Mosquito Boat Rendezvous: Waving the White flag at Balikpapan
While VJ Day had come and gone, the Japanese surrender at Balikpapan, which controlled the Emperor’s occupation forces in most of the Dutch East Indies, only lowered the flag on 8 September 1945.
The official ceremony took place some 50nm offshore, aboard the River-class frigate HMAS Burdekin (K376), with the Japanese military governor of the area, VADM Michiaki Kamada, signing the document surrendering all Japanese troops in Borneo to Maj. Gen. Edward James Milford, commander of the 7th Australian Division.
At sea, off Balikpapan, Borneo. 1945-09-08. Major General E. J. Milford, general officer commanding, 7th Division, accepted surrender from VADM Kamada, commander 22nd Naval Base Force, Imperial Japanese Navy, during a surrender ceremony held on board the ran vessel, HMAS Burdekin. After the surrender ceremony, a conference between Australian and Japanese officers was held to discuss the surrender procedures. Shown, the conference in progress. AWM 115823
Kamada’s party reached the Australian frigate via the efforts of the hardbitten LCDR Henry Stillman “Stilly” Taylor, USNR, who led seven 80-foot Elco PT boats of MTBRon 27 to a rendezvous in the delta of the Koetai River on the morning of the 8th and returned the defeated detail home afterward, this time with Allied minders and a load of bananas.
PT boats that carried Japanese delegates to Balikpapan definitely included “Miss Chatterbox” (PT-377) and “Judy” (PT-375). Other boats in MTBron27 at the time included PT-356, PT-357, PT-358, PT-359, PT-360, PT-361, PT-372, PT-373, PT-374, and PT-376, although I cannot tell which other five were part of this party.
PT-375, “Judy,” was placed in service on 10 August 1943 and fought with MTBRon 27 in the Treasury and Green Islands and in the Philippines before heading to Balikpapan.
Note the late war arrangement, including heavy camouflage, Mk 13 aerial torpedoes, a light mortar on deck, and a 37mm M4 autocannon salvaged from a P-39 Airacobra. Beeldnummer NI 3192
NI 3194
Kamada is fourth from the left, clean-shaven. NI 3199
Kamada is speaking to the mustached officer. NI 3206
NI 3198
Kamada is in the center, holding the document. NI 3217
Kamada on PT alongside HMAS Burdekin
PT pulling away from HMAS Burdekin with Australian and Japanese at the negotiation table, AWM 115825
Kamada boarding PT-377 alongside HMAS Burdekin after signing, AWM 044977
Japanese surrender at Balikpapan, 8th September 1945, returning with Australian liaisons and a parting gift of bananas. Beeldnummer NI 3204
Later, a Dutch military tribunal in Pontianak convicted Kamada of war crimes for the executions of 1,500 West Borneo natives in 1944, the execution of captured Allied commandos, and the ill treatment of 2,000 Dutch POWs held on Flores Island. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging on 18 October 1947, aged 57.
As for the Mosquito boats of MTBRon 27, they were all disarmed and placed out of service on 19 October 1945, transferred to the State Department, Foreign Liquidation Commission in May 1946, and sold, ultimate fate unknown but likely burned with hundreds of others off Samar. Four of them notably took “Dug-out Doug” MacArthur and the “Bataan Gang” to Corregidor in March 1945.
Small world.
The commander of MTBRon 27, Stilly Taylor, had earned both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star as the LT(j.g.) skipper of PT-40 and later PT-46 with MTBRon 3, the first squadron to arrive in the Solomons in 1942, and had been tasked with stopping the nocturnal annoyance of the nightly Tokyo Express. This included pumping torpedoes into the destroyer Teruzuki. He had previously commanded MTBRon 14 (4 April- 6 September 1944) as an O-3 before taking over MTBRon 27 in November 1944.
Post-war, Taylor went into business and later became president of J. P. Stevens Inc., a textile company. An Oyster Bay resident and well-known yachtsman, Stilly was also part of The Colony’s croquet set and passed in 1985, aged 67.