West papua crisis leads to war

[jsb]

I think the drastic lack of high command experience and structures would make the Australian contribution haphazard at best. At the time Australia was totally plugged into the British Commonwealth SEATO command structure, with much of the RAAF in Butterworth the RAN in the FESR and the Army committing a btn to the 28th Brigade. For example the role of the carrier HMAS Melbourne was to lead a SEATO ASW Hunter-Killer Task Force in the Sulu Sea. There was little experience of operating independently with only other ADF forces, let alone being a major component, at least an equal, with another Ally.

1) do the Australian/ duch forces

This hits that UK might not sit it out once AUS is committed, it would probably at least secretly help if not release Vulcans from Singapore to keep Migs tied down defending the west.....?

 

[cjc]

This hits that UK might not sit it out once AUS is committed, it would probably at least secretly help if not release Vulcans from Singapore to keep Migs tied down defending the west.....?

I don't think the UK cares enough about this to get involved, not like Australia.

 

[Riain]

This hits that UK might not sit it out once AUS is committed, it would probably at least secretly help if not release Vulcans from Singapore to keep Migs tied down defending the west.....?

I don't think V Bombers deployed to EoS until 1964-65.

I don't think the UK cares enough about this to get involved, not like Australia.

If they did that would change the scenario drastically, Indonesia would be up against not only the Dutch but the Commonwealth Forces in SEA, which are considerable.

 

[jsb]

I don't think the UK cares enough about this to get involved, not like Australia.

I think in 60s UK would care sufficiently about AUS to back it against anybody not named USA, and also to cover up the humiliation of WWII and not being able to successfully send a fleet east to help her in 41/421.....

 

[cjc]

I think in 60s UK would care sufficiently about AUS to back it against anybody not named USA, and also to cover up the humiliation of WWII and not being able to successfully send a fleet east to help her in 41/421.....

I don't know, the UK supported Malaysia because of oil and the streats. Australia is supporting the duch in West Papua because its close to Australia and agenst a expansionist and vagly communist country. I don't see much overlap that would convince the UK to support Australia agenst the us (wich was afraid a war agenst Indonesia would lead to the country becoming a communist pupit state)

Besides this is after the humiliation of the suez crisis, I don't think the UK would try to go against the US on colonial issues again after that.

 

[Monk78]

Any chance of PNG becoming a soviet client state in 60s or 70s
Maybe they get soviet weapon supplies via Vietnam and Libya to support them against Indonesia

 

[Gillan1220]

Any chance of PNG becoming a soviet client state in 60s or 70s
Maybe they get soviet weapon supplies via Vietnam and Libya to support them against Indonesia

I don't think so. Too close to Australia and would threaten U.S. interests in Oceania. Plus, PNG did not have much significance to both sides during the Cold War.

 

[HJ Tulp]

How likely is direct Australian involvement anyway? When the RNLN Karel Doorman arrived in Australia in 1960 the Fremantle Unions striked and refused to service the ship and its escorts.

 

[Monk78]

How likely is direct Australian involvement anyway? When the RNLN Karel Doorman arrived in Australia in 1960 the Fremantle Unions striked and refused to service the ship and its escorts.

How about just air strikes ? Or anti shipping strikes against Indonesian navy

 

[Marisa Kiridifferent]

I have no knowledge about Soviet vessels/aircrafts manned by Soviet pilots themselves but logically that's improbable. There were Soviet trainers in Indonesia for sure but what's the benefit for the USSR to openly antagonise the US in Indonesia which will backfire and prompt the US to support further Dutch presence?

According to an Indonesian history magazine, they also participated in patrols besides training and did prepare for an eventual confrontation with the Dutch Navy..

Tentara Rusia di Kapal Selam Indonesia

Kisah ratusan anggota Angkatan Laut Uni Soviet yang bergabung di kapal-kapal selam ALRI dan siap memantik perang dunia ketiga dari Papua.

historia.id

 

[alspug]

Some of the veterans of the ADF I have spoken to have mentioned that the Indonesians managed through the Soviet assistance create a fairly major scare in terms of vulnerabilities within the ADF. I have also spoken to several veterans who while inebriated spoken about the professionalism of the Indonesian army, in particular the rather vicious platoon sized actions fought within Irian Jaya between Indonesian soldiers and Natives with Australian Army support. The main observation was that if you killed too many in the Ambush the pursuit crossed the border but if you shot the Indonesians in the hip the pursuit never happened while the injured got treated and medevacked. Now the source is not my own nor can I prove it with documents. What I do have is a mate too young for vietnam with wounds and injuries being treated by the government getting drunk and needing a shoulder to cry on. Over the course of nearly a year he told details to vivid to be made up and to consistent to be fake, when I asked people who should be in the know they simply said "yeh it happened". BTW the confirmation was from a guy who swore on his mums grave he had never left the country but knew the people who did and how the injured came home. I have had this confirmed by several ex service members and it started back during the Confrontation in Borneo and continued for decades.

 

[HJ Tulp]

Some of the veterans of the ADF I have spoken to have mentioned that the Indonesians managed through the Soviet assistance create a fairly major scare in terms of vulnerabilities within the ADF. I have also spoken to several veterans who while inebriated spoken about the professionalism of the Indonesian army, in particular the rather vicious platoon sized actions fought within Irian Jaya between Indonesian soldiers and Natives with Australian Army support. The main observation was that if you killed too many in the Ambush the pursuit crossed the border but if you shot the Indonesians in the hip the pursuit never happened while the injured got treated and medevacked. Now the source is not my own nor can I prove it with documents. What I do have is a mate too young for vietnam with wounds and injuries being treated by the government getting drunk and needing a shoulder to cry on. Over the course of nearly a year he told details to vivid to be made up and to consistent to be fake, when I asked people who should be in the know they simply said "yeh it happened". BTW the confirmation was from a guy who swore on his mums grave he had never left the country but knew the people who did and how the injured came home. I have had this confirmed by several ex service members and it started back during the Confrontation in Borneo and continued for decades.

Could be. What is clear is that Indonesian incursions in West Papua were easily rounded up by Dutch Marines. This is ofcourse not the same as a fullscale invasion though.

 

[H.Flashman(VC)]

I don't know, the UK supported Malaysia because of oil and the streats. Australia is supporting the duch in West Papua because its close to Australia and agenst a expansionist and vagly communist country. I don't see much overlap that would convince the UK to support Australia agenst the us (wich was afraid a war agenst Indonesia would lead to the country becoming a communist pupit state)

Besides this is after the humiliation of the suez crisis, I don't think the UK would try to go against the US on colonial issues again after that.

The keyplayer is no doubt the US. Militairy support from them is for the Netherlands the deciding factor in going to war or not. That militairy support was never promised, but the US also didn't say emphatically "No". There was this time more support for the Netherlands from other countries, especially France. They saw a dangerous precedent in the Indonesian actions and did warn the US that it might have consequences in other places(Morroco and Mauretania) The US took these warnings quite serious. The Kennedy administration weren't also very keen on working with Soekarno, who was getting more and more unreliable in their eyes. That's why they at first didn't take a clear stand.
The Dutch governments diplomatic strategy was dragging this out long enough for a regime change to happen in Indonesia and then negotiating with the new regime. But the Dutch parliament didn't really support this policy and asked for a guarantee of US militairy support. When the US noted this division in the Netherlands itself, the US started to support the transition.
So, theDutch wil not start a war over New Guinea without American militairy support.

 

[Marisa Kiridifferent]

he thing about West Papua is that the ethnic groups in the westernmost island, particularly in the Bird Head's Peninsula favoured unification with Indonesia and they were the ones that supported Indonesia the most. This is logical since the peninsula has strong ties with the Moluccan islands, especially to the aristocracy and traders of Tidore and Ternate with whom they traditionally traded with. Most of Hollandia (now Jayapura), the largest city of the territory AFAIK either supported the independence or even for continued loose association with the Netherlands but the local elites in Fakfak and Manokwari supported Indonesia, with Izaac Hindom, one of the more prominent native local politician in the nascent territory (the Dutch only gave opportunities for local Papuans to advance further in the bureaucracy after the failure of their involvement in Indonesia) later being awarded for his support to the Indonesian clandestine operation with the governorship of Irian Jaya, the new name of Western New Guinea after the Indonesian forcefully integrated the whole territory.

This is also problematic since the Dutch themselves has favoured the natives of Biak Islands and the northeastern half of Western New Guinea for the transitionary administration, seeing them as more loyal and with less ties with the Moluccas (by extension, Indonesia) over those from the Bird Head's Peninsula in key positions. If the Dutch does not address this problem (and OTL they didn't) and West Papua were to declare independence, the elites from the western half might plan to secede unilaterally and join Indonesia.

Mind you, a united "Papuan" idea was not popular in the western half of the island until the excess and corruption of Indonesian rule exacerbated it alongside with the arrival of Papuans from the eastern half of West Papua in the coastal cities of Sorong and Manokwari. There is no single Papuan language that could work as a lingua franca and the lingua franca then and now is Papuan Malay, a Malay creole developed from the Tidore Malay creole. Dutch was never popular as a language in there and even the Dutch administration has never made it a point to teach the language to the bulk of West Papuans in missionary schools.

This is particularly intriguing to read as an Indonesian, do you have any journals or books about West Papua between 1945 and 1962/63?

 

[HJ Tulp]

The rigged and forced referendum by the Indonesians aside, the thing about West Papua is that the ethnic groups in the westernmost island, particularly in the Bird Head's Peninsula favoured unification with Indonesia and they were the ones that supported Indonesia the most. This is logical since the peninsula has strong ties with the Moluccan islands, especially to the aristocracy and traders of Tidore and Ternate with whom they traditionally traded with. Most of Hollandia (now Jayapura), the largest city of the territory AFAIK either supported the independence or even for continued loose association with the Netherlands but the local elites in Fakfak and Manokwari supported Indonesia, with Izaac Hindom, one of the more prominent native local politician in the nascent territory (the Dutch only gave opportunities for local Papuans to advance further in the bureaucracy after the failure of their involvement in Indonesia) later being awarded for his support to the Indonesian clandestine operation with the governorship of Irian Jaya, the new name of Western New Guinea after the Indonesian forcefully integrated the whole territory.

This is also problematic since the Dutch themselves has favoured the natives of Biak Islands and the northeastern half of Western New Guinea for the transitionary administration, seeing them as more loyal and with less ties with the Moluccas (by extension, Indonesia) over those from the Bird Head's Peninsula in key positions. If the Dutch does not address this problem (and OTL they didn't) and West Papua were to declare independence, the elites from the western half might plan to secede unilaterally and join Indonesia.

Mind you, a united "Papuan" idea was not popular in the western half of the island until the excess and corruption of Indonesian rule exacerbated it alongside with the arrival of Papuans from the eastern half of West Papua in the coastal cities of Sorong and Manokwari. There is no single Papuan language that could work as a lingua franca and the lingua franca then and now is Papuan Malay, a Malay creole developed from the Tidore Malay creole. Dutch was never popular as a language in there and even the Dutch administration has never made it a point to teach the language to the bulk of West Papuans in missionary schools.

I have no knowledge about Soviet vessels/aircrafts manned by Soviet pilots themselves but logically that's improbable. There were Soviet trainers in Indonesia for sure but what's the benefit for the USSR to openly antagonise the US in Indonesia which will backfire and prompt the US to support further Dutch presence?

----
Also cjc probably you could use an autocorrect of some sort? It's not that I can't understand your points but you do have quite some typos

Is there a reason that Operation Tikora didn't focus on those areas that apparently supported a union with Indonesia?

 

[Deleted member 2186]

So I was reading @Riain Australian TL https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/a-bureaucratic-reorganisation-tl.393933/page-1

And I noticed a crisis i had never heard of before.
In the early 60's west papua was still on the hands of the duch and Indonesia wanted them out and did several things they would latter try in the Malaysian confrontation (air dropping solders to try starting up a garila war mainly, not really any more successful then during the confrontation to). But Indonesia was aperintly ready to launch a 13,000 man invasion gust 2 days! After the duch agreed to give up the island after strong pressure by the US government.

So here's the idea what happens if the invasion happens a week earlier, or the duch government decides to dig in there heals ithere or.

1) do the Australian/ duch forces have the strength to beat back the invasion (i assum they do they had 2 light carriers in the area, then again Indonesia had some new Soviet fighters and bombers)

2) if the invasion is a complete fiasco what happens with Indonesia, dose this butterfly the Malaysian confrontation, can sukarno survive a huge defeat. What happens in the very nations in the area, like Australia, UK, Netherlands, USA.

Cold Warriors: The Essex Class in the Cold War by former AH.com member ssgt tries to answer the question, it will not end well for the Netherlands, regardless when the war begins.