(Old page) East Indies Crisis - do not edit: Difference between revisions

 

==== New Year Offensive ====

The New Year offensive as it was called changed the nature of the war from a “colonial conflict” where the rebels were relegated to asymmetric warfare and the Dutch approach was one of limited action. This new phase due to the Liberation front her firm control over northern and central Sumatra. This base of operations how small as it was let the rebels to built up their potential forces and at the same time the attacked showed that the Dutch were not undefeatable, the revolution began to more properly spread across the archipelago. When the front by mid-February had stabilized the Dutch began to change their strategy and began to approach it more seriously. The first mass use of strategic bombers soon followed and shore bombardments became more and more common, the use of Search & Destroy tactics now became the norm. This phase of the war however was still primarily a guerilla conflict as the Dutch in sheer firepower outgunned any conventional force the rebels could bring to bear. This period is often seen as one of the more intense periods as across the islands from Celebs to Borneo and in the Malaya peninsula guerilla strikes became more and more common and Sumatra quickly became just one of the fronts of what was by now a full-blown uprising. From 1963 all the way up to 1967 the Dutch fought a brutal campaign against ever-increasing numbers, entire villages were burned the ground, the mass use of chemical agents such as tear gas employed, firebombing in the form of napalm was used on mass turning once green jungles into burned up husks.

 

== Phase of Fire ==

This period from 1963 up to 1967 commonly called “Phase of fire” was marked by the increase in civilian casualties, brutality on both sides, the rapid modernization and expansion of the Dutch armed forces & KNIL, and the mass deployment of Dutch conscripts to the Indies, as well as the KNIL by now due to a lack of native recruitment being made up mostly of Amerikaeners, Afrikaners, Taulanders, Eurasians. The fighting was often done with the mass deployment of helicopters with conventional battles being rare and relegated to Sumatra. Yet the rebels built up their numbers and proper forces as well slowly but surely. It is estimated but numbers are not well known that the Rebels by July 1966 numbered around 5.3 million, with 120.000 “regular” trained troops the remainder being guerilla fighters. Facing them were 220.000 Dutch soldiers (Note: the Dutch system worked on a rotation cycle of 6 months) and 180.000 KNIL soldiers. While outnumbered due to overwhelming airpower combined with a higher quality of soldiers and a kill ratio of 1/7 the Dutch were able to hold the line and even crush the rebels in Celebs and Borneo.

 

On August 18th, 1967 the rebels attempted a major conventional assault upon Malakka yet after 2 weeks of fighting around the city it was halted. This was up to then the largest conventional battle and is often seen as the end of the “Phase of fire”. The failed assault costed the lives of 23,000 regular rebel soldiers while the Dutch only lost 1200. Through the entire phase by modern estimates cost the lives of 4.7 million civilians 1.3 million rebels and 22.000 Dutch/KNIL soldiers/