All Ships Follow Me

by Mieke Eerkens

  It is the end of something, or it is the beginning of something. This is the liminal moment between before and after for these children and my father, who haven’t known to feel fear before now. Their worlds begin to tilt.

  For a month, a battle rages between the Allied forces and the Japanese, mainly in Surabaya and naval battles off the coast. My grandfather and Ko’s husband, Jan, are at the front near the base in Surabaya, and the rest of the family waits tensely for updates. My grandmother turns on the radio every night to get the news, transmitted by the Nederlands-Indische Radio Omroep Maatschappij, NIROM (Netherlands-Indies Radio News Agency). They hear about the tremendous battle in the Java Sea, the last line of defense for the Allied forces in holding back the Japanese troops. The Japanese forces have twenty-eight well-equipped ships to the Allies’ fourteen cobbled together from Dutch, U.S., U.K., and Australian navy forces. The British, Australian, and American navies have suffered losses in other battles and are reluctant to call in more forces. The Japanese have jammed the radio frequencies, and because of stormy weather, nighttime air assaults on their ships aren’t possible. The Dutch navy must decide whether to move forward with such a small fleet. They know the Japanese are unbeatable. But to do nothing means an assured invasion of Java. Thousands of Dutch and Indonesian citizens wait on the mainland, bellies knotted with fear, hoping for a miracle as news of the battle reaches them. During my research, I come across an interview with Theo Doorman, son of the Dutch naval commander, Karel Doorman, whose name is still on street signs and memorial plaques in the Netherlands. Theo Doorman recalls his father putting him and his mother on an evacuation plane headed for Australia right before the historic battle.

  “Did your father know how bad it was? Did he know he would die?” the interviewer asks.

  “Yes. I think he knew he would never see us again,” says the son.

  The crackling last words of naval commander Karel Doorman are announced through the radio on February 27, 1942, as my father, whose youthful faith in heroes is strong, listens. Doorman’s words to his men, transmitted as his ship heads out to meet the Japanese fleet, have gone down in Dutch history as some of the most noted because they represent persistence and unwavering bravery even in unwinnable circumstances: “All ships follow me.” They are brave and stupidly perseverant words spoken in the face of terrible odds, words that are repeated in the homes of thousands, including the home of a little boy who desperately wants his home to stay safe and needs a hero.

  * * *

  When my father tells me this story back in the United States, to my shock, he begins to weep, breaking down at Doorman’s famous words, “All ships follow me.” I can count the times I have seen my father cry on one hand. He does not cry while standing in his former concentration camp. He does not cry while describing his friends dying or being beaten by the Japanese soldiers. But my father cannot speak Karel Doorman’s final words without his voice cracking, even after several tellings. It happens again at Thanksgiving dinner as he tells the story to my sister’s husband. He can’t get that sentence out, and clears his throat repeatedly, drinking water and shaking his head. This famous line, which represents absolute commitment and stubborn determination to many, makes my usually stoic father emotional because he has internalized it as part of his character, perhaps as a result of this moment of hope that Doorman provided to a terrified child and nation.

  I finally ask my dad, who isn’t comfortable talking about his feelings, why this Karel Doorman story and those last words, “All ships follow me,” make him so emotional. “Doorman was willing to keep fighting for what he believed was right,” he says. “He sacrificed his life to defend us. Same with the soldiers who tried to liberate us and lost their lives in the process. I believe in fighting for what’s right, even if the odds are against you, even if you can’t imagine how you’ll overcome the obstacles. You fight until the death.”

  “Do you think Doorman affected your own character?” I ask. “Did you try to be like that yourself in life?”

  “Well, yes, I tried. If I believe in something, I believe you keep going. You never give up.”

  On a symbolic level, Doorman is who my father forced himself to be for the rest of his life, the spirit animal that got a little boy through the war to adulthood. My father never admits defeat. He won’t admit when things are broken or impossible, ramming square pegs into round holes with remarkable determination. It can be maddening. But when I hear about Doorman, I also understand why my father feels like he has to be that man.

  I read the rest of the story about his hero. After seven hours of battle, the Allies lost six of their ships. Admiral Karel Doorman’s ship was struck by a Japanese torpedo and heavily damaged, with many casualties. Heavy fire from Japanese Zeroes prevented any possibility for rescue. Despite being initially uninjured in the attack, Doorman stayed on board with his injured and dying men for the full hour and a half that it took for the vessel to sink, choosing to die beside the other twenty-three hundred men who lost their lives in the battle. A few days later, Japanese troops stormed the beaches on the island of Java.

  * * *

  Java, Dutch East Indies, March 1942

  Like ants descending on a dying bird, the soldiers stream out of boats and planes into the cities and villages of Java between February 28 and March 1, 1942. Occupation, invasion. They ride on bicycles, pedaling in formation, row after row, rifles and bayonets angled across their backs, some with guns strapped to the handles of their bicycles like mini turrets. Behind the bicycles are tanks and jeeps and trucks, flowing over the landscape in every direction.

  The fighting is furious and bloody, but short-lived. The KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger, the Royal Dutch Indies Army) is vastly outnumbered and lacks the weaponry of the Japanese. Back in Madiun, Aunt Ko paces the floor, knowing that her husband, Jan, who has no military experience outside of his few days of training, has been sent to the front to fight. The following day, a message arrives: We regret to inform you. Jan was mowed down in gunfire on the front lines almost immediately as the Japanese came ashore. Ko is inconsolable. Cousin Kees and Sjeffie and his younger siblings watch with wide eyes as she sobs with wild animal sounds into my grandmother’s neck. The immensity of this is almost too much for the children to take in.

  Back at the military airfield in Surabaya, the Dutch Indies Army takes heavy fire. My grandfather, as a doctor, is charged with establishing medical relief in the hangar, which has been set up as a makeshift hospital. He hears the fighting from the hangar, where he receives dead and wounded bodies, organizing triage. As he and another doctor watch, a Dutch plane comes in for a landing, and the Japanese Zeroes chase it. The plane, on fire and skidding down the runway, billows smoke as the Japanese fighters pull up and turn to come back for another strafing run. The top of the Dutch plane pops open, and a bleeding airman emerges into the smoke. He climbs clumsily out of the cockpit, falling to the runway below.

  The Japanese fighters are now heading back, low. The Dutch pilot tries to get to his feet, but he is injured, and he falls back down. Like a target, he lies there, grasping at the air with his hands. The Zeroes are getting close. My grandfather and the other doctor look at each other. Then they run. Dragging the pilot by the arms, they pull him into the hangar as the bullets hit the tarmac around them and the Japanese fighters turn for a third run, the Dutch plane now completely engulfed in flames. After the war, my grandfather will receive the Bronze Cross for this act.

  The Dutch East Indies surrenders ten days later, on March 9. Those left standing hurry home to their families as quickly as they can, before the handover of power to the Japanese forces takes place. Over everyone’s head hangs the question: How will the Japanese govern them?

  In Surabaya, my grandfather arrives at the train station, desperate to return to his family. The Japanese have ordered the trains to be halted so they can use them for their troops, and this is the last passenger train to Madiun before the transfer of power. The trip to Madi
un takes hours. My grandfather insists he be allowed on board, persisting until they open the doors to him. He arrives in Madiun exhausted but relieved to be able to take his family in his arms. Uncle Jan doesn’t have that option anymore, something they all are aware of as Aunt Ko sobs into my grandfather’s embrace.

  In a matter of a few days, like many of their colonial neighbors, the family goes from a life of very little worry, with a nanny and a chef making sure they are clothed and fed each day, to being invaded by hostile forces.

  Sjeffie, ten years old, watches from behind glass as the Japanese soldiers move into Madiun on their bicycles. He has been ordered to stay inside by his parents, and is playing in the living room when he sees the soldiers begin to pass the house, their faces stern and unmoving as their legs pump beneath them. He calls out, “Mama! Mama! The Japanese are here! On bicycles! They have guns!” His mother rushes into the room. The windows rattle as a tank follows the soldiers, a Japanese gunner’s head prairie-dogged out of the top.

  In the center of Madiun, there are sounds of gunfire. Sjeffie sneaks out onto the road in front of the house, and in the slokan, the gutter running down the side of the road for the monsoon rains, he suddenly sees a number of cans bobbing along. He fishes them out. Soup, beans, condensed milk. In the center, some people have looted the stores in the chaos of invasion. When they saw two Indonesian men hanged by the Japanese troops in a square and realized that people were being searched for stolen goods, they dropped their cans into the gutters, where the rainwater now carries them to Sjeffie. The Japanese army has quickly established order and control. There will be no more resistance.

  Meanwhile, Sjeffie’s father rushes to his bedroom, opens his closet, and pulls his military uniform from a hanger. The boy loves seeing his father put on the uniform, with its shiny brass buttons and starched shoulders. He feels proud. His father opens a box on the bureau with a key and takes out his pistol. Sjeffie watches wide-eyed. He’s never seen his father with a gun before. His father puts the gun on the uniform and rolls it all up in a ball. “Papa, what are you doing?” Sjeffie asks. His father stops and sits on the edge of the bed. “Listen carefully. If the Japanese ask, I am not in the military, OK?” The boy nods, his breath stuck in his chest. He follows his father out into the garden. His father walks quickly to the well. He dumps the whole bundle into the hole. There is a pause, then a loud splash that echoes up from the pit. His father turns and goes back to the house. Sjeffie grips the edge of the well and stares down into the black. He cannot see anything. His father’s uniform and gun have vanished into the underworld.

  It doesn’t help. The Japanese take over government offices and have access to military records. A few weeks later, a truck rumbles up the driveway and several Japanese soldiers emerge from it. They bang loudly on the door, and then they are taking my grandfather away in a truck to a military prison. Sjeffie watches the truck growing smaller as it moves down the driveway, dust kicking up in its wake. His mother is given orders by the Japanese to vacate the house. The staff are told they no longer have jobs. My grandmother gives them some of the money she has, but the Japanese officers tell the nannies and chauffeur and cook they must move out of the house as well. It’s uncertain where they will go. The djongos, Suwardjo, says he will stay near the family, though he has no work now, no income to support himself. The servants are being displaced too. Days later, Sjeffie and his remaining family, including Aunt Ko and Cousin Kees, move into a small cottage down the road with another Dutch woman and her children, while the Japanese officers are living in Sjeffie’s home, eating at his table, sleeping in his bed. He wonders if they’ve found his secret hiding place in the attic yet, if they’ve discovered the trick to the loose door handle in the bathroom upstairs, if they climb his tree.

  Europeans are placed under house arrest by the Japanese. Sjeffie is no longer allowed to go to his beloved school, and in Batavia (known later as Jakarta), the heads of European schools are arrested.

  War doesn’t mean just physical control. It means psychological control, and psychological control means the control of communication. Political conversation is banned. The Dutch residents still get some news on the radio from the NIROM station, but this lasts only a short time. On March 8, the day the Dutch surrender, the announcer ends the program with “We now end our broadcasts. Farewell until better times. Long live the queen.” However, for a week thereafter, three defiant radio employees continue sending short broadcasts that end with the “Wilhelmus,” the Dutch national anthem. When the Japanese discover this, they behead the employees, and thereafter, any European caught listening to a radio is executed.

  In Bandung, Dutch government officials are executed and their offices taken over by the Japanese. Throughout the country, the official calendar changes overnight from the year 1942 to 2602. Japanese characters replace roman numerals. All newspapers, Dutch and Indonesian, are taken over by the Japanese authorities and begin to churn out propaganda in Bahasa. The newspaper Asia Raya now fills the newsstands, praising the brave and powerful Japanese soldiers fighting against the weak, indecisive Allied forces. Dutch as an official language is banned. The printing or sending of any literature is halted, punishable by death.

  By April 1942, the Kempeitai—Japanese military police—have begun to spread into the villages. There are executions for people breaking the rules. All people over seventeen in Java must register, and pay a registration fee, as well as sign a document pledging loyalty to Japan. Europeans are charged exponentially more than the native Indonesian population. The Dutch are told they must pay 150 guilders (valued at around $1,000 in today’s currency) for men, 100 for women, in exchange for “protection” for their cooperation, the implication being that others would possibly come to harm for not paying the fee. The registration is only a means to get the names and addresses of the residents, however, as there is no sign of any unique protection if one pays the registration fee. Ultimately, the police begin making deals with unregistered people so they can register for 1 guilder, just to get their names and addresses down on paper.

  Next door to the cottage where my father moves is an abandoned school to which the city tows cars, perfect cars that have been intentionally destroyed and abandoned on the roads by their owners: long white Pierce-Arrows and convertible Willys-Knights with rounded tops and shining leather upholstery. They are ridiculously gorgeous cars. There are photographs of my grandfather sitting in one of these grand autos, like something out of The Great Gatsby. In the days before the Japanese make landfall, when the Battle of the Java Sea is lost, family tjopers watch these fine machines they’ve driven for years retreat down the palm-lined roads, carrying their jobs with them. Then the Dutch men work together to remove the tires, cut the gas lines, and smash the headlights and windshields of their own cars. They know the autos will be confiscated, and they don’t want to give the Japanese any more vehicles with which to wage war. They may be conquered, but they will not aid the Japanese war effort.

  Sjeffie and the other kids in the neighborhood sneak into the schoolyard and scavenge any remaining parts of the cars. They open the hoods and discover remnants of gasoline in the glass reservoirs, which they siphon through a bamboo shoot into coffee cans. They decide to make a fire with it, dousing auto upholstery and gathering sticks. They pour the gasoline over the pile, then set it on fire. Still boys, even in war. It explodes into flames, larger and more ferocious than they had anticipated. They turn and run home to their mothers.

  The Japanese are perplexed and angered by the behavior of Dutch children like Sjeffie, still playing outside after the invasion. They have strict codes of respect, and these children do not seem to understand this. The Japanese insist that the Europeans should “behave more like conquered people.” A formal decree is drawn up and posted. No more roller-skating, to begin with.

  ANNOUNCEMENT 20 APRIL 1942

  The mayor of Batavia informs you: Due to complaints received from the Nippon authorities about the annoyance caused by roll
er-skaters, the mayor of Batavia must forbid any roller-skating traffic in the vicinity of buildings where the Japanese authorities live and on public roads. If there is no halt to the roller-skating traffic, more severe controls will be enforced.

  Other rules are printed and distributed as well.

  ANNOUNCEMENT

  On orders from the Nippon government to all Europeans, It is expected of all European residents that as members of a conquered group, you will show respect to Dai Nippon, especially the Nippon military.

  The following rules should be observed:

  • Don’t come outside unless you have no other choice.

  • Rules must be followed if you do find yourself in public. Specifically, in restaurants, cafes, and other public spaces loudness is not permitted and you may not cause a disturbance.

  • Anywhere outside, at any time of day, you must display to Nippon military—regardless of their rank—a display of respect by bowing.

  • To avoid severe disciplinary measures, the Nippon authorities expect a strict adherence to above-named rules.

  • European women are expected to dress themselves decently. Clothing such as long pants, which is an imitation of men’s clothing, may no longer be worn, given that this is in opposition to Eastern mores.

  I find this ban on roller-skating and the Japanese regime’s insistence on respect from the losing side illuminating about the particular harshness of life under Japanese military occupation in the years that follow, because it speaks to an underlying philosophy about roles. Knowing one’s place seems to matter a lot to the occupying forces. The social roles of conquerors and the conquered are self-explanatory and obvious to them, so they are baffled when they encounter a culture where adherence to the rules is not second nature. In this way, the dynamic of an invading force conquering a colonial population that is itself an occupying force and used to being in a power position creates an extra layer of hostility from both sides.