Private Papers of Captain R A Baron Mackay

Photocopy of a ts account (ca 120pp), written in 1974 in rather stilted English, describing his wide range of duties as the Royal Netherlands Indies Army's liaison officer at ABDACOM headquarters near Bandoeng in Java, January - February 1942, and then briefly at the headquarters of Major General H D W Sitwell, GOC British Forces in Java until Sitwell's abrupt departure from the building shortly before Java's capitulation on 8 March 1942, and his service, again as a liaison officer, with an Indian Army battalion in Java during the bitter fighting with Javanese nationalists in late 1945 following the island's liberation from Japanese occupation and his own release from prisoner of war camp. The narrative, which gives an interesting first-hand account of General Wavell's ill-fated visit to Singapore on 9 - 10 February 1942 and very contrasting impressions of the qualities of Wavell and General Sitwell, also has long polemical sections covering the outbreak and course of the war in the Far East, the performance of the Royal Netherlands Indies Army in 1942 and British policy towards the Netherlands East Indies in 1945.

Cataloguer RWAS

Catalogue date 1996-08