Evers was a European sergeant of the Netherlands Indies Army Maréchaussee serving in the IIde divisie on the Westkust van Atjeh in mid-March 1942, whose composed conduct during the Battle of Blang Pidië and the subsequent 15-hour march from Blang Pidië to Tapatoean is singled out by the Dutch staff history (Deel VI, Hoofdstuk V) as the model of an individual European NCO’s decisive effect on a small-unit engagement.
The 17 March 1942 march from Blang Pidië to Tapatoean
When Lt Zijlmans’s column of two brigades left Blang Pidië for Tapatoean on the morning of 17 March 17 March 1942, it almost immediately struck Atjehnese ambushes. After passing Lam Ie the brigade came upon a section of road where, on both sides, the brushwood grew close to within 12 metres of the road. A Maréchaussee fired on an Atjehnese dressed in black, armed, lurking at about 20 metres’ range, who was about to give the signal of attack. The Atjehnese was killed. Lt Zijlmans, convinced that the dead man had been the signal-poster, ordered the brigade to deploy to the left and right. The brigade was hardly in position when the attack broke: a band of about 50 men, armed principally with klewangs, stormed out of the brushwood on the right and partly on the left of the road.
The attack was repulsed by carbine fire and cold steel. In the fight Evers distinguished himself by his composed conduct, also in the subsequent engagements, in such a way that he was an example to the others and at the same time a great support to Lieutenant Zijlmans in the brigade. Later in the day, during the clearance of a wooden house in which a number of insurgents had taken refuge, Evers was suddenly attacked from behind; Zijlmans fortunately saw this in time and was able to shoot the attacker before he could do any harm. The clearance of the house cost the lives of all its occupants, who resisted.
Significance
Evers is, in the staff history’s Westkust narrative, the named European NCO whose composed conduct — sustained through the 15-hour, 200–300-Atjehnese-killed march from Blang Pidië to Tapatoean — is the staff history’s clearest illustration of the decisive effect of an individual NCO on a small-unit engagement in the Westkust evacuation. The compilers’ emphasis on Evers’s exemplary function places him in the staff history’s small gallery of NCOs whose personal conduct steadied indigenous soldiers in the face of klewang charges.
See Also
- Nederlands-Indië contra Japan
- Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen
- 2de (IIde) Divisie Marechaussee
- A. Zijlmans
- Battle of Blang Pidië (16 March 1942)
- Blang Pidië
- Tapatoean
- 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. 133–136.
Evers was a European sergeant of the Netherlands Indies Army Maréchaussee serving in the IIde divisie on the Westkust van Atjeh in mid-March 1942, whose composed conduct during the Battle of Blang Pidië and the subsequent 15-hour march from Blang Pidië to Tapatoean is singled out by the Dutch staff history (Deel VI, Hoofdstuk V) as the model of an individual European NCO’s decisive effect on a small-unit engagement.
The 17 March 1942 march from Blang Pidië to Tapatoean
When Lt Zijlmans’s column of two brigades left Blang Pidië for Tapatoean on the morning of 17 March 17 March 1942, it almost immediately struck Atjehnese ambushes. After passing Lam Ie the brigade came upon a section of road where, on both sides, the brushwood grew close to within 12 metres of the road. A Maréchaussee fired on an Atjehnese dressed in black, armed, lurking at about 20 metres’ range, who was about to give the signal of attack. The Atjehnese was killed. Lt Zijlmans, convinced that the dead man had been the signal-poster, ordered the brigade to deploy to the left and right. The brigade was hardly in position when the attack broke: a band of about 50 men, armed principally with klewangs, stormed out of the brushwood on the right and partly on the left of the road.
The attack was repulsed by carbine fire and cold steel. In the fight Evers distinguished himself by his composed conduct, also in the subsequent engagements, in such a way that he was an example to the others and at the same time a great support to Lieutenant Zijlmans in the brigade. Later in the day, during the clearance of a wooden house in which a number of insurgents had taken refuge, Evers was suddenly attacked from behind; Zijlmans fortunately saw this in time and was able to shoot the attacker before he could do any harm. The clearance of the house cost the lives of all its occupants, who resisted.
Significance
Evers is, in the staff history’s Westkust narrative, the named European NCO whose composed conduct — sustained through the 15-hour, 200–300-Atjehnese-killed march from Blang Pidië to Tapatoean — is the staff history’s clearest illustration of the decisive effect of an individual NCO on a small-unit engagement in the Westkust evacuation. The compilers’ emphasis on Evers’s exemplary function places him in the staff history’s small gallery of NCOs whose personal conduct steadied indigenous soldiers in the face of klewang charges.
See Also
- Nederlands-Indië contra Japan
- Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen
- 2de (IIde) Divisie Marechaussee
- A. Zijlmans
- Battle of Blang Pidië (16 March 1942)
- Blang Pidië
- Tapatoean
- 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. 133–136.