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Weapons and Warfare

History and Hardware of Warfare

Oilfields of Borneo – 1942

Posted on May 23, 2017

“Paci c O ensive, 1942: • Sergeant-Major, Infantry; Borneo, January 1942 • Superior Private, Infantry; Java, DEI, March 1942
• Seaman 2nd Class paratrooper, 1st (Yokosuka) Special Landing Unit; Celebes, DEI, January 1942”, Stephen Andrew
As the oil elds of Borneo – and two weeks later, the oil elds of Sumatra – would ful ll a strategic objective on the
Japanese Southern Road, other moves made on the Dutch East Indies chessboard were designed to address tactical
concerns. As the Japanese closed in on Java and Sumatra, the Dutch, who had barely defended Borneo, were
concentrating their resources, just as General Arthur Ernest Percival intended to do with his British Commonwealth
assets in Singapore.

Just as IJA and IJN airpower was keeping pace with Tomoyuki Yamashita’s 25th Army on the Malay Peninsula, moving
into abandoned RAF bases closer and closer to the front, the tactical plan for the ultimate battle in the Dutch East
Indies required a network of air elds on other islands which were closer to Java and Sumatra. One such island was
the major Dutch East Indies island of Celebes (now Sulawesi) to the east of Borneo and due south of the Philippines.

O shore, the Celebes operation was supported by a naval force commanded by Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka which
included the cruiser Jintsu, his agship, ten destroyers, two seaplane tenders, and several minesweepers. An
additional covering force under Rear Admiral Takeo Takagi included the cruisers Nachi, Haguro, and Myoko, and two
destroyers. They were all part of the growing IJN presence in the nearly 3 million square miles of Dutch East Indies
waters.

The IJN surface eet in this area was divided generally into two operating groups. The Western Force under Vice
Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, commander of the Japanese Southern Expeditionary Fleet, was tasked with operations in
the South China Sea, and had supported the campaign in Malaya and Singapore. The Eastern Force, commanded by
Vice Admiral Ibo Takahashi, conducted operations from eastern Borneo, east through Celebes, Ambon, Timor, and
eastward to New Guinea.

Operations ashore in Celebes were conducted entirely by the IJN Special Naval Landing Forces, and occurred
simultaneously with the IJA and IJN landings on Tarakan. This ground action, which was a brief one that history
treats almost as a footnote to the Borneo operations, is notable for including the rst Japanese airborne operation in
Southeast Asia. The latter was a precursor to tactics that were to be revisited a month later in Sumatra.

Under the command of Captain Kunizo Mori, 2,500 men of the 1st and 2nd Sasebo Special Naval Landing Forces
conducted the initial amphibious landings near the northern Celebes cities of Manado (also spelled Menado) and
Kema before dawn on January 11, overwhelming the outnumbered KNIL defenders.

Meanwhile, staging out of Davao, 28 transport variants of the Mitsubishi G3M medium bomber carried more than
300 paratroopers from the 1st Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force to a drop zone behind the invasion beaches.
Landing at about 9:30 am on January 11, the paratroopers surprised the Dutch defenders, and began an assault on the
air eld at Langoan and the seaplane base at Kakas.

The unexpected attack from above certainly reminded the Dutch troops of the use by the Germans of airborne
troops in the conquest of their home country in May 1940. Indeed, Japanese tactical planners in both the IJA and IJN
had made note of the successful use of German Fallschirmjäger, or paratroopers, as a spearhead during the
Wehrmacht spring o ensive of 1940, and had begun training their own airborne troops. Germany’s capture of the
entire island of Crete, solely by airborne troops, in May 1941, must have been especially noteworthy as the Japanese
planners pondered the island-studded map of the Southern Road. In retrospect, it is a wonder that the tactic was not
employed on a wider scale.
A second airborne attack by the 1st Yokosuka on January 12 brought additional landing forces to Celebes, and assured
the capture of the Langoan air eld. Though some of the Dutch troops managed to hide out in the mountains for
about a month, northern Celebes was secured by the middle of the month.

With this, Captain Kunzio Mori’s 1st and 2nd Sasebo headed south. Just as Sakaguchi had leapfrogged down the
Borneo coast from Tarakan to Balikpapan, Mori embarked from Manado and headed for Kendari, at the southeast
corner of Celebes. His Special Naval Landing Forces, aboard six transports, were escorted by a task force commanded
by Rear Admiral Kyuji Kubo, which included the cruiser Nagara, his agship, eight destroyers, and support ships. As
with the task force that had supported Mori at Manado, Kubo’s contingent was part of the IJN Eastern Force.

Mori went ashore under cover of darkness on the night of January 23–24, the same night that Sakaguchi had landed
at Balikpapan. Within 24 hours, the defenders had been overcome, and the Japanese were in control of the
strategically important air eld at Kendari.

Capturing air elds was a priority second only to the petroleum facilities in the Dutch East Indies, for they brought
land-based Japanese ghters and bombers incrementally closer to future battle elds farther south on the Southern
Road. The air base at Kendari was destined to be one of the most important. Centrally located within the Dutch East
Indies, it would be an important refueling stop. It was also the base of operations for the devastating air attack on
Darwin, Australia, which would terrify the land down under three weeks later.

Just as the air elds on Celebes were part of the Sumatra and Java strategy, other Dutch islands far to the east hosted
air elds that would be useful in operations against Dutch- and Australian-administered New Guinea, which were
scheduled for April. Centrally located between Celebes and New Guinea was 299-square-mile Ambon Island, part of
the Molucca (now Maluku) Archipelago, 500 miles east of Celebes, 1,600 miles east of Palembang, and 250 miles west
of New Guinea. The strategic importance of Ambon and the substantial, paved air eld at Laha on the island had been
lost on neither the Dutch nor the Australians. They had agreed to jointly reinforce the island, but the rst contingent
of RAAF Hudson bombers had not touched down at Laha until December 7, 1941, less than 24 hours before the
general outbreak of hostilities across Southeast Asia and the Paci c.

The Australians also sent troops, but they had few to spare. As we have seen, three of the four infantry divisions
which comprised the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) were in North Africa helping the British ght the German
Afrika Korps. Most of the 8th Division, except the 23rd Brigade, was helping the British defend Malaya.

The one brigade held back was given the precarious and impossible task of the forward defense of Australia itself. It
was divided into what were known as the “Bird Forces,” having been given what the Australian Department of
Veterans’ A airs historical factsheet colorfully describes as “ominously non-predatory names.” Forward defense of
Australia meant outposts on islands north of that country and east of Malaya which were astride important sea lanes
between Japanese-held territory and Australia. It was Gull Force that was dispatched to Ambon, while Sparrow Force
went to Timor, and Lark Force went to New Britain, far to the east.

Each of the Bird Forces was essentially a single battalion, roughly a thousand or fewer infantrymen, reinforced with
artillery and support troops. Deployed in 1941 before the full weight of the immense Japanese o ensive had been
experienced, each was sent to do a job that should have been done by a force a dozen times larger.

Deploying about ten days a er Pearl Harbor, the 1,100-man Gull Force, centered on the 2/21st Battalion of the AIF,
arrived on Ambon, joining a Dutch garrison on the island that consisted of the poorly trained 2,800-man KNIL
Molucca Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Kapitz. Gull Force was initially commanded by
Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Roach, but he was replaced on January 16 by Lieutenant Colonel John Scott, who was no
stranger to amphibious operations, having participated in the Gallipoli campaign during World War I. Scott arrived
to nd his new command in pitiful condition, with malaria and other diseases rampant in the equatorial heat, which
still swelters in January.

Both USN and Koninklijk Marine ying boats operated out of Ambon, ying patrol missions, as well as frequent
evacuations of civilians, but they were pulled out in mid-January, against the backdrop of increasing Japanese air
attacks. Air defense of Ambon consisted of a few Brewster Bu aloes, which rose to meet IJN seaplane bombers that
began visiting Ambon early in January at the same time as the o ensive against northern Borneo.

The Bu aloes held their own for a while, but they were no match for the carrier-based IJN Zeros that rst appeared
over the island on January 24, the same day as the invasions of Balikpapan and Kendari. For the Ambon operation,
the IJN brought in the carriers Hiryu and Soryu, both of which had been part of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s Pearl
Harbor strike force. At Ambon, they targeted Dutch and Australian aircra , compelling Wavell to make the decision
to pull out the last of the Allied aircra to preserve them to ght another day. When the invasion eet was sighted at
dusk on January 30, the Allied ground troops knew they would have to face the enemy with no air cover.

The fact that the IJN had used seaplanes and carrier-based aircra to conduct operations against Ambon is, in itself,
an illustration of why the Japanese needed to have air elds at locations across the sprawling Indies.
The remainder of the naval escort for the ten transport ships of the invasion eet to which the Hiryu and Soryu were
attached was largely the same contingent that had supported operations against Manado on January 11. Commanded
by Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, this force was comprised of his agship, the cruiser Jintsu, as well as eight destroyers
and support vessels. The same covering force under Rear Admiral Takeo Takagi that had supported Tanaka at
Kendari also accompanied him to Ambon.

As in Borneo, the ground operation at Ambon was to be a joint operation between the IJA and the IJN Special Naval
Landing Forces. The latter contingent included 820 men from the 1st Kure Special Naval Landing Force, while the IJA
contingent of approximately 4,500 men was centered on the 228th Infantry Regiment, one of three regiments in the
38th Division, which had taken part in the conquest of Hong Kong. This joint force was known as the Ito Detachment
and commanded by Major General Takeo Ito, who had commanded the entire 38th Division at Hong Kong, and who
operated at Ambon under the banner of the division’s headquarters.

The rst wave of IJA Ito Detachment came ashore during the night of January 30–31, with the IJN landing forces in
the north, and the 288th mainly in the south. Ambon is nearly bisected by Ambon Bay, which cuts into the island
from the southeast. The southern part contains the major population centers, while Laha air eld was across the bay
on the northern part. Most of the defenders were located in these areas, but the initial Japanese landings were on the
lightly defended north, and the least-defended area on the south side, well away from coastal guns guarding the
entrance to Ambon Bay. Of course, established beachheads can be expanded more easily than landing troops under
re.

During January 31, the Japanese moved rapidly, reaching Australian-defended Laha from the north, and capturing
Ambon City in the south by around 4:00 pm.

As the Allies shi ed troops to face the landings, they le holes in their lines, which were exploited by the Japanese. A
second wave of Ito Detachment troops came ashore at Passo (also written in some accounts as Paso) at the neck of the
Laitimor Peninsula, e ectively cutting the island in two. At the same time, the Japanese also snipped the telephone
line which was the only way that the Allied troops could communicate with one another. The absence of
communications isolated the various units and created confusion.

Kapitz ordered his men to continue ghting, which they did. However, shortly a er midnight, the Japanese captured
Kapitz, who had moved his headquarters close to Passo. For most of February 1, the action involved an Allied
withdrawal, away from Passo and Ambon City, toward the southeast tip of the Laitimor Peninsula. These troops, with
Colonel Scott still in command, had their backs to the Banda Sea, and realized that their position was essentially
hopeless.

As this was ongoing, Admiral Tanaka ordered his minesweepers into Ambon Bay to clear the mines laid by the
Koninklijke Marine, before they withdrew from Ambon earlier in January. This was in preparation for landing
additional troops inside the bay. However, much to the immense joy of the troops ghting for their lives on the
peninsula, one of the minesweepers struck a mine, blew up, and sank. Another was damaged.

Nevertheless, the jubilation that the Allied troops enjoyed at this juncture was certainly quali ed by the pounding that
was being dished out to them in the form of o shore naval gun re and air attacks from the air wings aboard the
Hiryu and Soryu. Throughout February 1, the naval bombardment also fell on the Australian and Dutch troops that
were still trying to defend the air eld across the bay at Laha. On the morning of February 2, having encircled Laha,
the landing troops, under Commander Kunito Hatakeyama, launched a ferocious assault aimed at dislodging the
defenders. At around 10:00 am, Major Mark Newbury, commanding the joint force at Laha, decided that any further
resistance would waste lives in an impossible situation, and ordered his men to surrender. Scott surrendered the
defenders of the Laitimor Peninsula on February 3. About 30 Australian Diggers managed to successfully escape
Ambon by canoe.

Newbury’s hopes of saving lives by his surrender were darkened when, over the ensuing two weeks, Hatakeyama
randomly murdered around 300 prisoners at Laha. Newbury himself was killed on February 6. Scott survived the
war as a POW, although most of the troops who surrendered on Ambon died in captivity. In 1946, witnesses and
makeshi graves were located, and Hatakeyama was tried, convicted, and executed as a war criminal.

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