lordroel
Administrator
Member is Online
Posts: 67,984 
Likes: 49,385
|
Post by lordroel on Jul 7, 2018 9:26:51 GMT
Depending on the time Indonesia begins their attack on Netherlands New Guinea, it will have to face this forces who where under the command of the Commander of the forces in Netherlands New Guinea (Dutch: Commandant Strijdkrachten Nieuw-Guinea, COSTRING), so you can see, the Netherlands is outgunned and outmatch by a Indonesians/Soviet assault force. This list is based on May 1st 1962 and is not updated to reflect the Netherlands forces when Operation Trikora was to take place around the summer of 1962. Royal Netherlands Army6th Infantry Battalion (6IB)The six infantry companies belonging to consist mostly out of conscripts, they are position at the west-and southwest of New Guinea, the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps act as a mobile reserve located at Biak and Manokwari, the locations of the six infantry companies spread across Netherlands New Guinea was: Battalion-staff, supply and 3 companies (A, E en F) operating from Sorong. B companie operating from Kaimana. C ccompanie operating from Fak Fak. D companie operating from Merauke. The three outer companies (B, C en D) where placed under the operational command of the Commander of the forces in Netherlands New GuineaCOSTRING, the highest naval authority. Infantry Security Peloton The Infantry Security Peloton (Dutch: Infanterie Beveiligingspeloton) is a force of 40 men consisting of 3 tirailleurs groups each consisting of 2 Bren Groups and 3 snipers witch a mortars groups for support. Papuan Volunteer CorpsThe Papuan Volunteer Corps (Dutch: Papoea Vrijwilligers Korps, PVVK) is a corps consisting entirely of Papuans, formed on February 21st 1961. It was established to contribute to the defense of Netherlands New Guinea against the infiltration of the Indonesian Army. The corps serve as a semi-military police and consist of five pelotons of 37 men. Royal Netherlands Marine Corps5 infantry companies and 2 recon and intelligences-pelotons belonging to the 4th marine battalion. Korps CommandotroepenA detachment belonging to the Korps Commandotroepen (Special forces) located at navy airbase Biak. Air Defense Command for New Guinea (Dutch: Commando Luchtverdediging Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea) consisting of:322 (fighter) Squadron, 22 Hawker Hunter Mk.4 AD and Mk.6 AD fighters and two Alouette II SAR helicopters located at navy airbase Biak (Dutch: Marinevliegkamp Biak). 321 (Maritime patrol) Squadron, 12 Lockheed P-2 Neptune maritime patrol and ASW aircraft located at navy airbase Biak. 336 (Transport) Squadron, six Douglas DC-3 transport aircraft located at navy airbase Biak. 2 type 15 Mk IV raders located at navy airbase Biak A radar navigation system at Biak, and a reserve airstrip at Noemfoer. 7e Afdeling Lichte LuchtdoelartillerieN-peloton (equipped with Bofors 40 mm L/70 anti-aircraft guns) located at Hollandia. A detachment navy anti-air artillery at navy airbase Biak. Royal Netherlands NavyFriesland-Class destroyersHNLMS Friesland HNLMS Groningen HNLMS Limburg S-class destroyerHNLMS Kortenaar HNLMS Evertsen Dolfijn-class submarine HNLMS Dolfijn Balao-class submarineHNLMS Zeeleeuw Luymes-class survey vesselHNLMS Luymes HNLMS Snellius Other schips 16 landing crafts, (LT's, LCPR’s and LCA's). 2 tug boats. 84 zodiac-rubber boats. Several motor sloops and auxiliary ships. Would the most important forces being the naval - since the Indonesians are basically attacking an island - and the air force - to detect and possibly attack Indonesian ships and possibly a/c as for their attacks on Sarawak the Indonesians also used some airbourne landings. The other important thing would be how much help the Dutch could get from the locals as this was very important in Sarawak. Suspect they would be favourable of avoiding rule from Java.
There where also rumored Soviet submarines in the area who had orders to sink any Dutch navy ship if ordered, have here a article that i translated using Google translate. In August 1962 Russian submarines lay off the coast of New Guinea - ready to attack a Dutch frigate. In the conflict over the decolonization of the island, the Soviet Union played a crucial role.
Submarine officers never get a lot of explanation. A course, a timetable, a target - it is. The Russian Gennadi Melkov was not used to it. The depth, remain unfathomable, that's what it was about. At the specified time he had to enter the Bay with the S-235 and fire two torpedoes, one on the fuel tanks on the quay and one on the warship that was anchored there. Then again that he came away.
The instructions were clear enough. It was a venture, but that was not what made Melkov uncertain. It was the puppet box around it. He sailed in a Russian submarine, but the crew wore Indonesian uniforms. He himself too. And the target was a Dutch frigate - Melkov had no idea what it was called. He knew the name of the bay: Manokwari, on the peninsula the Bird's Head of New Guinea.
In what kind of shadow play did he end up? He looked at his watch again. It was exactly three o'clock, on Thursday morning, August 16, 1962. It had to happen in two hours.
The above seems to be a fragment from Tears about Hollandia, the faction thriller that Tomas Ross wrote in 2001 about the New Guinea conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia. But nothing has been fabricated on the S-235. It was one of the six Russian submarines that were part of an Indonesian invasion force with destination New Guinea. Operasi Djajawidjaja was a bold plan, in three steps: first defusing Dutch air and naval forces, then having 30,000 men landing troops carry out a concentrated attack on the island of Biak, north of New Guinea, and then pushing on to the main town of Hollandia. The Russian submarines were indispensable for the first phase and were already in position.
As the S-235 descended on Manokwari, negotiations on New Guinea in New York approached their completion. Under great pressure, the Netherlands discussed with Indonesia about the transfer of Dutch New Guinea.
The Royal Netherlands Navy did not notice the S-235 and the other submarines, and the ships have long remained invisible in history. In 2012 the standard work Pugno Pro Patria appeared. The Royal Netherlands Navy during the Cold War of naval historian D.C.L. Schoonoord, and in it is the futile search for the six Russian submarines that arose in August 1962 for a surprise attack on NATO member Netherlands.
The same applies to the 'definitive' study on the New Guinea conflict, commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In An act of free choice. The Papuans of western New Guinea and the limits of the right to self-determination (2005) refer to P.J. Dry liver with no word about the active Russian contribution in the Indonesian invasion plans.
That is surprising. The story has been around for decades. On 6 January 1971 Het Vrije Volk opened with the headline 'Russians deployed to N. Guinea'. Big news! But the article also contained the foreign affairs comment immediately. Had The Hague known at the time of the fighting Russians? The laconical answer was: "Maybe, maybe not. It has all been so long ago. "It turned out to be enough to demote the scope to a canard.
In 1977 the story reappeared, this time much more firmly documented. For his book Tomorrow, at the dawn of the day. The Netherlands three times on the eve of war, former ambassador J.G. de Beus talks with various high Indonesian soldiers who were involved in Operasi Djajawidjaja. All confirmed the concrete deployment of the six Russian submarines - with, on hand, also Toepolev bombers with Russian crews. A reaction from the official side stayed completely off this time.
Twenty-two years later that was not an option. Before that, the front page of the Volkskrant of 10 February 1999 contained too many spectacular revelations. They came from three former officers of the Russian navy who had participated in Operasi Djajawidjaja. Among them Gennadi Melkov. To the Moscow correspondent of the newspaper, Bart Rijs, they revealed salient details, including the proposed torpedo attack on Manokwari.
There had to follow a reaction. That came a day later, from the director of the Institute for Maritime History. 'There was certainly no Dutch frigate present at the naval base Manokwari on 15 August,' he stated. That is why the story could not be right.
It seemed to cover up a successful operation. The Russian submarines disappeared again for years under the surface. When Lambert Giebels even referred to it in 2001 in the second part of his Soekarno biography, he got the wind in front of Joop de Jong, Asia expert from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in these columns (Historisch Nieuwsblad, 2001/8). Affairs. Giebels' assumption that the Americans had worried about 'a threatening confrontation between NATO-ally Netherlands and Russians fighting on the Indonesian side' qualified De Jong as' richly absurd! '.
Since last year, however, there is little to deny. In his UvA master's thesis 'The New Guinea Conflict in New Perspective' Lieutenant Second Class Matthijs Ooms put an end to all doubt about the 'submarine stories' in one fell swoop. They all proved true. In the Bay of Manokwari there was indeed a Dutch frigate, the HNLMS. Evertsen. The Americans were only too well aware of - and worried about - the Russian participation in Operasi Djajawidjaja.
The Dutch Naval Intelligence Service also knew of the existence of the six Russian submarines - but not of their exact position at the moment suprême. The same applied to the Navy summit in The Hague. Remarkably, the flow of information stopped there. In the official intelligence reports for the Dutch government it remained with a general threat assessment. Russian submarines or bombers were not mentioned in the Council of Ministers.
What exactly stood behind it, has yet to be sorted out. This article is about something else, namely the Russian submarines as a symbol. They represent the blind spot in the Dutch New Guinea policy, and in the Dutch historiography: the crucial role of the Soviet Union in the decisive phase of the conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia.
In the current statement, their own allies - the United States, with in their wake Great Britain and Australia - forced the frustration of the Netherlands. That will of course remain. But the Americans, Britons and Australians were in turn put on the brink by the Russians. As soon as they joined forces, the New Guinea issue developed from a decolonization conflict into a part of the global Cold War, with all escalation risks that entailed.
That transformation can be dated quite accurately. At the beginning of January 1961 the Indonesian Defense Minister and Chief of Staff Nasution and his counterpart of Foreign Affairs Soebandrio joined in Moscow. They came to buy weapons, lots of weapons, and unlike the United States, the Soviet Union did not ask questions. In no time, agreement was reached on the supply of submarines, destroyers, aircraft and heavy artillery. Valuable for $ 500 million - currently valued at around $ 3.5 billion. Nobody was secretive about the destination of the weaponry. It was necessary, Nasution said, to 'cope with the Dutch threat in New Guinea'.
Also the Russian leader Khrushchev did not care about it. He seized on the presence of the Indonesian delegation for a memorable speech, on January 6, 1961. The decolonization movement in the third world, he noted, brought new leaders to power who turned away from the West and sought refuge in the communist ideals of the Soviet Union.
They would not be disappointed, he promised. Moscow would do everything to support their struggle against Western imperialism, both politically, economically and militarily. In the evenings, he made that promise a reality, in his well-known spontaneous style. During the farewell reception for the Indonesians, he shouted loudly through the room that it had been done with the Dutch rule of New Guinea.
Khrushchev's words struck, at least in the government centers that had their antennae tuned to the Kremlin. To begin with, of course, in Jakarta. For years, President Sukarno had used all his diplomatic gifts to gain international support for the transfer of Western Irian, as the Indonesians designated New Guinea. In vain. At the United Nations, he had always failed the Americans, with all their clientele. He had never got a grip on the aloof Republican president Eisenhower and his morality knight at Foreign Affairs Dulles.
Thanks to the commitment with the Soviet Union, Sukarno was able to take a new step, or rather to revive an old, tried and tested strategy. In the war of independence against the Netherlands, the combination of diplomasi and perjuangan (struggle) ultimately led to the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949. The Russian military support made it possible to play that game again, now even more credible than it was then. Especially when the Russian arms deliveries actually started, from July 1961, Soekarno felt strongly enough to increase the pressure on the Netherlands - and indirectly also on the United States - more and more.
His threatening language reached a climax on December 19 of that year, when he called on the Indonesian people to stand ready to "liberate West Irian from the chains of Dutch colonialism". That it was serious to him turned out on January 15, 1962, when it came to a first encounter between Indonesian and Dutch warships off the coast of New Guinea at Vlakke Hoek.
In Washington, Soekarno's weapon tickle was followed with growing concern. There too, things had changed since January 1961. Eisenhower had been succeeded by the action-hungry Democrat John F. Kennedy. With him, Khrushchev's embrace of the third world had ringing alarm bells, especially since Kennedy himself had similar intentions - obviously from an opposite ideology. In Asia he wanted to keep the 'dominoes' threatened by Communism in any case.
In the eyes of the action intellectuals with whom Kennedy surrounded himself, Indonesia was one of them. They actually did not see a better option than Soekarno. He was the only one who could control the two large internal power blocks, the army and the Partai Komunis Indonesia. If he fell away, the communists took over the country, Kennedy's inner circle was convinced of that. Especially now that Khrushchev offered his services so pontifically. There was only one thing: Sukarno - not to mention the rest of the third world - to keep a friend. And that meant that the Netherlands had to cede New Guinea, anyway.
For Kennedy and its confidants in the National Security Council, this was a foregone conclusion from the start, but elsewhere in Washington they met with resistance. At the State Department, large reserves existed about dishonoring a NATO ally for the sake of an unpredictable dictator. Until the end of 1961, Kennedy tolerated the internal opposition. Then he, shocked by the collision course of Sukarno, forced a decision.
Key positions at the State Department were re-occupied at the infamous Thanksgiving Day Massacre. From now on, the president himself led Indonesia's policy. As proof of this, in February 1962 he sent his brother Robert as personal envoy to Jakarta and The Hague to explain how America wanted it: negotiations to settle peacefully the transfer of New Guinea; absolutely no gun violence.
In the meantime, the most important allies were also processed. Just before Christmas 1961, Kennedy met with British Prime Minister Macmillan on Bermuda. There was little persuasiveness needed to win the pragmatic conservative, fearful of discord within the British Commonwealth, for the new American position.
In mid-January 1962 the Australian government also passed away. Until then, Canberra had supported the idea of self-determination for the Papuans - the last diplomatic defense line in the Netherlands. The sum of Russian military involvement, Soekarno's aggressive confrontation policy and the change of course in Washington and London now led to a different assessment.
According to Foreign Minister Barwick, an armed conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands had everything to escalate into a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. He thought that danger was even greater in New Guinea than in Berlin - where the construction of the Wall had started six months earlier. That was a disastrous scenario for Australia. In order to prevent greater calamity, Sukarno then had to get his way. We are sorry for the Papuans.
And for the Netherlands. It was now a totally different ball game, but that realization never penetrated fully in The Hague. Minister of Foreign Affairs Luns continued to invoke fuzzy requests from the Eisenhower government. Prime Minister De Quay thought he understood the message. He compared New Guinea with West Berlin: both bastions of freedom, threatened by aggression. But Kennedy did not leave a single chip of that comparison: the West Berliners were highly civilized and highly cultured, the Papuans lived in 'the Stone Age'. If there was anything to compare, it was Indonesia, which, like West Berlin, had to be protected from the advancing communism.
So negotiate. Now that the White House put its full weight in the shell, it was impossible to escape it. On American territory, led by the American diplomat Bunker. He cautiously but surely guided both parties to the desired end result. But that did not mean the war risk.
Soekarno insisted on his double strategy of diplomasi and perjuangan. After the Battle of Vlakke Hoek, the armed infiltrations of Indonesian troops - by sea and by air - only increased. From June 1962, when the negotiations were in an impasse, a violent denouement even came dangerously close.
Sukarno had his mind set on a decision before August 17, the Indonesian independence day. The Russians also became increasingly impatient. The weapons they had delivered had to be used once, before the Americans started to take diplomatic honors. Operasi Djajawidjaja was born. Because the Indonesians still had too little trained personnel, especially for the bombers and the submarines, Khrushchev promised Russian 'volunteers'.
That explained the Indonesian uniforms of the crew of the S-235, on their way to the target in the Bay of Manokwari. Another ten miles to go. Suddenly the strict radio silence was broken. "Stop attack," the message read. Melkov took a sigh of relief. Apparently an agreement had been reached at the last minute. 3.01 hours, August 16, 1962, New Guinea time.
The Russian submarine came above the water and turned the stern. The Dutch navy people on board the HNLMS. Evertsen had no idea what danger they had escaped. |
|
raunchel
Commander
Posts: 1,795 
Likes: 1,182
|
Post by raunchel on Jul 7, 2018 11:02:18 GMT
Would the most important forces being the naval - since the Indonesians are basically attacking an island - and the air force - to detect and possibly attack Indonesian ships and possibly a/c as for their attacks on Sarawak the Indonesians also used some airbourne landings. The other important thing would be how much help the Dutch could get from the locals as this was very important in Sarawak. Suspect they would be favourable of avoiding rule from Java.
There where also rumored Soviet submarines in the area who had orders to sink any Dutch navy ship if ordered, have here a article that i translated using Google translate. In August 1962 Russian submarines lay off the coast of New Guinea - ready to attack a Dutch frigate. In the conflict over the decolonization of the island, the Soviet Union played a crucial role.
Submarine officers never get a lot of explanation. A course, a timetable, a target - it is. The Russian Gennadi Melkov was not used to it. The depth, remain unfathomable, that's what it was about. At the specified time he had to enter the Bay with the S-235 and fire two torpedoes, one on the fuel tanks on the quay and one on the warship that was anchored there. Then again that he came away.
The instructions were clear enough. It was a venture, but that was not what made Melkov uncertain. It was the puppet box around it. He sailed in a Russian submarine, but the crew wore Indonesian uniforms. He himself too. And the target was a Dutch frigate - Melkov had no idea what it was called. He knew the name of the bay: Manokwari, on the peninsula the Bird's Head of New Guinea.
In what kind of shadow play did he end up? He looked at his watch again. It was exactly three o'clock, on Thursday morning, August 16, 1962. It had to happen in two hours.
The above seems to be a fragment from Tears about Hollandia, the faction thriller that Tomas Ross wrote in 2001 about the New Guinea conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia. But nothing has been fabricated on the S-235. It was one of the six Russian submarines that were part of an Indonesian invasion force with destination New Guinea. Operasi Djajawidjaja was a bold plan, in three steps: first defusing Dutch air and naval forces, then having 30,000 men landing troops carry out a concentrated attack on the island of Biak, north of New Guinea, and then pushing on to the main town of Hollandia. The Russian submarines were indispensable for the first phase and were already in position.
As the S-235 descended on Manokwari, negotiations on New Guinea in New York approached their completion. Under great pressure, the Netherlands discussed with Indonesia about the transfer of Dutch New Guinea.
The Royal Netherlands Navy did not notice the S-235 and the other submarines, and the ships have long remained invisible in history. In 2012 the standard work Pugno Pro Patria appeared. The Royal Netherlands Navy during the Cold War of naval historian D.C.L. Schoonoord, and in it is the futile search for the six Russian submarines that arose in August 1962 for a surprise attack on NATO member Netherlands.
The same applies to the 'definitive' study on the New Guinea conflict, commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In An act of free choice. The Papuans of western New Guinea and the limits of the right to self-determination (2005) refer to P.J. Dry liver with no word about the active Russian contribution in the Indonesian invasion plans.
That is surprising. The story has been around for decades. On 6 January 1971 Het Vrije Volk opened with the headline 'Russians deployed to N. Guinea'. Big news! But the article also contained the foreign affairs comment immediately. Had The Hague known at the time of the fighting Russians? The laconical answer was: "Maybe, maybe not. It has all been so long ago. "It turned out to be enough to demote the scope to a canard.
In 1977 the story reappeared, this time much more firmly documented. For his book Tomorrow, at the dawn of the day. The Netherlands three times on the eve of war, former ambassador J.G. de Beus talks with various high Indonesian soldiers who were involved in Operasi Djajawidjaja. All confirmed the concrete deployment of the six Russian submarines - with, on hand, also Toepolev bombers with Russian crews. A reaction from the official side stayed completely off this time.
Twenty-two years later that was not an option. Before that, the front page of the Volkskrant of 10 February 1999 contained too many spectacular revelations. They came from three former officers of the Russian navy who had participated in Operasi Djajawidjaja. Among them Gennadi Melkov. To the Moscow correspondent of the newspaper, Bart Rijs, they revealed salient details, including the proposed torpedo attack on Manokwari.
There had to follow a reaction. That came a day later, from the director of the Institute for Maritime History. 'There was certainly no Dutch frigate present at the naval base Manokwari on 15 August,' he stated. That is why the story could not be right.
It seemed to cover up a successful operation. The Russian submarines disappeared again for years under the surface. When Lambert Giebels even referred to it in 2001 in the second part of his Soekarno biography, he got the wind in front of Joop de Jong, Asia expert from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in these columns (Historisch Nieuwsblad, 2001/8). Affairs. Giebels' assumption that the Americans had worried about 'a threatening confrontation between NATO-ally Netherlands and Russians fighting on the Indonesian side' qualified De Jong as' richly absurd! '.
Since last year, however, there is little to deny. In his UvA master's thesis 'The New Guinea Conflict in New Perspective' Lieutenant Second Class Matthijs Ooms put an end to all doubt about the 'submarine stories' in one fell swoop. They all proved true. In the Bay of Manokwari there was indeed a Dutch frigate, the HNLMS. Evertsen. The Americans were only too well aware of - and worried about - the Russian participation in Operasi Djajawidjaja.
The Dutch Naval Intelligence Service also knew of the existence of the six Russian submarines - but not of their exact position at the moment suprême. The same applied to the Navy summit in The Hague. Remarkably, the flow of information stopped there. In the official intelligence reports for the Dutch government it remained with a general threat assessment. Russian submarines or bombers were not mentioned in the Council of Ministers.
What exactly stood behind it, has yet to be sorted out. This article is about something else, namely the Russian submarines as a symbol. They represent the blind spot in the Dutch New Guinea policy, and in the Dutch historiography: the crucial role of the Soviet Union in the decisive phase of the conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia.
In the current statement, their own allies - the United States, with in their wake Great Britain and Australia - forced the frustration of the Netherlands. That will of course remain. But the Americans, Britons and Australians were in turn put on the brink by the Russians. As soon as they joined forces, the New Guinea issue developed from a decolonization conflict into a part of the global Cold War, with all escalation risks that entailed.
That transformation can be dated quite accurately. At the beginning of January 1961 the Indonesian Defense Minister and Chief of Staff Nasution and his counterpart of Foreign Affairs Soebandrio joined in Moscow. They came to buy weapons, lots of weapons, and unlike the United States, the Soviet Union did not ask questions. In no time, agreement was reached on the supply of submarines, destroyers, aircraft and heavy artillery. Valuable for $ 500 million - currently valued at around $ 3.5 billion. Nobody was secretive about the destination of the weaponry. It was necessary, Nasution said, to 'cope with the Dutch threat in New Guinea'.
Also the Russian leader Khrushchev did not care about it. He seized on the presence of the Indonesian delegation for a memorable speech, on January 6, 1961. The decolonization movement in the third world, he noted, brought new leaders to power who turned away from the West and sought refuge in the communist ideals of the Soviet Union.
They would not be disappointed, he promised. Moscow would do everything to support their struggle against Western imperialism, both politically, economically and militarily. In the evenings, he made that promise a reality, in his well-known spontaneous style. During the farewell reception for the Indonesians, he shouted loudly through the room that it had been done with the Dutch rule of New Guinea.
Khrushchev's words struck, at least in the government centers that had their antennae tuned to the Kremlin. To begin with, of course, in Jakarta. For years, President Sukarno had used all his diplomatic gifts to gain international support for the transfer of Western Irian, as the Indonesians designated New Guinea. In vain. At the United Nations, he had always failed the Americans, with all their clientele. He had never got a grip on the aloof Republican president Eisenhower and his morality knight at Foreign Affairs Dulles.
Thanks to the commitment with the Soviet Union, Sukarno was able to take a new step, or rather to revive an old, tried and tested strategy. In the war of independence against the Netherlands, the combination of diplomasi and perjuangan (struggle) ultimately led to the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949. The Russian military support made it possible to play that game again, now even more credible than it was then. Especially when the Russian arms deliveries actually started, from July 1961, Soekarno felt strongly enough to increase the pressure on the Netherlands - and indirectly also on the United States - more and more.
His threatening language reached a climax on December 19 of that year, when he called on the Indonesian people to stand ready to "liberate West Irian from the chains of Dutch colonialism". That it was serious to him turned out on January 15, 1962, when it came to a first encounter between Indonesian and Dutch warships off the coast of New Guinea at Vlakke Hoek.
In Washington, Soekarno's weapon tickle was followed with growing concern. There too, things had changed since January 1961. Eisenhower had been succeeded by the action-hungry Democrat John F. Kennedy. With him, Khrushchev's embrace of the third world had ringing alarm bells, especially since Kennedy himself had similar intentions - obviously from an opposite ideology. In Asia he wanted to keep the 'dominoes' threatened by Communism in any case.
In the eyes of the action intellectuals with whom Kennedy surrounded himself, Indonesia was one of them. They actually did not see a better option than Soekarno. He was the only one who could control the two large internal power blocks, the army and the Partai Komunis Indonesia. If he fell away, the communists took over the country, Kennedy's inner circle was convinced of that. Especially now that Khrushchev offered his services so pontifically. There was only one thing: Sukarno - not to mention the rest of the third world - to keep a friend. And that meant that the Netherlands had to cede New Guinea, anyway.
For Kennedy and its confidants in the National Security Council, this was a foregone conclusion from the start, but elsewhere in Washington they met with resistance. At the State Department, large reserves existed about dishonoring a NATO ally for the sake of an unpredictable dictator. Until the end of 1961, Kennedy tolerated the internal opposition. Then he, shocked by the collision course of Sukarno, forced a decision.
Key positions at the State Department were re-occupied at the infamous Thanksgiving Day Massacre. From now on, the president himself led Indonesia's policy. As proof of this, in February 1962 he sent his brother Robert as personal envoy to Jakarta and The Hague to explain how America wanted it: negotiations to settle peacefully the transfer of New Guinea; absolutely no gun violence.
In the meantime, the most important allies were also processed. Just before Christmas 1961, Kennedy met with British Prime Minister Macmillan on Bermuda. There was little persuasiveness needed to win the pragmatic conservative, fearful of discord within the British Commonwealth, for the new American position.
In mid-January 1962 the Australian government also passed away. Until then, Canberra had supported the idea of self-determination for the Papuans - the last diplomatic defense line in the Netherlands. The sum of Russian military involvement, Soekarno's aggressive confrontation policy and the change of course in Washington and London now led to a different assessment.
According to Foreign Minister Barwick, an armed conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands had everything to escalate into a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. He thought that danger was even greater in New Guinea than in Berlin - where the construction of the Wall had started six months earlier. That was a disastrous scenario for Australia. In order to prevent greater calamity, Sukarno then had to get his way. We are sorry for the Papuans.
And for the Netherlands. It was now a totally different ball game, but that realization never penetrated fully in The Hague. Minister of Foreign Affairs Luns continued to invoke fuzzy requests from the Eisenhower government. Prime Minister De Quay thought he understood the message. He compared New Guinea with West Berlin: both bastions of freedom, threatened by aggression. But Kennedy did not leave a single chip of that comparison: the West Berliners were highly civilized and highly cultured, the Papuans lived in 'the Stone Age'. If there was anything to compare, it was Indonesia, which, like West Berlin, had to be protected from the advancing communism.
So negotiate. Now that the White House put its full weight in the shell, it was impossible to escape it. On American territory, led by the American diplomat Bunker. He cautiously but surely guided both parties to the desired end result. But that did not mean the war risk.
Soekarno insisted on his double strategy of diplomasi and perjuangan. After the Battle of Vlakke Hoek, the armed infiltrations of Indonesian troops - by sea and by air - only increased. From June 1962, when the negotiations were in an impasse, a violent denouement even came dangerously close.
Sukarno had his mind set on a decision before August 17, the Indonesian independence day. The Russians also became increasingly impatient. The weapons they had delivered had to be used once, before the Americans started to take diplomatic honors. Operasi Djajawidjaja was born. Because the Indonesians still had too little trained personnel, especially for the bombers and the submarines, Khrushchev promised Russian 'volunteers'.
That explained the Indonesian uniforms of the crew of the S-235, on their way to the target in the Bay of Manokwari. Another ten miles to go. Suddenly the strict radio silence was broken. "Stop attack," the message read. Melkov took a sigh of relief. Apparently an agreement had been reached at the last minute. 3.01 hours, August 16, 1962, New Guinea time.
The Russian submarine came above the water and turned the stern. The Dutch navy people on board the HNLMS. Evertsen had no idea what danger they had escaped.Wow, that's fascinating and ruins the whole idea I guess. Unless things changed much earlier. There is no way the Dutch could have had any chance against the Soviet navy. But where do you find all these detailed force compositions? |
|
lordroel
Administrator
Member is Online
Posts: 67,984
Likes: 49,385
|
Post by lordroel on Jul 7, 2018 11:18:19 GMT
There where also rumored Soviet submarines in the area who had orders to sink any Dutch navy ship if ordered, have here a article that i translated using Google translate. In August 1962 Russian submarines lay off the coast of New Guinea - ready to attack a Dutch frigate. In the conflict over the decolonization of the island, the Soviet Union played a crucial role.
Submarine officers never get a lot of explanation. A course, a timetable, a target - it is. The Russian Gennadi Melkov was not used to it. The depth, remain unfathomable, that's what it was about. At the specified time he had to enter the Bay with the S-235 and fire two torpedoes, one on the fuel tanks on the quay and one on the warship that was anchored there. Then again that he came away.
The instructions were clear enough. It was a venture, but that was not what made Melkov uncertain. It was the puppet box around it. He sailed in a Russian submarine, but the crew wore Indonesian uniforms. He himself too. And the target was a Dutch frigate - Melkov had no idea what it was called. He knew the name of the bay: Manokwari, on the peninsula the Bird's Head of New Guinea.
In what kind of shadow play did he end up? He looked at his watch again. It was exactly three o'clock, on Thursday morning, August 16, 1962. It had to happen in two hours.
The above seems to be a fragment from Tears about Hollandia, the faction thriller that Tomas Ross wrote in 2001 about the New Guinea conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia. But nothing has been fabricated on the S-235. It was one of the six Russian submarines that were part of an Indonesian invasion force with destination New Guinea. Operasi Djajawidjaja was a bold plan, in three steps: first defusing Dutch air and naval forces, then having 30,000 men landing troops carry out a concentrated attack on the island of Biak, north of New Guinea, and then pushing on to the main town of Hollandia. The Russian submarines were indispensable for the first phase and were already in position.
As the S-235 descended on Manokwari, negotiations on New Guinea in New York approached their completion. Under great pressure, the Netherlands discussed with Indonesia about the transfer of Dutch New Guinea.
The Royal Netherlands Navy did not notice the S-235 and the other submarines, and the ships have long remained invisible in history. In 2012 the standard work Pugno Pro Patria appeared. The Royal Netherlands Navy during the Cold War of naval historian D.C.L. Schoonoord, and in it is the futile search for the six Russian submarines that arose in August 1962 for a surprise attack on NATO member Netherlands.
The same applies to the 'definitive' study on the New Guinea conflict, commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In An act of free choice. The Papuans of western New Guinea and the limits of the right to self-determination (2005) refer to P.J. Dry liver with no word about the active Russian contribution in the Indonesian invasion plans.
That is surprising. The story has been around for decades. On 6 January 1971 Het Vrije Volk opened with the headline 'Russians deployed to N. Guinea'. Big news! But the article also contained the foreign affairs comment immediately. Had The Hague known at the time of the fighting Russians? The laconical answer was: "Maybe, maybe not. It has all been so long ago. "It turned out to be enough to demote the scope to a canard.
In 1977 the story reappeared, this time much more firmly documented. For his book Tomorrow, at the dawn of the day. The Netherlands three times on the eve of war, former ambassador J.G. de Beus talks with various high Indonesian soldiers who were involved in Operasi Djajawidjaja. All confirmed the concrete deployment of the six Russian submarines - with, on hand, also Toepolev bombers with Russian crews. A reaction from the official side stayed completely off this time.
Twenty-two years later that was not an option. Before that, the front page of the Volkskrant of 10 February 1999 contained too many spectacular revelations. They came from three former officers of the Russian navy who had participated in Operasi Djajawidjaja. Among them Gennadi Melkov. To the Moscow correspondent of the newspaper, Bart Rijs, they revealed salient details, including the proposed torpedo attack on Manokwari.
There had to follow a reaction. That came a day later, from the director of the Institute for Maritime History. 'There was certainly no Dutch frigate present at the naval base Manokwari on 15 August,' he stated. That is why the story could not be right.
It seemed to cover up a successful operation. The Russian submarines disappeared again for years under the surface. When Lambert Giebels even referred to it in 2001 in the second part of his Soekarno biography, he got the wind in front of Joop de Jong, Asia expert from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in these columns (Historisch Nieuwsblad, 2001/8). Affairs. Giebels' assumption that the Americans had worried about 'a threatening confrontation between NATO-ally Netherlands and Russians fighting on the Indonesian side' qualified De Jong as' richly absurd! '.
Since last year, however, there is little to deny. In his UvA master's thesis 'The New Guinea Conflict in New Perspective' Lieutenant Second Class Matthijs Ooms put an end to all doubt about the 'submarine stories' in one fell swoop. They all proved true. In the Bay of Manokwari there was indeed a Dutch frigate, the HNLMS. Evertsen. The Americans were only too well aware of - and worried about - the Russian participation in Operasi Djajawidjaja.
The Dutch Naval Intelligence Service also knew of the existence of the six Russian submarines - but not of their exact position at the moment suprême. The same applied to the Navy summit in The Hague. Remarkably, the flow of information stopped there. In the official intelligence reports for the Dutch government it remained with a general threat assessment. Russian submarines or bombers were not mentioned in the Council of Ministers.
What exactly stood behind it, has yet to be sorted out. This article is about something else, namely the Russian submarines as a symbol. They represent the blind spot in the Dutch New Guinea policy, and in the Dutch historiography: the crucial role of the Soviet Union in the decisive phase of the conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia.
In the current statement, their own allies - the United States, with in their wake Great Britain and Australia - forced the frustration of the Netherlands. That will of course remain. But the Americans, Britons and Australians were in turn put on the brink by the Russians. As soon as they joined forces, the New Guinea issue developed from a decolonization conflict into a part of the global Cold War, with all escalation risks that entailed.
That transformation can be dated quite accurately. At the beginning of January 1961 the Indonesian Defense Minister and Chief of Staff Nasution and his counterpart of Foreign Affairs Soebandrio joined in Moscow. They came to buy weapons, lots of weapons, and unlike the United States, the Soviet Union did not ask questions. In no time, agreement was reached on the supply of submarines, destroyers, aircraft and heavy artillery. Valuable for $ 500 million - currently valued at around $ 3.5 billion. Nobody was secretive about the destination of the weaponry. It was necessary, Nasution said, to 'cope with the Dutch threat in New Guinea'.
Also the Russian leader Khrushchev did not care about it. He seized on the presence of the Indonesian delegation for a memorable speech, on January 6, 1961. The decolonization movement in the third world, he noted, brought new leaders to power who turned away from the West and sought refuge in the communist ideals of the Soviet Union.
They would not be disappointed, he promised. Moscow would do everything to support their struggle against Western imperialism, both politically, economically and militarily. In the evenings, he made that promise a reality, in his well-known spontaneous style. During the farewell reception for the Indonesians, he shouted loudly through the room that it had been done with the Dutch rule of New Guinea.
Khrushchev's words struck, at least in the government centers that had their antennae tuned to the Kremlin. To begin with, of course, in Jakarta. For years, President Sukarno had used all his diplomatic gifts to gain international support for the transfer of Western Irian, as the Indonesians designated New Guinea. In vain. At the United Nations, he had always failed the Americans, with all their clientele. He had never got a grip on the aloof Republican president Eisenhower and his morality knight at Foreign Affairs Dulles.
Thanks to the commitment with the Soviet Union, Sukarno was able to take a new step, or rather to revive an old, tried and tested strategy. In the war of independence against the Netherlands, the combination of diplomasi and perjuangan (struggle) ultimately led to the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949. The Russian military support made it possible to play that game again, now even more credible than it was then. Especially when the Russian arms deliveries actually started, from July 1961, Soekarno felt strongly enough to increase the pressure on the Netherlands - and indirectly also on the United States - more and more.
His threatening language reached a climax on December 19 of that year, when he called on the Indonesian people to stand ready to "liberate West Irian from the chains of Dutch colonialism". That it was serious to him turned out on January 15, 1962, when it came to a first encounter between Indonesian and Dutch warships off the coast of New Guinea at Vlakke Hoek.
In Washington, Soekarno's weapon tickle was followed with growing concern. There too, things had changed since January 1961. Eisenhower had been succeeded by the action-hungry Democrat John F. Kennedy. With him, Khrushchev's embrace of the third world had ringing alarm bells, especially since Kennedy himself had similar intentions - obviously from an opposite ideology. In Asia he wanted to keep the 'dominoes' threatened by Communism in any case.
In the eyes of the action intellectuals with whom Kennedy surrounded himself, Indonesia was one of them. They actually did not see a better option than Soekarno. He was the only one who could control the two large internal power blocks, the army and the Partai Komunis Indonesia. If he fell away, the communists took over the country, Kennedy's inner circle was convinced of that. Especially now that Khrushchev offered his services so pontifically. There was only one thing: Sukarno - not to mention the rest of the third world - to keep a friend. And that meant that the Netherlands had to cede New Guinea, anyway.
For Kennedy and its confidants in the National Security Council, this was a foregone conclusion from the start, but elsewhere in Washington they met with resistance. At the State Department, large reserves existed about dishonoring a NATO ally for the sake of an unpredictable dictator. Until the end of 1961, Kennedy tolerated the internal opposition. Then he, shocked by the collision course of Sukarno, forced a decision.
Key positions at the State Department were re-occupied at the infamous Thanksgiving Day Massacre. From now on, the president himself led Indonesia's policy. As proof of this, in February 1962 he sent his brother Robert as personal envoy to Jakarta and The Hague to explain how America wanted it: negotiations to settle peacefully the transfer of New Guinea; absolutely no gun violence.
In the meantime, the most important allies were also processed. Just before Christmas 1961, Kennedy met with British Prime Minister Macmillan on Bermuda. There was little persuasiveness needed to win the pragmatic conservative, fearful of discord within the British Commonwealth, for the new American position.
In mid-January 1962 the Australian government also passed away. Until then, Canberra had supported the idea of self-determination for the Papuans - the last diplomatic defense line in the Netherlands. The sum of Russian military involvement, Soekarno's aggressive confrontation policy and the change of course in Washington and London now led to a different assessment.
According to Foreign Minister Barwick, an armed conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands had everything to escalate into a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. He thought that danger was even greater in New Guinea than in Berlin - where the construction of the Wall had started six months earlier. That was a disastrous scenario for Australia. In order to prevent greater calamity, Sukarno then had to get his way. We are sorry for the Papuans.
And for the Netherlands. It was now a totally different ball game, but that realization never penetrated fully in The Hague. Minister of Foreign Affairs Luns continued to invoke fuzzy requests from the Eisenhower government. Prime Minister De Quay thought he understood the message. He compared New Guinea with West Berlin: both bastions of freedom, threatened by aggression. But Kennedy did not leave a single chip of that comparison: the West Berliners were highly civilized and highly cultured, the Papuans lived in 'the Stone Age'. If there was anything to compare, it was Indonesia, which, like West Berlin, had to be protected from the advancing communism.
So negotiate. Now that the White House put its full weight in the shell, it was impossible to escape it. On American territory, led by the American diplomat Bunker. He cautiously but surely guided both parties to the desired end result. But that did not mean the war risk.
Soekarno insisted on his double strategy of diplomasi and perjuangan. After the Battle of Vlakke Hoek, the armed infiltrations of Indonesian troops - by sea and by air - only increased. From June 1962, when the negotiations were in an impasse, a violent denouement even came dangerously close.
Sukarno had his mind set on a decision before August 17, the Indonesian independence day. The Russians also became increasingly impatient. The weapons they had delivered had to be used once, before the Americans started to take diplomatic honors. Operasi Djajawidjaja was born. Because the Indonesians still had too little trained personnel, especially for the bombers and the submarines, Khrushchev promised Russian 'volunteers'.
That explained the Indonesian uniforms of the crew of the S-235, on their way to the target in the Bay of Manokwari. Another ten miles to go. Suddenly the strict radio silence was broken. "Stop attack," the message read. Melkov took a sigh of relief. Apparently an agreement had been reached at the last minute. 3.01 hours, August 16, 1962, New Guinea time.
The Russian submarine came above the water and turned the stern. The Dutch navy people on board the HNLMS. Evertsen had no idea what danger they had escaped.Wow, that's fascinating and ruins the whole idea I guess. Unless things changed much earlier. There is no way the Dutch could have had any chance against the Soviet navy. But where do you find all these detailed force compositions? A loot of googling and placing things together. raunchel , but this Dutch orbat is not complete as it is only for May 1st 1962, there where more troops in New Guinea (including two additional infantry battalions, two frigates and one carrier) later on, but still not enough to stop the Indonesians and their Soviet volunteers. |
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,836
Likes: 13,224
|
Post by stevep on Jul 7, 2018 12:43:53 GMT
There where also rumored Soviet submarines in the area who had orders to sink any Dutch navy ship if ordered, have here a article that i translated using Google translate. In August 1962 Russian submarines lay off the coast of New Guinea - ready to attack a Dutch frigate. In the conflict over the decolonization of the island, the Soviet Union played a crucial role.
Submarine officers never get a lot of explanation. A course, a timetable, a target - it is. The Russian Gennadi Melkov was not used to it. The depth, remain unfathomable, that's what it was about. At the specified time he had to enter the Bay with the S-235 and fire two torpedoes, one on the fuel tanks on the quay and one on the warship that was anchored there. Then again that he came away.
The instructions were clear enough. It was a venture, but that was not what made Melkov uncertain. It was the puppet box around it. He sailed in a Russian submarine, but the crew wore Indonesian uniforms. He himself too. And the target was a Dutch frigate - Melkov had no idea what it was called. He knew the name of the bay: Manokwari, on the peninsula the Bird's Head of New Guinea.
In what kind of shadow play did he end up? He looked at his watch again. It was exactly three o'clock, on Thursday morning, August 16, 1962. It had to happen in two hours.
The above seems to be a fragment from Tears about Hollandia, the faction thriller that Tomas Ross wrote in 2001 about the New Guinea conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia. But nothing has been fabricated on the S-235. It was one of the six Russian submarines that were part of an Indonesian invasion force with destination New Guinea. Operasi Djajawidjaja was a bold plan, in three steps: first defusing Dutch air and naval forces, then having 30,000 men landing troops carry out a concentrated attack on the island of Biak, north of New Guinea, and then pushing on to the main town of Hollandia. The Russian submarines were indispensable for the first phase and were already in position.
As the S-235 descended on Manokwari, negotiations on New Guinea in New York approached their completion. Under great pressure, the Netherlands discussed with Indonesia about the transfer of Dutch New Guinea.
The Royal Netherlands Navy did not notice the S-235 and the other submarines, and the ships have long remained invisible in history. In 2012 the standard work Pugno Pro Patria appeared. The Royal Netherlands Navy during the Cold War of naval historian D.C.L. Schoonoord, and in it is the futile search for the six Russian submarines that arose in August 1962 for a surprise attack on NATO member Netherlands.
The same applies to the 'definitive' study on the New Guinea conflict, commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In An act of free choice. The Papuans of western New Guinea and the limits of the right to self-determination (2005) refer to P.J. Dry liver with no word about the active Russian contribution in the Indonesian invasion plans.
That is surprising. The story has been around for decades. On 6 January 1971 Het Vrije Volk opened with the headline 'Russians deployed to N. Guinea'. Big news! But the article also contained the foreign affairs comment immediately. Had The Hague known at the time of the fighting Russians? The laconical answer was: "Maybe, maybe not. It has all been so long ago. "It turned out to be enough to demote the scope to a canard.
In 1977 the story reappeared, this time much more firmly documented. For his book Tomorrow, at the dawn of the day. The Netherlands three times on the eve of war, former ambassador J.G. de Beus talks with various high Indonesian soldiers who were involved in Operasi Djajawidjaja. All confirmed the concrete deployment of the six Russian submarines - with, on hand, also Toepolev bombers with Russian crews. A reaction from the official side stayed completely off this time.
Twenty-two years later that was not an option. Before that, the front page of the Volkskrant of 10 February 1999 contained too many spectacular revelations. They came from three former officers of the Russian navy who had participated in Operasi Djajawidjaja. Among them Gennadi Melkov. To the Moscow correspondent of the newspaper, Bart Rijs, they revealed salient details, including the proposed torpedo attack on Manokwari.
There had to follow a reaction. That came a day later, from the director of the Institute for Maritime History. 'There was certainly no Dutch frigate present at the naval base Manokwari on 15 August,' he stated. That is why the story could not be right.
It seemed to cover up a successful operation. The Russian submarines disappeared again for years under the surface. When Lambert Giebels even referred to it in 2001 in the second part of his Soekarno biography, he got the wind in front of Joop de Jong, Asia expert from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in these columns (Historisch Nieuwsblad, 2001/8). Affairs. Giebels' assumption that the Americans had worried about 'a threatening confrontation between NATO-ally Netherlands and Russians fighting on the Indonesian side' qualified De Jong as' richly absurd! '.
Since last year, however, there is little to deny. In his UvA master's thesis 'The New Guinea Conflict in New Perspective' Lieutenant Second Class Matthijs Ooms put an end to all doubt about the 'submarine stories' in one fell swoop. They all proved true. In the Bay of Manokwari there was indeed a Dutch frigate, the HNLMS. Evertsen. The Americans were only too well aware of - and worried about - the Russian participation in Operasi Djajawidjaja.
The Dutch Naval Intelligence Service also knew of the existence of the six Russian submarines - but not of their exact position at the moment suprême. The same applied to the Navy summit in The Hague. Remarkably, the flow of information stopped there. In the official intelligence reports for the Dutch government it remained with a general threat assessment. Russian submarines or bombers were not mentioned in the Council of Ministers.
What exactly stood behind it, has yet to be sorted out. This article is about something else, namely the Russian submarines as a symbol. They represent the blind spot in the Dutch New Guinea policy, and in the Dutch historiography: the crucial role of the Soviet Union in the decisive phase of the conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia.
In the current statement, their own allies - the United States, with in their wake Great Britain and Australia - forced the frustration of the Netherlands. That will of course remain. But the Americans, Britons and Australians were in turn put on the brink by the Russians. As soon as they joined forces, the New Guinea issue developed from a decolonization conflict into a part of the global Cold War, with all escalation risks that entailed.
That transformation can be dated quite accurately. At the beginning of January 1961 the Indonesian Defense Minister and Chief of Staff Nasution and his counterpart of Foreign Affairs Soebandrio joined in Moscow. They came to buy weapons, lots of weapons, and unlike the United States, the Soviet Union did not ask questions. In no time, agreement was reached on the supply of submarines, destroyers, aircraft and heavy artillery. Valuable for $ 500 million - currently valued at around $ 3.5 billion. Nobody was secretive about the destination of the weaponry. It was necessary, Nasution said, to 'cope with the Dutch threat in New Guinea'.
Also the Russian leader Khrushchev did not care about it. He seized on the presence of the Indonesian delegation for a memorable speech, on January 6, 1961. The decolonization movement in the third world, he noted, brought new leaders to power who turned away from the West and sought refuge in the communist ideals of the Soviet Union.
They would not be disappointed, he promised. Moscow would do everything to support their struggle against Western imperialism, both politically, economically and militarily. In the evenings, he made that promise a reality, in his well-known spontaneous style. During the farewell reception for the Indonesians, he shouted loudly through the room that it had been done with the Dutch rule of New Guinea.
Khrushchev's words struck, at least in the government centers that had their antennae tuned to the Kremlin. To begin with, of course, in Jakarta. For years, President Sukarno had used all his diplomatic gifts to gain international support for the transfer of Western Irian, as the Indonesians designated New Guinea. In vain. At the United Nations, he had always failed the Americans, with all their clientele. He had never got a grip on the aloof Republican president Eisenhower and his morality knight at Foreign Affairs Dulles.
Thanks to the commitment with the Soviet Union, Sukarno was able to take a new step, or rather to revive an old, tried and tested strategy. In the war of independence against the Netherlands, the combination of diplomasi and perjuangan (struggle) ultimately led to the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949. The Russian military support made it possible to play that game again, now even more credible than it was then. Especially when the Russian arms deliveries actually started, from July 1961, Soekarno felt strongly enough to increase the pressure on the Netherlands - and indirectly also on the United States - more and more.
His threatening language reached a climax on December 19 of that year, when he called on the Indonesian people to stand ready to "liberate West Irian from the chains of Dutch colonialism". That it was serious to him turned out on January 15, 1962, when it came to a first encounter between Indonesian and Dutch warships off the coast of New Guinea at Vlakke Hoek.
In Washington, Soekarno's weapon tickle was followed with growing concern. There too, things had changed since January 1961. Eisenhower had been succeeded by the action-hungry Democrat John F. Kennedy. With him, Khrushchev's embrace of the third world had ringing alarm bells, especially since Kennedy himself had similar intentions - obviously from an opposite ideology. In Asia he wanted to keep the 'dominoes' threatened by Communism in any case.
In the eyes of the action intellectuals with whom Kennedy surrounded himself, Indonesia was one of them. They actually did not see a better option than Soekarno. He was the only one who could control the two large internal power blocks, the army and the Partai Komunis Indonesia. If he fell away, the communists took over the country, Kennedy's inner circle was convinced of that. Especially now that Khrushchev offered his services so pontifically. There was only one thing: Sukarno - not to mention the rest of the third world - to keep a friend. And that meant that the Netherlands had to cede New Guinea, anyway.
For Kennedy and its confidants in the National Security Council, this was a foregone conclusion from the start, but elsewhere in Washington they met with resistance. At the State Department, large reserves existed about dishonoring a NATO ally for the sake of an unpredictable dictator. Until the end of 1961, Kennedy tolerated the internal opposition. Then he, shocked by the collision course of Sukarno, forced a decision.
Key positions at the State Department were re-occupied at the infamous Thanksgiving Day Massacre. From now on, the president himself led Indonesia's policy. As proof of this, in February 1962 he sent his brother Robert as personal envoy to Jakarta and The Hague to explain how America wanted it: negotiations to settle peacefully the transfer of New Guinea; absolutely no gun violence.
In the meantime, the most important allies were also processed. Just before Christmas 1961, Kennedy met with British Prime Minister Macmillan on Bermuda. There was little persuasiveness needed to win the pragmatic conservative, fearful of discord within the British Commonwealth, for the new American position.
In mid-January 1962 the Australian government also passed away. Until then, Canberra had supported the idea of self-determination for the Papuans - the last diplomatic defense line in the Netherlands. The sum of Russian military involvement, Soekarno's aggressive confrontation policy and the change of course in Washington and London now led to a different assessment.
According to Foreign Minister Barwick, an armed conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands had everything to escalate into a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. He thought that danger was even greater in New Guinea than in Berlin - where the construction of the Wall had started six months earlier. That was a disastrous scenario for Australia. In order to prevent greater calamity, Sukarno then had to get his way. We are sorry for the Papuans.
And for the Netherlands. It was now a totally different ball game, but that realization never penetrated fully in The Hague. Minister of Foreign Affairs Luns continued to invoke fuzzy requests from the Eisenhower government. Prime Minister De Quay thought he understood the message. He compared New Guinea with West Berlin: both bastions of freedom, threatened by aggression. But Kennedy did not leave a single chip of that comparison: the West Berliners were highly civilized and highly cultured, the Papuans lived in 'the Stone Age'. If there was anything to compare, it was Indonesia, which, like West Berlin, had to be protected from the advancing communism.
So negotiate. Now that the White House put its full weight in the shell, it was impossible to escape it. On American territory, led by the American diplomat Bunker. He cautiously but surely guided both parties to the desired end result. But that did not mean the war risk.
Soekarno insisted on his double strategy of diplomasi and perjuangan. After the Battle of Vlakke Hoek, the armed infiltrations of Indonesian troops - by sea and by air - only increased. From June 1962, when the negotiations were in an impasse, a violent denouement even came dangerously close.
Sukarno had his mind set on a decision before August 17, the Indonesian independence day. The Russians also became increasingly impatient. The weapons they had delivered had to be used once, before the Americans started to take diplomatic honors. Operasi Djajawidjaja was born. Because the Indonesians still had too little trained personnel, especially for the bombers and the submarines, Khrushchev promised Russian 'volunteers'.
That explained the Indonesian uniforms of the crew of the S-235, on their way to the target in the Bay of Manokwari. Another ten miles to go. Suddenly the strict radio silence was broken. "Stop attack," the message read. Melkov took a sigh of relief. Apparently an agreement had been reached at the last minute. 3.01 hours, August 16, 1962, New Guinea time.
The Russian submarine came above the water and turned the stern. The Dutch navy people on board the HNLMS. Evertsen had no idea what danger they had escaped.Wow, that's fascinating and ruins the whole idea I guess. Unless things changed much earlier. There is no way the Dutch could have had any chance against the Soviet navy. But where do you find all these detailed force compositions?
Fully agree the Dutch and even more the Pauans got shafted.  I wonder why Macmillian didn't realise Sukarno and his thugs would be after Malaysian Borneo once he had Papua? |
|
lordroel
Administrator
Member is Online
Posts: 67,984
Likes: 49,385
|
Post by lordroel on Jul 7, 2018 13:07:14 GMT
|
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,836
Likes: 13,224
|
Post by stevep on Jul 7, 2018 16:21:10 GMT
|
|
lordroel
Administrator
Member is Online
Posts: 67,984
Likes: 49,385
|
Post by lordroel on Jul 7, 2018 16:22:33 GMT
|
|
insect
Banned
Posts: 380
Likes: 71
|
Post by insect on Jul 8, 2018 1:46:40 GMT
Cuban missle war
1962. Cuban missle crisis leads to war
able archer war
1983, Soviets mistake u.s. u.k military game as act of war and attack.
u.s cuban war 1961
Nixon becomes Americas "a 35th president and America invades cuba.
|
|
lordroel
Administrator
Member is Online
Posts: 67,984
Likes: 49,385
|
Post by lordroel on Jul 8, 2018 8:22:22 GMT
|
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,836
Likes: 13,224
|
Post by stevep on Jul 8, 2018 8:26:02 GMT
If the border clashes ~1969 had turned into a full scale war between the Soviets and Mao's China. Very bad for the Chinese in the short term but could become a quagmire for the Soviets, as long as no one goes nuclear.  |
|
lordroel
Administrator
Member is Online
Posts: 67,984
Likes: 49,385
|
Post by lordroel on Jul 8, 2018 9:05:02 GMT
If the border clashes ~1969 had turned into a full scale war between the Soviets and Mao's China. Very bad for the Chinese in the short term but could become a quagmire for the Soviets, as long as no one goes nuclear. Could end up being more deadlier than World War I and II combined, and it does not need to even escalate into a full global war for it. |
|
I wonder why Macmillian didn't realise Sukarno and his thugs would be after Malaysian Borneo once he had Papua?