J. N. C. Baron van Heerdt was a Dutch captain of the Netherlands Indies Army who commanded the patrol of 25 September 1897 from the benting Lho-Nga at Kroeng Raba against the band of Toekoe Hassan in the Goeah Teroes cave on the Glé Betoes.
The patrol of 25 September 1897
Van Heerdt led out a force of three officers, four non-commissioned officers and eighty men, with an Acehnese guide, a hospital soldier with ten tandoes and the necessary forced labourers. When the guide lost the mountain path and the enemy, alerted, opened fire from the rocks, Van Heerdt came forward to the front of the column and ordered 1st Lieutenant J. van Greuningen to climb to the cave with his section, spread in a wide circle.
After Van Greuningen and three European fusiliers were shot dead at the cave mouth, Van Heerdt took over the command of the advance-guard himself and ordered rapid fire into the cave, driving the Acehnese deeper inside. On penetrating the cave he found it had several exits and no trace of the enemy remained. Seeing the uselessness of further pursuit, he resolved on the retreat, and during the fight had sent off a forced labourer to bring up the marechaussée brigades from Lho-Nga.
P. H. R. Beuming records his conduct on the return march: seeing the men dragging themselves along with fatigue when the column had closed up in the open terrain, the commander addressed them with Komaan, mannen, nog een klein uurtje en dan zijn we thuis — come on, men, another little hour and then we are home — words which, Beuming notes, did not miss their effect.
See Also
- Patrol to the Goeah Teroes on the Glé Betoes (25 September 1897)
- J. van Greuningen
- G. E. Visser
- Lho-Nga
- Glé Betoes
- Toekoe Hassan
- 25 September
- 1897
Source
Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911; uitgegeven ten bate van het te stichten Herstellingsoord voor Rijks-Ambtenaren). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 82-144
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.