Graaf van Bijland — in the narrative also Graaf v. Bijland — was a Dutch steamship that served in the expedition of the Lamtoba column of 1879, first as one of the four transports of the landing at Lampanas on 27 July, and at the end as the sole vessel by which — on the express determination of the Militaire Bevelhebber — the whole column was carried back to Oleh-leh between 2 and 4 September 1879, as recorded in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889).
Outward transport
In the embarkation of the morning of 26 July 1879, the Graaf van Bijland received the staff, the two native companies of the 6e Bataljon Infanterie, the Intendance, and the coolies not posted with the corps or detachments. She anchored with the squadron on the roadstead of Lampanas that evening and discharged her freight in the landing of the next morning.
The hospital service
When, by 10 August, the sick of the column at Lamtoba had to be evacuated, it was by the steamship Graaf van Bijland that the first five per cent of the rank and file were carried from Lampanas to the hospital at Panteh-Perak — the beginning of an evacuation that by the end of the campaign reached 346 men.
The repatriation
By the determination of the Militaire Bevelhebber, the return of the troops was effected exclusively with the Graaf van Bijland, the column-commandant arranging the particulars with the senior naval officer present on the roadstead of Lampanas — Kapitein-Luitenant Greve, commander of the warship Merapi. The embarkation took place in three divisions, beginning at six o’clock each morning. On 2 September 1879 the ship took aboard first the 137 sick of the ambulance with their coolie personnel — laid in long rows on the deck under the awnings — and then the 6th Battalion with its ammunition, cook-gear and convict labourers, seven marine sloops ferrying from the strand; at nine o’clock she went under steam for Oleh-leh, where the sick, their number increased on board by 52, were passed down into the boats and carried to the hospital. On 3 September she ferried the artillery horses — led by a gangway on to the pontoon raft and towed by the steam barkas — the vivres (for which all the boats were three and a half hours engaged) and the coolies. On 4 September, lastly, came the three companies of the 9e Bataljon Infanterie, the staff and the hostages, then the Mineurs, the ammunition and the remaining 250 convict labourers; by ten o’clock, in accordance with the stipulation of the commander of the Marine, all was finished, and the Bijland steamed for Oleh-leh while the warships Merapi and Amboina returned to their station before Pedir.
See Also
- Lamtoba column (1879)
- Quarantine at Lampanas (August–September 1879)
- Oleh-leh
- Lampanas
- Panteh-Perak
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 8, 32, 72-76. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.