All that happened was that on that fateful December Sunday Japan set its sights on the resource rich Netherlands East Indies, a colony  whose Imperial master had recently fallen under the heel of the Third Reich. All that stood in the way  of Japan’s lunge to the south was 2000 miles of Ocean and the questionable willingness of America and, let’s be generous, the ability of  Britain to intervene in such a venture. The diplomatic manoeuvring preceding the conflict  has been described in great detail by Dr Herman Bussemaker in his PhD dissertation for the University of Amsterdam (1).

A pre-emptive strike against the only significant opposing military force in this area enjoying, on Sunday December 7, a well-earned day of rest, made a Japanese defeat inevitable, but Japan could at the end of the war claim that with respect to one of its professed strategic objectives: ridding Asia of European dominance, she  was successful. The Netherlands East Indies ceased to exists on March 8 1942, and for practical purposes that situation did not change with the ending of the war on 15, August 1945.

Did the atomic  bomb end the war with the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? No, those apocalyptic blasts did not cow the Japanese Government nor its people  but precipitated a hurried offensive by the Soviet army to ensure control over the Pacific Shores of Asia and perhaps a Communist act of retribution for the humiliation of the Tsarist defeat in 1905. Japan feared a Russian invasion more than an American one (2).

It is small wonder that the Dutch and other European prisoners languishing in internment camps throughout south east Asia were so flabbergasted by the turn of events after the so-called Allied (actually  American) victory. Prisoners they were before August 15 and prisoners they remained afterwards, only finding ultimate relief by exchanging their prison garb for that of refugees. There is no question as to who lost that war.

The one Dutch observer on Java who could see the entire drama unfolding, and made a desperate attempt to forestall, what he saw as, impending postwar disaster, lost his life in the attempt, and would have sunk into oblivion were it not for the fact that his fascinating, intelligently written, insightful diary, survived the war and spurred its postwar owner into a investigation lasting twenty-three years in order to unmask the identity of the mysterious, intelligent, polyglot  author and the personae discussed in his daily observations while working for the Japanese Authorities until his final fatal move. (3)

(1) Bussemaker, Herman Th.,  “Paradise in Peril”, PhD Thesis, University of Amsterdam, Faculty of the Humanities, 2001.
(2) Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi, “The Atomic Bombs and the Soviet Invasion, which was more important in Japans’ decision to surrender?” Stanford University,  2007.
(3) Jansen, Dr. Leo  F.,   “In Deze Halve Gevangenis”, van Wijnen, Franeker 1988.

Other Books of note:
Dr Lou De Jong, “het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden”, Vol 11 deals with the Netherlands East Indies (1939-1945).Staatsuitgeverij, S’Gravenhage, 1985.
Johan Fabricius: “Brandende Aarde” , s’Leopolds Uitgever Maatschappij, the Hague, 1949. ( regarding the role of Petroleum resources in the conflict).

Memoirs
Ernest Hillen: “the Way of a Boy”, Penguin, 1993.
Mark Felton: “Children of the Camps”,Pen & Sword,  2011.

Web Articles
Elizabeth  van Kampen (http://www.dutch-east-indies.com/story/index.htm)  Her lengthy account includes a particularly gruesome description of the pig basket atrocity.

An earlier dated name register ( 1944) is available on Peter Kuil’s website.

The Tjihapit district lay along the north eastern edge of town.
Included in the book, Tjideng Reunion, is this detailed map of the camp itself.

To clarify the position of the camp, comparison of the two images makes the location obvious because of the curious road layout.

Internment of Europeans on Java during the Pacific War (1941-1945)

Japan justified its major offensive of Dec 1941 in part on a desire to rid Asia of European influence. But an equally strong policy objective was achievement of economic hegemony, most importantly by securing control over the petroleum resources of Indonesia. In Java these two policy objectives clashed, because the economy of Indonesia had been managed by the European and Europeanized sector of the population.

The book Tjideng Reunion discusses how these policy clashes manifested itself with resultant misery for all inhabitants of Java The process of selective incarceration over time of Europeans is presented in the following graph.

This graph provides an overview of the Japanese internment history on Java. The source of the data presented is the Geillustreerde Atlas van de Japanse Kampen in Nederlands Indie 1942-1945,(J van Dulm, W.J. Krijgsveld, H.J. Legemaate, H.A.M. Liesker G Weijers, Asia Maior, 2000).

The decreasing numbers of interned military personnel over time evident from the above graph, reflected the Japanese High Command policy of using these manpower resources as slave labour elsewhere in the occupied territories and within Japan itself. The field labeled “net transport” is an aggregation of the data that has been assembled of military personnel (mainly) being shipped out of Java. The other fields attempt to aggregate the remaining interned population.

Internment was almost exclusively based on ethnic considerations, although in Bandoeng a number of civilians of mixed race were also imprisoned. The author is unaware of accurate records covering the entire war time period. What is presented in the Atlas is clearly an attempt at reconstruction from fragmentary information. For the Indonesian part of the population almost no data related to internment or slave labour is available at all.

The casualty rate associated with the internment process and the slave labour aspect is poorly defined. The Junyo Maru incident described in the book Tjideng Reunion is merely one such disaster.

Sone Tribunal

Sone, our Camp Commandant on trial for war crimes in Singapore. He was convicted and executed.

Photo from NIOD ( Netherlands Institute of War Documentation)

First post war picture of Emmy Kerkhoven, recuperating in Ismailia. Egypt , on transit to South Africa. She and  her fellow travelers returned there in February on board the S.S. Felix Roussel, a French merchant ship that had sailed for the allies during the war.

Waiting in Egypt

Edu, waiting in Egypt at Ismailia for repatriation- still in his army uniform

Waiting in Egypt

Durban Christmas 1945

Cumberland

Towards the end of September 1945, one and a half months after the war had ended, the first Allied military personnel set foot on Java. The arrival of HMS Cumberland and HMNS Tromp in Tandjong Priok, the port of Batavia, was hardly the way we had anticipated being liberated by our victorious Allies. The tiny force was barely sufficient to take over Tjideng Camp guard duty from the Japanese army who for one and a half months had continued to guard the gate, but now from the threat of Indonesian rebels.

Guards

Elsewhere on Java, Japanese soldiers continued their new task of “protecting us” from former fellow citizens, an utterly bewildering turn of events. Seldom in history has a political weathervane swung so swiftly from one extreme to another. The Korean and Japanese chaps who had spent three and a half years trying to keep us locked up in the camp as enemy aliens, immediately after the armistice was signed, changed their role, and kept us locked up under Allied orders “for our safety”.

The tsunami of Japanese invasion was now replaced by the typhoon winds of political change. Within three and a half years life on Java had morphed from colonial oppression through military tyranny to descend into anarchy.

Photo of Guards taken last week of August, 1945

Photos from NIOD ( Netherlands Institute of War Documentation)