The capitulation of the Dutch forces on Sumatra on 28 March 1942 was the surrender of the last organised Dutch East-Indies forces in northern Sumatra — Major-General Overakker’s highland army at Blang Kédjérèn in the Gajó Loeós valley, and the combined Lhó’ Nga and West-Coast troops of Captain Kloprogge at the Lae Boetar enterprise in Singkel — which ended the defence of the Atjèh highlands and brought the Japanese invasion of Atjèh to a military close. Piekaar’s Atjèh and the War with Japan treats it as the culminating act of the campaign, and notes that the Japanese would later celebrate the date (mistakenly as 27 March) as “New Sumatra Day.”
The highland surrender at Blang Kédjérèn
By 25 March 1942 a Japanese breakthrough had taken place “from the valley of the Lawé Rénoen, a left-side tributary of the Lawé Alas, to the road Kaban Djahé–Koeta Tjané, at a distance of 80 km. before Koeta Tjané.” Some brigades, located between the blown-up bridge and the breakthrough point, were thereby cut off from the main force. With the rear cover gone, G. F. V. Gosenson fell back on Blang Kédjérèn “with two very weary brigades, closely followed by the Japanese vanguard.” The highland defence now offered little prospect: a contradictory radio message arrived that an expected American transport squadron “on its way to Sumatra had returned to Australia.” “Then when General Overakker decided on 27 March to surrender, there was no longer any enemy to be acknowledged in the Blang, so that the surrender could only be offered on 28 March.” On that day Japanese troops made their entry into Blang Kédjérèn; “the brigades still in the area also surrendered after a short time.”
The West-Coast surrender at Lae Boetar
Simultaneously on the West Coast, the combined Lhó’ Nga and West-Coast troops under Captain Kloprogge retreated along the West Coast Road to the Lae Boetar enterprise of the Société financière des caoutchoucs. “On 28 March the combined Lhó’ Nga and West Coast troops, under the command of captain Kloprogge, surrendered to the Japanese at ‘Lae Boetar’.” This surrender did not include nearly all the troops. Several brigades had moved northward toward the Alaslands at Koeala Képéng, and a number of officers — Captain Steinhorst, medical officer Dingemans, and first lieutenant Mathus — “withdrew from the surrender, attempting to make contact with elsewhere fighting troops.” Some, including Steinhorst, “were killed by the population.”
Significance
The capitulation ended the defence of the Atjèh highlands and sealed the Japanese conquest of northern Sumatra. It released Overakker and Gosenson into Japanese captivity — both would later be tried and punished for their role in the Treffers organisation crackdown — and opened the three-and-a-half-year occupation that would last until the Japanese capitulation of 15 August 1945. The Japanese later “celebrated festively” the 27th of March “as ‘New Sumatra Day’” — though, as Piekaar drily notes, the actual capitulation took place on 28 March.
See Also
- Japanese invasion of Atjèh
- Major-General Overakker
- Colonel Gosenson
- Blang Kédjérèn
- Koeta Tjané
- Kaban Djahé
- Lae Boetar
- Captain Kloprogge
- Captain Steinhorst
- Alasvalley
- 28 March 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 IV and Chapter V §§ 3–4.