The ambush between Oleh Karang and Kota Alam (18 June 1876) was the destruction of a Dutch fouraging detachment — 15 men under sergeant-major Deingens, with 10 unarmed men — sent from Oleh Karang to Kota Alam for the daily fetching of meat and bread, cut off on the march by parties of Atjehers ambushed at two points. It cost 5 killed and 8 wounded and was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The detachment
At four in the afternoon of 18 June, the usual fouraging party left Oleh Karang for Kota Alam: 15 non-commissioned officers and men under sergeant-major Deingens; 2 European non-commissioned officers summoned to Kota Radja and 4 native fusiliers — all unarmed — to carry the bread and meat from Kota Alam; and 4 forced-labourers with a stretcher (tandoe) for a sick man going to Kota Radja. The march between the two posts was no more than a kilometre, yet was bordered by the covered ground where the enemy felt himself every day the master.
The ambush
Hardly had the detachment left the sight of Oleh Karang when rifle shots were heard there. First Lieutenant W. E. Willink Ketjen at once marched out with 30 men to investigate, met the two summoned European non-commissioned officers fleeing wounded towards Oleh Karang, and entering the kampong found part of the detachment in a fire-fight with the enemy, who fled as the relief approached. The search showed losses of 1 European and 2 native fusiliers and 2 forced-labourers killed, and the detachment commander and 3 native fusiliers severely wounded.
The investigation established that the detachment had marched extremely carelessly — the true word is nonchalant, Meijer wrote. Six of the armed men, including 2 Europeans, had walked so far ahead that they were completely cut off from the main body when the ambush broke. The attack itself came at the moment the main body halted to let the forced-labourers repair a stretcher. Almost at the same moment the six men ahead were attacked by another Atjehnese band lying in ambush more towards Kota Alam; two of them were wounded and the four others managed to reach Kota Alam. Far greater confusion and loss would have followed at the main body had not some native fusiliers rallied and taken a covered position to the rear, whence they kept the enemy in check with their fire until Willink Ketjen’s help arrived.
Assessment
The enemy’s killed and wounded remained unknown; the Dutch counted 5 killed and 8 wounded. Meijer cited the affair as the recurring lesson of the year: the enemy never failed to punish carelessness on the roads between posts. The commanders of larger detachments, not only single walkers, had lost men by neglect of marching security — the same cause as the February catastrophe and the August disaster at Lo-oe.
See Also
- W. E. Willink Ketjen
- Oleh Karang
- Kota Alam
- Ambush between Kota Alam and Oleh Karang (28 July 1876)
- 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. 202–204.