The Compagnie Steinhorst — the company of Captain F. Steinhorst of the Lho’Nga airfield garrison, reinforced with Maréchaussee brigades — was the principal rear-guard formation of Captain Kloprogge’s Westkust evacuation of March 1942, charged with fighting the rear-guard against the Japanese battalion-strength force marching down the Westkust while the convoy of 3,000 women and children moved south to Lae Boetar. In the Dutch staff history’s account (Deel VI, Hoofdstuk V), the Compagnie Steinhorst is the only Dutch formation of the Westkust campaign to be designated for rear-guard action as its primary mission.
Origin
When, on 12 March 12 March 1942, the Japanese landings at Kotaradja cut the Lho’Nga airfield garrison off from Lt-Col Bekkers’s retreating column, Captain Steinhorst resolved to march his company west overland to the Westkust and to attach himself to Captain Kloprogge. Steinhorst’s company encountered Lt M. C. Thomson at the river crossing at Lam No on 13 March 13 March 1942; from there it marched south to join Kloprogge.
Mission and operations
In Kloprogge’s operational plan for the evacuation of the 3,000 Westkust women and children, the Compagnie Steinhorst — reinforced with Maréchaussee brigades — was assigned the rear-guard action against the Japanese battalion marching down the Westkust. The column’s other two groups were the clearing column under Lt Zijlmans (which operated ahead of the convoys to clear ambushes) and the convoy escort (which protected the bivouacs and the moving convoys).
The staff history records that the rear-guard action achieved little success. The principal reasons were:
- Every bridge destroyed by the Dutch was immediately repaired by the Atjehnese.
- Every position and ambush was immediately betrayed to the Japanese.
- Dutch troops were reluctant to fight near the camps where the women and children were still concentrated, because they feared the Japanese would vent their fury on the women and children still present in those camps.
The Compagnie Steinhorst thus fought a rear-guard action in which every Dutch operational move was betrayed to the Japanese by the Atjehnese population, and in which the Dutch troops’ own moral concern for the women and children in the camps prevented them from engaging the Japanese in the proximity of those camps.
End of the formation
The Compagnie Steinhorst continued its rear-guard action until the Lae Boetar capitulation of 29 March 29 March 1942. At Lae Boetar Steinhorst, with Lt Mathus, Lt Thomson and the medical officer Dingemans, refused to surrender with Kloprogge. Steinhorst was captured and killed by insurgents in the immediate aftermath of the capitulation. The Compagnie Steinhorst thus ceased to exist as a formation with its commander’s death.
Significance
The Compagnie Steinhorst is, in the staff history’s Westkust narrative, the only Dutch formation of the Westkust campaign to be designated for rear-guard action as its primary mission — and the formation whose experience most clearly illustrates the operational impossibility of sustained Dutch resistance in the Westkust theatre once the Atjehnese population had been mobilised by the F. beweging as active auxiliaries of the Japanese. The staff history’s emphasis on the betrayal of every Dutch operational move to the Japanese, and on the moral constraint imposed by the women and children in the camps, frames the Compagnie Steinhorst’s experience as the staff history’s clearest single illustration of the structural conditions that doomed the Westkust rear-guard action.
See Also
- Nederlands-Indië contra Japan
- F. Steinhorst
- Captain L. H. J. Kloprogge
- M. C. Thomson
- A. Zijlmans
- E. F. K. R. Mathus
- Evacuation of women and children from the Westkust of Atjeh (March 1942)
- Battle of Blang Pidië (16 March 1942)
- Capitulation at Lae Boetar (29 March 1942)
- Lho’Nga
- Lam No
- Lae Boetar
- 1942
Source
Nederlands-Indië contra Japan, Deel VI: De strijd op Ambon, Timor en Sumatra, bewerkt door C. van den Hoogenband en L. Schotborgh (‘s-Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij- en Uitgeverijbedrijf, 1959), Hoofdstuk V (“De strijd in Noord-Sumatra (Atjeh)”), pp. 132–137.
The Compagnie Steinhorst — the company of Captain F. Steinhorst of the Lho’Nga airfield garrison, reinforced with Maréchaussee brigades — was the principal rear-guard formation of Captain Kloprogge’s Westkust evacuation of March 1942, charged with fighting the rear-guard against the Japanese battalion-strength force marching down the Westkust while the convoy of 3,000 women and children moved south to Lae Boetar. In the Dutch staff history’s account (Deel VI, Hoofdstuk V), the Compagnie Steinhorst is the only Dutch formation of the Westkust campaign to be designated for rear-guard action as its primary mission.
Origin
When, on 12 March 12 March 1942, the Japanese landings at Kotaradja cut the Lho’Nga airfield garrison off from Lt-Col Bekkers’s retreating column, Captain Steinhorst resolved to march his company west overland to the Westkust and to attach himself to Captain Kloprogge. Steinhorst’s company encountered Lt M. C. Thomson at the river crossing at Lam No on 13 March 13 March 1942; from there it marched south to join Kloprogge.
Mission and operations
In Kloprogge’s operational plan for the evacuation of the 3,000 Westkust women and children, the Compagnie Steinhorst — reinforced with Maréchaussee brigades — was assigned the rear-guard action against the Japanese battalion marching down the Westkust. The column’s other two groups were the clearing column under Lt Zijlmans (which operated ahead of the convoys to clear ambushes) and the convoy escort (which protected the bivouacs and the moving convoys).
The staff history records that the rear-guard action achieved little success. The principal reasons were:
- Every bridge destroyed by the Dutch was immediately repaired by the Atjehnese.
- Every position and ambush was immediately betrayed to the Japanese.
- Dutch troops were reluctant to fight near the camps where the women and children were still concentrated, because they feared the Japanese would vent their fury on the women and children still present in those camps.
The Compagnie Steinhorst thus fought a rear-guard action in which every Dutch operational move was betrayed to the Japanese by the Atjehnese population, and in which the Dutch troops’ own moral concern for the women and children in the camps prevented them from engaging the Japanese in the proximity of those camps.
End of the formation
The Compagnie Steinhorst continued its rear-guard action until the Lae Boetar capitulation of 29 March 29 March 1942. At Lae Boetar Steinhorst, with Lt Mathus, Lt Thomson and the medical officer Dingemans, refused to surrender with Kloprogge. Steinhorst was captured and killed by insurgents in the immediate aftermath of the capitulation. The Compagnie Steinhorst thus ceased to exist as a formation with its commander’s death.
Significance
The Compagnie Steinhorst is, in the staff history’s Westkust narrative, the only Dutch formation of the Westkust campaign to be designated for rear-guard action as its primary mission — and the formation whose experience most clearly illustrates the operational impossibility of sustained Dutch resistance in the Westkust theatre once the Atjehnese population had been mobilised by the F. beweging as active auxiliaries of the Japanese. The staff history’s emphasis on the betrayal of every Dutch operational move to the Japanese, and on the moral constraint imposed by the women and children in the camps, frames the Compagnie Steinhorst’s experience as the staff history’s clearest single illustration of the structural conditions that doomed the Westkust rear-guard action.
See Also
- Nederlands-Indië contra Japan
- F. Steinhorst
- Captain L. H. J. Kloprogge
- M. C. Thomson
- A. Zijlmans
- E. F. K. R. Mathus
- Evacuation of women and children from the Westkust of Atjeh (March 1942)
- Battle of Blang Pidië (16 March 1942)
- Capitulation at Lae Boetar (29 March 1942)
- Lho’Nga
- Lam No
- Lae Boetar
- 1942
Source
Nederlands-Indië contra Japan, Deel VI: De strijd op Ambon, Timor en Sumatra, bewerkt door C. van den Hoogenband en L. Schotborgh (‘s-Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij- en Uitgeverijbedrijf, 1959), Hoofdstuk V (“De strijd in Noord-Sumatra (Atjeh)”), pp. 132–137.