When the Dutch troops arrived in Australia in March 1942, no facilities were ready for them as the evacuation from the Dutch East Indies had not been planned. Accommodation and supplies of materials had to be organised, and a new command structure set up.

 

Vice-Admiral C.E.L. Helfrich, stationed in Ceylon, was appointed Commander of the forces in the East. This included all Dutch troops in the Far East and Australia. Helfrich was represented in Australia by Rear-Admiral F.W. Coster, who was appointed second in command of the forces in the East. They both had mainly organisational and administrative tasks. Operational command in the region lay with General Douglas MacArthur in Brisbane. Allied operations against the Japanese were directed from that city.

 

Dutch naval vessels arriving in Australia operated mainly from the West Australian port of Fremantle near Perth. Their missions included escort services to protect tankers, freighters and troopships. The Dutch submarines operating from Fremantle initially met with little success. Of the three submarines that arrived in Australia in March 1942, two were taken out of service within a few months. The third submarine mainly carried out secret operations for the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS).

 

NEFIS was part of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) set up on 6 July 1942. This organisation, under the command of General MacArthur, sought to gather political and military intelligence and to weaken the enemy through sabotage. NEFIS sent agents to the Dutch East Indies for that purpose, often using Dutch submarines.

 

Nearly all merchant vessels that went to Australia after the fall of the Dutch East Indies were leased to the British Ministry of War Transport and the US War Shipping Administration. They were leased with their Dutch crew and continued to sail under the Dutch flag. They were used as hospitals and to transport troops and goods.

 

The Military Air Force Division of the Royal Netherlands Indies Army (KNIL) operated from Canberra, in the east of the country, until the end of 1942. The 18th Netherlands East Indies Squadron was formed there, which was responsible for detecting and destroying enemy ships. In December 1942 the squadron moved to the region around Darwin, in northern Australia, which was closer to the theatre of war. From mid-1943, the Military Air Force Division also had a squadron of fighter pilots. This 120th Netherlands East Indies Squadron, which operated from Canberra, was not deployed until the end of the war.

 

Initially, only two companies of the KNIL’s land forces reached Australia. Later in the war, this number grew to incorporate, for example, Dutch people who were mobilised in Australia and the US and those who had managed to escape to Britain from the Netherlands. In May 1945 KNIL troops were deployed in battles in the Indonesian archipelago for the first time since the capitulation in March 1942. Until then, their activities had been limited to intelligence work and acting as guides and interpreters during US landings in New Guinea.