Battle of Tjiater Pass 1942
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 7 March 1942 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1942 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Indonesia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Battle of Java, Pacific War, World War II | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Dutch East Indies, Japan, Kingdom of the Netherlands, United Kingdom | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | -6.7667, 107.6333 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Tjiater Pass occurred between 5 and 7 March 1942 during the Dutch East Indies campaign between invading Japanese forces and the Dutch colonial forces, supported by warplanes from the Royal Air Force. It was fought over control of the Tjiater Pass (now Ciater, part of Subang Regency), as part of an attempted defense of the city of Bandung.
Following Dutch withdrawal from most urban centers in Java in the aftermath of Japanese landings and the loss of the Kalijati airfield, remaining units of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) established a defensive perimeter in the mountain passes around Bandung in the hopes of regrouping with retreating KNIL and Australian units abandoning Batavia and Buitenzorg. Despite the Japanese forces, led by Colonel Toshinari Shōji, being numerically inferior, they opted to launch an attack on the spread-out Dutch forces in order to prevent a possible counterattack.
Benefiting from air superiority and better training than their KNIL counterparts, Japanese soldiers successfully stormed and captured the undermanned defensive positions guarding the pass after three days of fighting, securing their path to Bandung after capturing the town of Lembang.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Tjiater Pass (revision 1371127815), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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