The Willink Ketjen brothers — Second Lieutenant of Infantry H. Willink Ketjen and First Lieutenant of Infantry W. E. Willink Ketjen — were Dutch officers in Atjeh in 1876, who both figure in the official history of the war for deeds done at the checks of March and June 1876.
H. Willink Ketjen
In the ambush of 4 March 1876 in the narrows of Lamsajoeng and Tjot Bēhēl, when the detachment of Lieutenant T. W. J. Buijs was attacked by an overwhelming enemy, Second Lieutenant H. Willink Ketjen carried the alarm to Kajoe-Lē: alone, followed only by a mounted orderly, he forced a way through the enemy line to the post, whence the relieving company of infantry marched and arrived just in time to save the detachment.
W. E. Willink Ketjen
First Lieutenant W. E. Willink Ketjen was serving with the troops at Oleh Karang in June 1876. In the ambush of 18 June he immediately marched out with 30 men on hearing the firing that had caught sergeant-major Deingens’ fouraging party, met the fleeing wounded, and by his arrival brought the last stand of the hard-pressed detachment to safety. On 22 June, walking outside the work at Kajoe-Lē — where he had moved with the garrison — he ventured too far into the kampong: an Atjeher fired on him at close range and he was lightly wounded, but could still bring down his assailant with a shot from his revolver.
Both appear in H. F. Meijer’s Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883) with their initials recorded.
See Also
- Ambush of the Buijs detachment (4 March 1876)
- Ambush between Oleh Karang and Kota Alam (18 June 1876)
- Oleh Karang
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapters VI and VII, pp. 121, 202–203.