BORNEO DEFENCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24156, 24 December 1941, Page 3

BORNEO DEFENCES

MANY DIFFICULTIES 290,000 SQUARE MILES SYDNEY, Dec. 20 The Dutch have never made any secret about the difficulties of defending Borneo. The island, with an area of 290,000 square miles, is five times as large as England and Wales. Its communications are very backward, and the mountainous and undeveloped nature of the country leads to" a dependence on sea-borne traffic. The coastline is so long and indented that anything like an adequate defence would require the immobilisation of forces out of all proportion to Borneo's strategical value.

The Dutch have therefore fitted the defence of the island into the wider military panorama of the East Indie 3. Originally they planned to destroy the oil wells and fall back on Java, but the great strengthening of their defensive position since the 'of' Holland "has allowed a newer and more positive plan. ' While still emphasising the destruction of the wells above everything else, they believe that with the aid of jungle and swamps they can defend the oil centres, which now have modern conCrete fortifications. An essentia! part of this programme was the establishment of secret air bases in the interior of the island, and it was probably from one of these that Dutch bombers attacked the Japanese landing forces at Miri.

The airfields of Borneo, are easily reinforced from the main Dutch bases in Java, so that any aerial "attack on the oil centres would have to be an extensive operation. Since these fields produce, among other products, the high-octane fuel so essential for warplanes. the Dutch will make every effort to retain them.

Just as the Dutch are menaced by a possible enemy occupation of Knelling, capital of Sarawak, cn the north, so they were equally threatened on the south by the unprotected state of Portuguese Timor, which has now been occupied by their troops along with Australian'units. Dilli, chief town of Portuguese Timor, lies at the very centre of the aerial zone bounded by Java, Celebes. Northern Australia and New Guinea. The fate of Portuguese Timor was thus a matter of primary strategical concern to the Dutch, because Japanese activity there might turn the aerial flank of the entire defence scheme of the Indies. -