Continuing the World War Two theme, not many people know that the last major land battle in the Pacific in World War 2 took place in Borneo Indonesia. The following is a brief description of that battle. Once again it is written from an Australian perspective as Indonesian records are virtually non existent and with the passage of time even the oral history has faded away. I can tell you that the Dayak tribes of the region were valuable allies to the troops and took much delight in relieving wayward Japanese Soldiers of their heads.
Often this was done in exchange for “gilders” although one old veteran told me “You had to check each and every head as the cheeky buggers kept slipping heads of migrants from other islands that had been brought to Borneo first by the Dutch and later the Japanese as indentured workers”
Over seventy years ago, Australian troops landed at Balikpapan, Borneo, this was the site of the last major ground operation of World War II. It was one of the most controversial operations of the war because many Australian military commanders considered it strategically unsound.
BALIKPAPAN, on the east coast of Borneo, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of 1945. It was fought by troops of the 7th Division, whose three brigades were together on operations for the first time in the war.
This formation was commanded by Major General E.J. “Teddy” Milford, a regular soldier and Duntroon graduate who had served with artillery units during World War 1.
Milford’s three brigade commanders _ Fred Chilton, Ivan Dougherty and Ken Eather were all citizen soldiers who had commanded battalions.
Chilton was a solicitor, Dougherty a school teacher, and Eather a dental mechanic.
Like other operations in Borneo, the capture of Balikpapan was largely unnecessary. It had been in the planning stages for some months, although General Sir Thomas Blamey had suggested abandoning in May, 1945.
According to official historian Gavin Long: “Balikpapan’s only strategic value would be as a base from which to launch an expedition against Java, which was a purely political objective since it would not matter militarily whether that part of Japan’s crumbling empire was lost or held.”
In June, it was estimated that the Japanese had about 3,900 troops at Balikpapan, plus another 1,100 Japanese and Formosan (Formosa is now Taiwan) workers. At Samarinda, further north, there were another 1,500 Japanese troops.
Balikpapan had a port with seven piers, an oil refinery and a large number of warehouses. The town itself was built around the eastern headland of Balikpapan Bay; the coastal plain was narrow. On the hills which rose steeply from this plain were two airfields.
Heavy timber obstacles embedded offshore studded the likely landing beaches; ashore the Japanese had prepared concrete strongpoints and bunkers and had at least 112 artillery pieces.
Milford had about 21,000 troops in his division. As well, he had massive naval and air support.
The preliminary operations started on June 15, when a naval covering force arrived. As the minesweepers worked, four American cruisers, two Australian (the Shropshire and the Hobart) and 13 destroyers started a bombardment of the Japanese batteries. The ships fired 23,000 shells at targets ashore over the next 15 days.
From June 26, underwater demolition teams blew gaps in the offshore obstacles; on the same day troops of the 7th Division left Morotai in a convoy of more than 100 ships.
Bill Spencer was in the Queensland 2/9th Battalion aboard the landing ship Kanimbla. He recalled that General Sir Thomas
Blamey was on board, moving from deck to deck speaking with the Diggers. Blamey addressed the troops from the quarter deck, telling them their fate would be decided in Washington and London.
“It may well be that some of you with long-term service will be given a spell, a spell which you have earned. I know the 2/9th will want to be in the thick of it.”
To which a Digger retorted: “Pigs arse!”
When Blamey finished his speech, the same Digger called out: “Aren’t you coming with us?”
According to Spencer, the interjections were “spot on”.
Milford decided that, because of the tremendous air and naval support, he would land his brigades at Klandasan, the very heart of the Japanese defences. This, he considered, would be more economical in the long run than landing in a less strongly held area and fighting his way along to the key objective.
On the morning of July 1, 1945, two brigades landed on a 1,800-metre stretch of beach, the 18th on the left and the 21st on the right. The 18th Brigade was to secure the beachhead to a depth of about 1km, and advance north and north-west. The 21st Brigade’s job was to secure a covering position about 800 metres deep and then to advance north and east along the coast. One of 18th Brigade’s battalions, the 2/10th, was ordered to capture a feature named Parramatta, which overlooked the beach and had to be taken before any build-up of troops could begin.
It was a Japanese fortress, with tunnels connecting strongpoints and bunkers. The 2/10th was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Daly, a regular officer, who would end his career as army chief of staff. Daly had support of the guns of one cruiser, a battery of field artillery and Australian tanks. He planned accordingly, to use this firepower in his attack.
But as Daly prepared to attack, he discovered the naval fire and field artillery were unavailable and the tanks were bogged on the beach. He pressed on; hoping speed of the attack would stop the Japanese from reorganising.
One company took a key piece of terrain just short of the Parramatta feature but lost – killed or wounded – nearly half the men in the forward platoon. About 11.40am on that day, the tanks arrived and the field artillery was in action. By 2.12pm, Daly’s men and six tanks secured Parramatta. On the second day, the 2/14th Battalion, prominent at Kokoda in 1942, swept along the coast without opposition – unlike their attack on the Japanese stronghold overlooking an airfield at Manggar. A navy gunnery officer in radio communication with the warships climbed a rickety 30-metre airfield control tower to direct the bombardment.
After two weeks of fighting, nearly 1,800 Japanese were dead and 63 taken prisoner.
Australian casualties were 229 killed and 634 wounded.
Queenslanders of the 25th Brigade took the heaviest losses in close country, where the heavy weapons were of less use than around Balikpapan itself.
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Hi Imam, Why not, it is an important if neglected part on Indonesia History.
Sorry I trashed the link to your web site as it was primarily ads and we don’t do that here.
Sorry to ask a stupid question, but who are the people in the colour photo and where/when is it?
SNIP….As usual you have added nothing to life, the universe and everything Rikki…..so SNIP..
Anzac Day Balikpapan Chris, although the focus of Anzac Day in Balikpapan is more on the liberation of Balikpapan itself hence the large number of Indonesian Vets that attend. A pretty big day for actually well over 300 people for the Dawn Service.
Well worth the trip if you have the time, formal dinners and breakfasts etc. Well supported and understood by the local government and Wali Kota etc.
Here are some scenes of the battle from a British newsreel:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/australians-from-balikpapau
Thanks Ari, got any more. I have nearly 300 pictures of that time but that s the first movie. I will send it on to one of the vets, he was in Balikpapan last week, still sprightly at the age of 92 and I suggest more than able to put someone right if they wanted to debate the liberation.
Oigal I have looked around but could thus far only find this film:
https://www.surfmedia.nl/medialibrary/item.html?id=945sb1LKc8dtEULsIRjkWvoT
which has to do with Balikpapan but not with the battle there. It allegedly was taken in 1949 and shows a visit by the Sultan of Kutai (Koetei) to Balikpapan where he was received by the Dutch Assistant-Resident. Kutai was a so-called self governing land that had, since 1844, a political contract with the government of the Indies in which the sovereignty of that government was acknowledged (there were many of such contracts in the so-called “Outer Regions” – “Buitengewesten” – and some in Java – and they were not all the same). I find it a curious document because it shows how as late as 1949 the Dutch government in this region was still intact.
There is a curious passage in that British newsreel-fragment about the battle in which it is said that the generals came together in “the British Resident’s house in Balikpapan”. The word “Resident” here clearly refers to a British functionary of that rank. But there was no British Resident there (it was supposedly Netherlands East Indies territory) and if there had been one he more than likely would have been executed by the Japanese. This was the fate that befell many Dutch administrative officials. As far as Borneo is concerned: in early 1943 the notorious Japanese secret police, the Kenpeitai, thought it had found evidence of a conspiracy in and around Banjarmasin. Its idea was that a number of people (Indonesians, Dutch, Chinese) were linked in a plot to start a general revolt as soon as there was an allied landing. The Kenpeitai often had unfounded suspicions and in this case too the evidence seems to have been very meagre indeed. It had to be supplemented by “confessions” obtained by horrendous torture. The whole thing resulted in the beheading of about 150 persons on the airstrip of Banjarmasin in August-September 1943. The Dutch Governor of Borneo, B.J.Haga, was among the people arrested but he died of a heart attack before he could be beheaded. His wife, however, could not escape this fate.
I referred to the kempeitai as the Japanese secret police but, officially, it was supposed to be a military police that, however, performed all the tasks of a secret police service. It had a Japanese core but was assisted by auxiliaries from occupied nations, particularly Koreans and Taiwanese, but also Indonesians and even Vietnamese. These generally seemed to have equalled their Japanese masters in brutality.
I dated the visit by the Sultan of Koetei ( Kutai) to Balikpapan to some time in 1949 but looking more closely I found that the date of the film was the first of January 1949. So the visit probably took place at the end of 1948.
This Sultan was deposed during the Sukarno era and much of the family’s property, including that impressive kraton that one can see at the end of the newsreel, was confiscated. Apparently the family also had to endure a certain level of persecution. However, after the fall of Suharto the sultanate seems to have been restored in 1999.
Hi Ari, Sorry I am on the run today, but thanks for this and I will read in detail shortly. You raise a number a number of historical points that seem to add odds with the ahem…official version here.
This is the ultimatum that the Japanese in February 1942 sent to the Dutch garrison in Balikpapan:
http://www.mobe.nl/tarakan/pdf/Japans_ultimatum.pdf
After they had landed in Tarakan they had found, to their great rage, that all the oil installations there had been destroyed. They wanted, at any price, to prevent this happening in Balikpapan. So they sent two arrested Dutch officers with an ultimatum to Balikpapan threatening to execute all Europeans there if the oil installations were damaged. Directly after this was received the commanding Dutch lieutenant-colonel ordered all the oil installations to be destroyed.
On the 24th of February 1942 (some sources say the 20th of February) the Japanese drove the remaining Europeans, soldiers as well as civilians, including the patients of the hospital, together at the beach. There they first beheaded two officials of the civil administration. Those who remained were driven into the sea where they were shot one by one. The names of 61 victims are known.
As one can see in the British newsreel I posted above the Japanese too had put the oil wells on fire before the Australians landed. I doubt whether any one was executed for that though the perpetrators were probably killed in action.
Well, just to complete the dozen, here is a film fragment showing the embarkation of about 3,500 Japanese prisoners of war from Balikpapan on an American Liberty ship that will take them back to Japan. At the end it shows the several hundred who had to stay behind, supposed war criminals who, so that metallic voice assures us, “will not escape their appropriate punishment”.
I don’t know, in fact, what happened to those characters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgBTrRbjA6Y&feature=channel
But here there is some information:
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/404/1/1.pdf
This is remarkable stuff Ari, besides the sheer brutality of it all it makes an absolute mockery of those who suggest the Allied Landing in 1945 was not a Liberation. Sadly, those are the same people who will never read such things.
Even worse are those shallow fools who think their own history during this period is something to joke about.
A very interisting facts oigal,
Thanks Tarko. It’s well worth following Ari’s links as well some little known history there.
What do you look like? Do you have a mustache? Glasses? Brown hair? Just wondering.
check the photo..thats me