The Sabang bombing of 22 January 1942 was the heaviest in the sustained Japanese air offensive against the free-port island of Sabang off the northern tip of Atjèh, whose harbour works, airfield, and oil and gasoline supplies made it — together with Koetaradja — one of the two great strategic objectives of the Japanese assault on northern Sumatra. Piekaar’s Atjèh and the War with Japan records the raid as the climax of a bombing campaign that opened on 18 January 1942 and continued at a rate of “four to five attack days per week until the arrival of the enemy,” inflicting paralysis on the civilian life of every kota in Atjèh.
The campaign
The first Japanese air attack on Sabang took place on 18 January 1942. “At first it appeared,” writes the head of the sub-department in his report, “as if the town and the harbor were being haphazardly targeted, but after some time more pattern became discernible, when it could be deduced from repeatedly hit places that the enemy was relying on outdated data, namely when Sabang was still a naval support base.” The campaign intensified: “the strategically important Sabang was repeatedly bombed, most heavily on 22 January 1942.” The bombing campaign was accompanied by daily Japanese air reconnaissance over the whole of Atjèh, “which had a paralyzing effect on normal life in the various kota’s.”
Social and economic effects
The workers “down below” on the quay and in the workshops of the N.V. Zeehaven and Sabang coal station “felt like trapped rats”: the hills obstructed the view, so enemy aircraft were often already above the bay before the warning signal for air danger could be given. Improvement came only with an observation post on one of the highest peaks of the island. “After the first bombing, according to adat, a religious meal was held for reconciliation and exorcism.” Workers sought refuge at the malaria resort Paja Seunara, “which resulted in the outbreak of a malaria epidemic.” The bravest returned to town in the afternoon “when experience had taught that — no bombardments were to be feared.” The mental hospital, with more than 1,400 patients, lost much of its nursing staff, so that “patients broke out and made the town unsafe.” The reports of the various bombings on Sabang “led to many business people leaving the kota’s and the gampóng population daring no longer to go to the pasar, thereby threatening the economic life with disruption.”
Significance
The 22 January raid was the operational pivot of the Japanese air campaign against Atjèh. Together with the sinking of Hr. Ms. Wega off Oelèë Lheuë on 26 January 1942, it confirmed, weeks before the actual landings, the inevitability of the Japanese invasion.
See Also
- Sabang
- Koetaradja
- Oelèë Lheuë
- Fall of Penang (19 December 1941)
- Japanese invasion of Atjèh
- A. C. Verhoeff
- 22 January 1942
- 1942
Source
Atjèh and the War with Japan, by Dr. A. J. Piekaar, translated from the Dutch original Atjèh en de oorlog met Japan (1949) (‘s-Gravenhage/Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve; English edition), Chapter II and Chapter V § 1.