Van Heutz was a lieutenant of artillery of the Netherlands East Indies Army serving in 1879 with the artillery of the Lamtoba column — the section of guns of the 18e Compagnie bergbatterij whose battery commander was Kapitein Dom — during the expedition to Lampanas, Lamtoba and Selimoen. He is named once in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889) and must not be confused with the more famous infantry officer — later Governor-General — J. B. van Heutsz, who was chief of staff in Atjeh in the same period.
The Kepaja Doewa expedition
In the order for the punitive expedition against Kepaja Doewa, the section of guns marched under the luitenant Van Heutz, with the second mortar section, the detachment of Mineurs and an ambulance of twenty-five tandoes. No provisions or water were carried, so that the march might be the faster; the way there — across the amphitheatrically rising sawah terraces of the Lamtoba valley, over three steep-walled ravines and one long hill of more than eighteen degrees’ slope — cost the artillery the utmost exertion. Before the kampong the guns came into battery against the principal commanding height and drove the enemy from it with eight shrapnel shells. The ridge against which the artillery then stood was the same ridge beneath which, on 13 August 1879, the battery again took position during the opening combat of the march to Selimoen, there crossing, under fire, the swampy strip of ground that opposed the march.
See Also
- A. B. C. Dom
- Bergartillerie Bergbatterijen
- Punitive expedition against Kepaja Doewa (August 1879)
- Selimoen Expedition (August 1879)
- Lamtoba column (1879)
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 26, 39. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.