the responsibility for mishaps is theirs, in case they do not take notice of our urgent requests. May they understand that another ‘too little and too late’ may cause unparallelled, not to say still farther reaching consequences.

P 406 para 219: Van Mook to Logeman 22-31 October, 1945

Enclosed a copy of Dening’s address to the republican government. They wanted to contact me after the address, but the gentlemen hesitated too long. Meanwhile, the extremist wing got out of hand even further, and it became evident that it was those extremists who had been given Japanese arms or stolen them. The situation became more chaotic especially in the middle and east of Java; the English had to start fighting immediately after they landed at Semarang. The Japanese had just started an action there; fifteen of them were slaughtered by the extremists. The Japanese managed to restore order in just one day, but unfortunately the English arrived just before the proceedings had been completed, and they began immediately to stop the Japanese in order to restart the old game of making contact with the republican leaders.

The situation at the women’s camp at Ambarawa is very bad, now that the rains have started, and the threats and assaults to which they are exposed are getting worse and worse. Finally, the British landed at Surabaja on the 26 th; at first they met no resistance, but they were attacked on the 28th. It was an organized attack, making clear that the Indonesians have at their disposal great quantities of arms and numerous people; the British suffered defeat and are practically isolated.

PART 2

p 271 para 132: Helfrich (Commander of the Dutch Forces in South East Asia) to De Booy (Naval Minister), 2 December 1945

It is most regrettable that the English have come here without a proper insight into the situation. It is also regrettable that the B.S.O.{6} was not instructed to join them without a civil Indies government (as a representative of the Dutch government and Crown. As a military man, with the authority of the Supreme Command, I could have acted a lot more freely than a politically bound civil government. Should I have made mistakes, they would have meant a lot less than mistakes by a civil government. Moreover, those mistakes would have been the responsibility of a foreign military commander; the loss of prestige that I suffer at the moment would not have existed, or would have been far less. However, Christison could have acted in a much stricter fashion, even within the limits of the very restricted British views. His policy was (and still is) unforgivably weak, and gives the impression of being very pro-republican. That may not be his intention, but the fact remains that everything he does gives this impression. If, in the beginning, they had acted as they should have, then everything would have turned out all right. Everybody here says that after the Japanese capitulation the attitude of the natives towards the Dutch was very friendly, or at worst neutral. This changed quickly, thanks to Sukarno’s cunning propaganda, which was encouraged by the Japanese and helped by the facts that no Allied forces arrived and the policy of those forces when they did arrive was weak.

The result is a “Wild West” where nobody is safe anymore, where robbing and looting go on in broad daylight, while the number of kidnappings increases in a terrifying way. Moreover, the beasts act in a way that surpasses even the Japanese methods. For instance, the 22 bodies of the passengers of a British plane that had to make a forced landing north-east of the city, have been found in a communal grave near Bekassi, horribly mutilated. The bodies had been cut into pieces. This is probably the fate of all those who have been kidnapped. Nobody understands why the Dutch troops are not being admitted. It is terrifying to see women and children being murdered in the camps, only because the British troops are not strong enough to protect them, while in Malaya there are ten-thousand Dutch troops helplessly waiting. It is humiliating for me not to receive permission to send my own battleships to my own fleet base in Surabaja. All of this promotes an anti-British mood, which, of course, is not in favour of the cause. How long is this going to last? I have returned to my house at Parapettan 38 and hoisted the Dutch flag, which, in this country, is seen as an act of courage, since formally only the red and white flag of the Republic may be flown. The house is in a reasonable state, except for the kitchen utensils. It is most difficult to do business here; everything has been stolen by the natives, cars as well. The transport problem is insoluble. We are being boycotted by the natives so that nobody has any servants and sometimes

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even the food supply is cut off and the markets closed, so the population starves. It is a crying shame that three months after the capitulation the camps are still full of starving, naked, neglected, terrified, and embittered European wrecks. The English have come to disarm the Japanese and rescue the prisoners. By far the larger number of prisoners have not yet been released. Then what have the English done? They could not even prevent the Japanese from transferring large quantities of arms to the natives. This has strengthened the Sukarno army in a way nobody would ever have thought possible. Each more day of procrastination makes the problem even more insoluble. As I said before, only a heavy blow can bring rescue. But then today’s velvet gloves must be replaced by the iron fist of a Jan Pieterszoon Coen, a Van Heutz, or a Daendels. Leadership may no longer be left in the hands of the super-ethical and half-red elements, who are now forming a clique that wishes to continue the ethical policies of yesteryear, not realizing that this country’s moral standards have been lowered from those of a modern, civilized state to the level of a Wild West, reminiscent of the first explorations of Alaska.

P 404 para 212: Van Bylandt (Special Attache and Minister by proxy to the Lieutenant Governor General) to Van Kleffens (Minister of Foreign Affairs) 21 December 1945

Notwithstanding bad relations with and hatred towards the British, the development of the situation - murder, kidnappings, ambushes - is gradually convincing the British Command and their troops to change their attitude and hit back the hard way. But they are continually thwarted in their endeavour by the “policy” of Christison and some of his intelligence men; personally, however, I believe that Christison does not care one way or the other and just follows orders from Mountbatten in London. We keep trying to influence Christison and his advisors, but I think that the actual work should be done in London. Where changes must be made is in politics and military policies. Politics: The British still maintain a sort of neutrality that works, however, in favour of the Republic. For example, the propaganda for the Republic is made over the radio, in a Malay that is larded with strange expressions, whilst the Dutch are allowed to use only proper Dutch language. Military: The British, afraid of world opinion, are driven to a policy of weakness on one side (acting only in defence and in reprisal), but their reprisals are sometimes stupid, brutal, and dangerous, as in the burning out of Bekassi, which made everybody homeless, including the decent people, and turned them into robbers as well. Our advisors are either not consulted or not listened to. Apparently, political orders are obstructing a policy of offence and prevent arrests of hoodlums and combing out of resistance centres. All this goes on at the cost of human lives; entire populations are forced into war with us, by sheer intimidation, and the weakness of the Allied regime convinces them that their best choice is on the side of the shooting club. There is ample reason for gloominess.

P 406 para 213: Idenburg (Director of the Cabinet of the Lieutenant Governor General) to Van Mook (Governor General) 22 December 1945

It is a fact that Christison is not very communicative towards Van Bylandt. I myself don’t even try to talk to him, as I feel strongly that he considers me to be a defiant youngster. Walsh I do not trust, because of painful experiences in

the past; moreover, I don’t think he’s too intelligent. The best information about the English forces comes from Abdulkadir, whom Van der Post allows to see almost everything.

All these extracts from official documents underline the disastrous policies of our British allies, policies that can only have been recommended by Mountbatten’s personal advisor and Christison’s intelligence officer: Laurens van der Post.

The English scandalously neglected their duty towards the maintenance of peace and order, while Van der Post remained obsessed with his fanatical pursuit of liberation of the Indonesians from “Dutch slavery”. His instrument was chaos. Chaos that meant attacks on the women left in those Japanese internment camps, on Europeans everywhere. Chaos in which mothers saw their children being abducted the one day to be found horribly mutilated and thrown on a rubbish dump the next. Chaos that saw people vanish without trace, that saw looting, unhindered vandalism.

The military suffered too, and many victims were members of the Dutch East Indies Army or the Indonesian Republican Army, and many British soldiers and Gurkhas were killed or wounded.

And in the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of Dutch Indies people were ‘repatriated’, bankrupt of everything except their lives, to struggle for a new existence in an inhospitable Holland that viewed the disaster as the outcome of an acceptable risk inherent in colonization.

FOOTNOTES

{1} AFNEI: Allied Forces Netherlands East Indies. TRO: Tentara Republik Indonesia.

{2} Supreme Allied Command South East Asia

{3} Dr Ch.O. Van der Plas was, before the war, a member of the “Raad van Indie” or Council of the Indies. After the

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war he was governor of Java, delegate South East Asia Command. And he was a member of the “Stuw-groep-Leiden” promoting complete independence for Indonesia. DWNK.

{4} Former rector of the Christian Lyceum, Bandung; after the war acting director of the Rijks Voorlichtings Dienst (Public Relations Department) in Batavia.

{5} South Asia Command.

{6} Bevelhebber Strijdkrachten Oosten, or Commander, East Forces.

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