Mel Stoop

Prisoners At Kota Cane Mel Stoop

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was quickly followed by a rapid invasion of Malaya, a plan based entirely on the decisive use of airpower. While the British were inadequately prepared, they likewise relied on the RAF to defend their colony. The campaign was a short match between Japanese airpower at its peak and an outgunned colonial air force, and its results were stunning. The subsequent Dutch East Indies campaign was even more dependent on airpower, with Japan having to seize a string of island airfields to support their leapfrog advance.
This book presents the events of these final days in Sumatra from the perspective of an Indonesian arrested by the Dutch shortly after Ter Poorten's surrender.
Although this diary was brought together into the form of a memoir shortly after the events it describes, the Indonesian version has never been published. I am grateful to Leon Salim for letting me translate and publish it, and for checking the translation and answering queries on it, for I think the memoir is an important contribution to our understanding of this period of Indonesia's history. - Audrey Kahin, November 1985