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By Root 4515 0

officer, fearing attacks on internment camps, turned to the Japanese for aid. Their local commanders too were incensed after the detention and killing of Japanese civilians by pemuda forces, and struck back on 15 October – ‘fighting mad’, in one British account – giving no quarter to Indonesians in arms. About 2,000 Indonesian and several hundred Japanese lives were lost. In these areas the use of Japanese troops went far beyond the minimal defensive requirements of the peace agreement and, in Semarang and elsewhere, they were incorporated into the command structure of the British and Gurkha forces who began to arrive in the cities after the worst of the fighting was over. The Japanese commander in Semarang, Major Kido, was recommended for a DSO. In East Sumatra Japanese troops were used on a large scale after attacks on British forces and their own men: at the market town of Tebing Tinggi a Japanese operation in mid December left between 2,000 and 5,000 dead. Whilst the British government struggled to justify the use of Japanese troops even to rescue internees, in Sumatra, in conditions of some secrecy, the Japanese were used to guard key economic installations until as late as November 1946. Mountbatten, on an official visit to Palembang in April 1946, was shocked to be greeted by a 1,000-strong Japanese guard of honour, the officers saluting him with their swords.85 Yet individual Japanese field commanders saw their role in very different ways. As one Japanese officer in Sumatra put it: ‘Most of us had no earnest desire to prevent the flow of arms.’ They would stage mock battles as cover and leave ‘presents’ of ammunition behind. By the end of 1945 perhaps 1,700 Japanese in Java, 350 Japanese in North Sumatra and 100 more in Aceh had defected to fight with the revolution. Most of them were killed in battle.86

From their first arrival until the departure of the British over a year later the Dutch protested at lack of support from the British. They were furious at Christison’s first statements on landing in Jakarta, which promised good will and co-operation with the Indonesians. They argued that it amounted to a ‘virtual recognition’ of the republic. Such was the mood in The Hague that it was considered treasonable even to talk to the nationalists. From early October Mountbatten’s political adviser, Esler Dening, attempted to mediate in Jakarta. Whilst Britain wholeheartedly desired the return of the French and the Dutch to their positions, he argued, it was vital not to prejudice Britain’s own position in the Far East. Both French and Dutch had to be saved from themselves to ensure that they did ‘not to imperil the general position of European power in the Far East’.87 With increasing frustration, he urged the Dutch to talk. The first meeting between the British – Christison and Dening – and the new Indonesian government took place in Jakarta on 24 October. The republic was represented by Sukarno and Hatta. Dening was impressed by Hatta, but less so with Sukarno: ‘not a man of remarkable character’. Both men were struck by the extent to which the Indonesians felt that the Dutch were in thrall to pre-war attitudes.88 By this time van Mook was visibly under strain. Mountbatten demanded that more authority be given to van Mook to bring the republican leadership to talks, but the main stumbling block was Sukarno, whom the Dutch saw as an arch-collaborator and with whom they would not negotiate. A South African officer, Laurens van der Post, later to win fame as a travel writer and spiritual guru to the present Prince of Wales, was flown to The Hague to meet with the die-hards in the Dutch government. He had been a prisoner of war in Sumatra and was the first eyewitness to events in Java to reach the Netherlands. He also saw Attlee, and although he was dismissive of Sukarno, on the assumption that his reputation had been ruined in the war, he told the British prime minister that the Indonesian president must be included in the negotiations. The Dutch government, however, insisted that Sukarno was a traitor and was not representative