The boys are back in town!
Following the fall of the Netherlands East Indies, the remnants of the Dutch colonial army– the KNIL– and Royal Dutch Navy fell back to Australia to regroup and carry on the fight for liberation from exile. They were the lucky ones. Of the 42,000 European POWs taken by the Japanese in the East Indies in early 1942, almost one in five (8,200) would die before liberation.
This rag-tag group of survivors would carry on the war, with the Dutch submarine force being especially active, while the land forces would reform and wait.
The Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service, or NEIFIS, was formed in Australia from KNIL remnants starting in April 1942.
Regrouping of exiled Dutch/Dutch East Indies soldiers in Perth, Australia, April 1942. Inspection by, among others, Lieutenant Commander JAFH Douw van der Krap. Van der Krap was later assigned to the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEIFIS) as head of Division II, Internal Security & Security.
NEIFIS was eventually given its own clandestine operations unit, dubbed the Korps Insulinde. In all, the Korps Insulinde would muster no less than 36 teams made up of 250 agents. They made 17 landings in Sumatra alone in 1943-44, in addition to operations in Borneo, the Celebes, New Guinea, and Java. Operating in small six-to-ten-man teams (many of which never came back), they gathered actionable intel that was used for air and sea strikes and organized guerrilla units across the islands.
Moving past covert operations, in the liberation of Borneo in 1945, a 3,000-strong overt force dubbed 1ste Bataljon Infanterie and the Technisch Bataljon of the KNIL landed on the beaches alongside Allied troops. Before that, the unit had its baptism of fire supporting the Americans at Biak.
Trained in Australia during the war, they had a very Allied flavor to include tin hat helmets and M1928 Thompsons, balanced with the KNIL’s favorite edged weapon, the klewang. To this was added increasing amounts of American kit.
KNIL troops in American overalls and webbing with M1928 Thompsons and Dutch Hembrug rifles, along with klewangs and a Lewis LMG, late 1942, Australia
Dutch volunteers from Suriname training at Australia’s Camp Casino 1944 for KNIL AKL022816
Arrival of Dutch West Indian troops (in front of Camp Casino) in Sydney. 1944 NI 4468
KNIL soldier training at Camp Victory, Australia, 1945 M1 Thompson SMG and klewang with USMC frog camo AKL022854
The battalion first returned to the Dutch East Indies on 30 April 1945, when a company landed with the Australian 9th Division at Tarakan on Borneo.
Australian and Dutch units land in Borneo on the island of Tarakan. On April 30, 1945, units of the Australian Imperial Forces 9th Division and the KNIL landed on the island of Tarakan of Borneo, starting the first combined Australian and KNIL attack on the Japanese army in Dutch East India. The photo shows Captain FE Meynders, commander of the 2nd Company of the 1ste Bataljon Infanterie of the KNIL, discussing the progress of the Tarakan campaign with Mr. L. Broch, war reporter for the Dutch news agency Aneta, on the beach of Lingkas on Tarakan Island.
Optreden KNIL op het eiland Tarakan AKL019794
“KNIL troops have been dropped off on the landing beach of Lingkas with some vessels of the invasion fleet and are going inland,” Tarakan, East Borneo, Dutch East Indies, May 1945. NIMH 2155_019811
By late August, the KNIL was in battalion strength and was fast rebuilding in Borneo.
KNIL soldaten Balikpapan 1945. NI 3248
Mariniers of KNIL bij herbezetting Balikpapan. NI 3249
Meanwhile, in North Carolina…
A force of 5,000 mostly newly minted Dutch Marines, the Mariniersbrigade, was being trained and equipped at Camp Lejeune with the thought that it would help liberate the DEI or, if not needed there, would land in Japan as part of the Operation Downfall plan to invade the Japanese Home Island in late 1945-early 1946.
The bulk of these trainees, formed around a cadre of regulars that had been stationed in the Dutch East Indies and Suriname, were Dutch volunteers who had lived in Holland during the German occupation and had joined up in 1944-45.
Mariniersbrigade (Marbrig) recruiting poster, complete with LSTs, Sherman tanks, and United Defense M42 sub gun
As you would expect, they looked very much like the USMC, right down to their uniforms, both service and field.
Mariniersbrigade op Camp Lejeune 2158_049882
Mariniersbrigade op Camp Lejeune 2158_049881
Mariniersbrigade op Camp Lejeune 2158_049964
Mariniersbrigade members with M1918 BAR and M1 Garands. 1947. Note the USMC-branded HBT uniforms. 2174-0787
The Mariniersbrigade was organized into three infantry battalions supported by M3A1 37mm AT guns and 81mm mortars, a scout company of M8 Geyhound armored cars, a tank company with M4A3E8 105mm gunned Shermans, an LVT-3/4 Amfibische tractor (AMTRAC) company, and an artillery battalion with 3-inch and 105mm batteries. Their logistical battalion was heavy with jeeps, M3 Halftracks, and M5 trucks.
Mariniersbrigade (Marbrig) M4A3E8
Mariniersbrigade M8 Greyhound in action at Porong, Java, 1947 2174-0698
LVT-4, Mariniersbrigade 2174-0136
Mariniersbrigade (Marbrig), M4A3E8 landing from LST
Diverted to the Dutch East Indies in December 1945 once their training was finished, they spent the next three years fighting Indonesian insurgents, which often included unreconstructed Japanese Imperial Army holdouts.
A sort of extension of the New Guinea campaign, but with more communist undertones.
Mariniers, Nederlandse strijdkrachten
De Mariniers Brigade op Java
Mariniers in actie in Nederlands-Indië at Kletek, Java, June 1946 2174-0189
