Fighting flared anew in The Netherlands East Indies last week. The nationalist movement seemed to be getting out of its leaders' control. At Surabaya 1,600 British troops, attacked by large Javanese forces, well armed with Jap equipment, including tanks, had some 100 casualties. President Soekarno of the "Indonesian Republic" flew from Batavia to give a cease-fire order. The next day native hotheads killed Surabaya's British Commander, Brigadier Aubertin W. S. Mallaby.
British reconnaissance showed that up to 100,000 Indonesian troops, whose Jap materiel included 62 planes, were massing in central Java. The British themselves began landing a second division, rushed up...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
