MORE SHOOTINGS IN BATAVIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 276, 22 November 1945, Page 5

MORE SHOOTINGS IN BATAVIA

Recd. 8.15 p.m. London, Nov. 21. Widespread shooting broke out in Batavia last night after a day of rapidly-growing tension and intensified fighting*in a number of sectors of Java, says the “Daily Telegraph’s” Batavia correspondent. Most clashes in Batavia centred on the Konigsplein, a large open space near the centre of the city, where Allied headquarters, hospitals and administrative buildings are situated. The 23rd. Division’s headquarters were peppered with bullets. Shots were fired at R.A.F. officers and at a Dutch camp. Indonesians attempted to rush a road block manned by Allied troops in the ouskirts of the city but were driven off by a counter-attack. All shops were closed and streets deserted by nightfall. Late at night only sporadic shots could be heard. There are still many thousands of European and Eurasian women and children in internment camps in and on the outskirts of Batavia. Feeling runs high at the extremists’ terror tactics, which are beyond all peaceful methods of control. It seems that a quick decision will have to be made, cither to allow the larding of several thousand Dutch troops or increase the British garrison, before the situation has an opportunity of getting out of hand.

Dutch forces manning the main southern approaches to the city warned that Indonesian mobs are gathering in arc about their positions. This Dutch unit fought in Tarakan. It has already suffered more casualties in the present, action than in the Tarakan campaign.