The Oleh Karang convoy ambush (16 April 1876) was an attack by about forty lance- and klewang-armed Atjehers on a Dutch working convoy carrying building materials between the posts of Kota Alam and Oleh Karang, north of the Atjeh River. The fight, at barely 800 metres from its destination, cost the escort two killed and six wounded, all Europeans, and was described by H. F. Meijer in Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
The convoy
On 16 April, at eight in the morning, a detachment of 22 native soldiers under a native sergeant left Oleh Karang for Kota Alam to fetch a load of building materials; except for the sergeant, in full marching order, they carried only the machete. For protection a detachment of 9 European fusiliers with rifles, under the European sergeant Fabel, accompanied them: 5 men as advance guard and 4 as rear guard, with the 21 unarmed porters and a native corporal in between. The distance between the two posts was only 2,000 metres, of which 1,200 could be traversed without danger; but the remaining eight hundred metres — covered ground near Oleh Karang that had not yet been fully cleared — had to be passed with the greatest care.
The fight
On that covered stretch the detachment heard a blunderbuss shot on its left flank — the signal for about forty Atjehers with klewang and lance to rush out from all sides. The escort halted; Sergeant Fabel, who was with the unarmed men, coolly ordered the armed men to close up around the porters. The unarmed natives dropped their loads and ran towards Oleh Karang — which they reached unhurt, because the armed escort stood firm. Fusilier Roels of the rear guard sprang, after firing his shot, on an Atjeher and fought hand to hand; wounded by a klewang cut, disarmed and about to be finished, he was saved by fusilier Krakeel, who shot one Atjeher dead and bayoneted another — but himself fell, wounded in six places, giving as he fell the news that he had heard the alarm bugle sounded at Oleh Karang.
The enemy, hearing it too, understood that help would soon arrive and vanished as quickly as he had come. The fierce fight had lasted only a few minutes. Fabel, joined by the fusiliers Krakeel and Miller, had stood his ground on the spot; Miller fell dead beside him, fusilier Schoonhoven was severely wounded when he stumbled while following their example, and Fabel himself received five lance wounds — fusilier Conwelaars fell not far from him.
Losses
The patrols sent out from Oleh Karang (an officer with 25 bayonets) and from Kota Alam met the retiring parties; at the place of the fight four dead Atjehers were found with a lance and a few krisses. Dutch losses: 2 killed and 6 wounded, all Europeans; the enemy took no weapons. December and April showed, Meijer noted, that on this much-disputed quadrangle between Lamprit, Kota Alam, Pango and Oleh Karang no detachment, however short its march, could go without its rifles loaded and its guards out — as would be shown again at the same place in the disasters of 14 July and 28 July 1876.
See Also
- Kota Alam
- Oleh Karang
- Lamprit
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
- Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 155–157.