The ambush between Boekit Daroe and Ketapan Doewa (17 July 1876) was the destruction of a mixed Dutch escort of 14 armed men, 10 forced-labourers and a sick man on the daily track over the drowned sawahs between Boekit Daroe and Ketapan Doewa, by 40 to 50 Atjehers. Its two corporal commanders — Wensting and Wijnen — were killed, with 4 of their men; it was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The escort
The escort was made of two parts. The first, 8 armed fusiliers under the European corporal Wensting, was bound through Ketapan Doewa to bring the post journal to the commander of the western line at Pakan Badak and to fetch bread; the second, 6 armed fusiliers under the European corporal Wijnen, was to escort a sick man to Kota Radja. With them went 10 forced-labourers under the European sapper (mineur) Van Dijk, to fetch materials. At half past five on the morning of 17 July both parties marched off from Boekit Daroe: Wensting with his 8 men in front, Van Dijk with labourers and patient next, Wijnen with his 6 last. The road went over rice-dikes through sodden sawahs — man behind man, weapons loaded, as closed up as possible; that was all that could be done.
The ambush
About halfway, the track crossed a narrow bridge over a ditch barely a metre wide. Just north of the ditch and a little east of the footpath lay a small grass field surrounded by bushes and a fence; a little northwest of it a small knoll overgrown with alang-alang. This ground was hidden from the view of both posts. Wensting’s party reached the grass field unmolested — but hardly had the head of his troop come to the field’s northwest corner, or the detachment was hotly fired upon over its whole length from the right flank, from two sides at once. Shock and confusion followed quickly. The forced-labourers fled in the direction of Djempit; the soldiers shrank back in the same direction. The enemy ceased firing and came at the troop with the naked weapon.
Corporal Wijnen — his commander already among the fallen — saw that the knoll was unoccupied, reached it quickly with some men, and opened a plunging fire on the enemy from that precious point: so effectual that the Atjehers soon fled by the way they had come, though they lingered for a moment on the field. Then a lieutenant with 25 men appeared, sent as help by the post commander of Boekit Daroe, who had heard the firing and supposed what was going on. The enemy vanished from the field, taking the weapons of the Dutch fallen.
Losses and judgment
Dutch losses: 4 soldiers killed, among whom the detachment commander Corporal Wensting; 2 others wounded, of whom the sapper Van Dijk died the same day. The fallen included, besides Wensting and Van Dijk, the men of the two little parties who had been caught in the open. The enemy, attacking with 40 to 50 men, left 3 dead and carried off 4 to 5 wounded; the Dutch captured one blunderbuss, one revolver, and one Dutch Beaumont rifle — lost to the enemy at an earlier occasion — with about ten sharp cartridges made from Dutch empty cases.
Meijer recorded that the inquiry had shown the necessary security measures not to have been taken on the march: a small routine reconnaissance of the covered field was omitted. But he added the extenuation he made throughout his book: the unlucky detachment commander had only been a corporal, who had perhaps never before commanded 25 men; that one of the two corporals lost here his life — his first command — could be charged to no one.
See Also
- Korporaal Wensting
- Korporaal Wijnen
- Mineur Van Dijk (1876)
- Boekit Daroe
- Ketapan Doewa
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 229–232; sketches no. 6 (terrain and battlefield of 17 July 1876).