Dutch East Indies campaign
The Dutch East Indies campaign of 1941–1942 was the conquest of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) by forces of the Empire of Japan in the early days of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Allied forces attempted unsuccessfully to defend the islands. The East Indies were targeted by the Japanese for their rich oil resources which would become a vital asset during the war. The campaign and subsequent three-and-a-half-year Japanese occupation was also a major factor in the end of Dutch colonial rule in the region.
Background[edit]
The East Indies was one of Japan's primary targets if and when it went to war because the colony possessed abundant valuable resources, the most important of which were its rubber plantations and oil fields;[13][14] the colony was the fourth-largest exporter of oil in the world, behind the U.S., Iran, and Romania.[14][15] The oil made the islands enormously important to the Japanese, so they sought to secure the supply for themselves. They sent four fleet carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, and Sōryū) and a light carrier along with the four fast battleships of the Kongō class, 13 heavy cruisers, and many light cruisers and destroyers to support their amphibious assaults in addition to conducting raids on cities, naval units and shipping in both that area and around the Indian Ocean.[16]
Access to oil was the main goal of the Japanese war effort, as Japan has no native source of oil;[17] it could not even produce enough to meet even 10% of its needs,[14] even with the extraction of oil shale in Manchuria using the Fushun process.[18] Japan quickly lost 93% of its oil supply after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order on 26 July 1941 which froze all of Japan's U.S. assets and embargoed all oil exports to Japan.[19] In addition, the Dutch government-in-exile, at the urging of the Allies and with the support of Queen Wilhelmina, broke its economic treaty with Japan and joined the embargo in August.[17] Japan's military and economic reserves included only a year and a half's worth of oil.[14] As a U.S. declaration of war against Japan was feared if the latter took the East Indies, the Japanese planned to eliminate the U.S. Pacific Fleet, allowing them to take over the islands; this led to the attack on Pearl Harbor.[20][21]
Declaration of war[edit]
In late November, the Netherlands government in the East Indies under the Dutch government-in-exile (already at war with Imperial Japan's Axis power ally Germany in Europe) began preparing for war against Japan itself: ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy were sent to sea and the KNIL Air Force was mobilised.[22] On 4 December, three days after having decided on a policy of war against America, Britain and the Netherlands, the Japanese government decided instead to "treat the Netherlands as a quasi enemy until actual hostilities ... occur."[23][24] This was in the hope that the Dutch would not preemptively destroy oil installations before the Japanese were ready to invade.[23]
On 8 December 1941, in a public proclamation, the Netherlands declared war on Japan.[25] By 07:00 on the day of the attack, the East Indies government had warned merchantmen at sea to make for the nearest port. At that hour, the governor general made a public announcement over the radio that the Netherlands "accepts the challenge and takes up arms against the Japanese Empire."[22] Instructions had been telegraphed to the embassy in Tokyo at 02:30, even before news of the attack on Pearl Harbor had reached the Dutch government in London at 04:00. The instructions were only received on the evening of the next day, and the declaration of war was finally handed to the Japanese foreign minister, Shigenori Tōgō, by the Dutch ambassador, J. C. Pabst, on the morning of 10 December.[22] The Swedish ambassador agreed to handle Dutch interests for the duration of the conflict.
The Dutch declaration did not alter the Japanese decision, and the latter's declaration of war did not come until 11 January 1942.[23] When Japan was charged with waging a "war of aggression" before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in 1946, it was argued that her attitude towards the Netherlands proved otherwise, since the Dutch had declared war first. The tribunal rejected this, on the grounds that Japan's sole intention was "to give less time to the Netherlands for destroying oil wells."[23] They found that the Netherlands' declaration was in self-defence.[24]