The Role of the Dutch

Abstract

British and Allied soldiers and civilians who escaped, or were evacuated, from Singapore, heading in a southerly direction, relied heavily on goodwill and co-operation in the Netherlands East Indies. Their passage was commonly through the island world of the Malay Archipelago to Sumatra or Java, to be followed, where possible, by long sea-voyages from Sumatra or Javanese ports. In 1941, all this was Dutch colonial territory, but it was an area in which the first Japanese attacks were being made at about the time of the fall of Singapore; further east, Dutch territory had been invaded earlier.