Saketi – Bayah railway line

Saketi-Bayah
The railway line in Banten on Java
Route length:	89.35 km
Gauge :	1067 mm ( cape track )
Dual track :	No
Legend from Labuan 0 Saketi after Rangkasbitung Jasugi Cimanggu Kadunghauk Jalupang Fit Kerta Gintung Malingping Cilangkahan Sukahujan Cihara Payaungan Cisiih Bayah Bayahbengkel Bayahjurnatan 89 Pulaumanuk

The Saketi – Bayah railway was built from Saketi to Bayah (alternative spelling: Bajah ), in the south of the province of Banten (Bantam) on the island of Java . During the Japanese occupation, the route was mainly used to transport lignite from a mine near Bajah - in what is now the Kabupaten Lebak district . The first train ran on April 1, 1944, and rail operations continued until 1948 after the end of the war. Soon after independence, the line was closed in 1951.

route

The line branched off in Saketi from the railway line between Rangkasbitung and Labuan , in today's Kabupaten Bogor district . It led almost due south to the coast near Malingping , then over the steep coast to Bajah. The route length was 89.35 km, there were nine train stations. The highest point was near Tjeladjim at 113 above sea level. There were more than eighty mostly wooden bridges.

Several short narrow-gauge railways (600 mm) led from the coal mine to the station. The route was continued from Bajah to a nearby rubber plantation. Route-specific statistics on freight volume are not received.

During the blockade of the province by the Dutch in 1948, wood-fired locomotives were used. The colonial rulers surrendered control of the territory captured during the second "police operation" to the Indonesian army in October 1949, but the activities of Darul Islam prevented rail operations during the second half of the year.

In February 1951, operations began once a day, soon only once a week for a few months, but then stopped completely in August. A commission set up by the Indonesian State Railways in November 1951 found that resuming operations in the sparsely populated region would require too large an investment to be profitable. The rails were dismantled in the next few years, in 1980, apart from a few concrete bridge piers, only the platforms in Bajah were visible.

Economic background

The poor quality coal deposits in thin seams had already been discovered in the 1890s and should be developed for strategic reasons. For the Dutch East Indies, however, the open pit mine on Sumatra was more accessible. North of Bajah gold was found at Tjikotok and Tjirotan, which were developed over 31 km of roads. These ores contained gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc, with the last three only occurring as by-products. Gold and silver have been sought since 1924 and have been mining profitably since 1929, even if the expansion after 1939 was limited, as machines from Germany could no longer be delivered.

On the other hand, the Japanese did not consider the mining of precious metals to be essential to the war effort and gained a maximum of 200 kg of the copper that was important to them per working day. As a production target, which was never reached, in 1943 the coal mining had to be 300,000 t p. a. set. The mine was a massive loss for Sumitomo , owner of Bajah Kōzan . After the second "police action", the Dutch needed gold to pay for their further armament, so the mines were soon reopened. Coal mining started again in 1946, but stopped in 1951. Precious metal mining at Tjikotok was carried out by the state company Lagam Muli in the 1960s, but used the streets of Pasir Gombong.

construction

Planning by eight Japanese and seven other specialists began in July 1942. At the beginning of 1943, recruiting began. For the construction, the planned route was divided into ten sections, which had to be completed within a year. Mass accommodation was initially set up on a rubber plantation 10 km south of Saketi and near Malingping. War-related shortages of materials meant that a number of bridges and tunnels could only be made makeshift, but more labor-intensive, only in wood. Building materials were delivered over the poor road from Pelabuhan Ratu . Rails and sleepers came from pre-war stocks in the existing depots on the state railroad tracks . A resistance group from the Partai Komunis Indonesia succeeded in blowing up a bridge pillar in November 1943.

Manpower

The occupation force on Java, which was comparatively small from August 1942, was dependent on local labor. One recruited “volunteers” on the one hand as “ Hiwis ” ( heihō ) for the military and limited Rōmusha ( 労 務 者 ), mostly for 3–4, rarely 7–8 months, among the rural population. They were promised a certain amount of food in addition to a payment of usually 50 cents a day. Young people of the seinendan ( 青年 団 ) were also assigned to the labor service . Some Dutch engineers and Indonesian railway workers were temporarily released from internment camps , a total of no more than fifty people.

Treatment and feeding of the workers seem to have been very much dependent on the goodwill of the respective Japanese commanders of the construction section. Some troops had only three dead under 1000 men, other reports named five to six survivors under 33. Medical care on the construction sites was generally inadequate, especially bites from the venomous snakes that are common in the area could not be treated. Malaria and tropical ulcers were common. Realistic estimates assume a total of 15,000 deaths for railway construction and work in the mine. In many cases, work was carried out without any rest days. Quite a few workers fled. A 3 m high memorial stone erected in 1947 for those who died during construction was taken over by the government in 1952. But he was not cared for.

literature

• Harry Poeze: De weg naar de hel . In: Oorlogsdocumentatie '40 -'45 . Amsterdam 1990, pp. 9–47 ( The Road to Hell: The Construction of a Railway Line in West Java during Japanese Occupation . In: Paul Kratoska [Ed.]: Asian Labor in the Wartime Japanese Empire . Armonck NY 2005 , ISBN 0-7656-1262-3 )
• Serang, Indonesia . US Army Map Service, Corps of Engineers (Series T503, SB-48-11), 1: 250000, first print May 1958 (map sheet, data recording 1954; utexas.edu )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On minable deposits in the region, cf. Alex L. ter Braake: Mining in the Netherlands East Indies . New York 1944
2. ^ H. Yasuyuki: Japanese companies inroads into Indonesia under Japanese military domination . In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Japan, Indonesia and the War Myths and realities , Vol. 152, 1996, no. 4, p. 673
3. ↑ The Japanese administration had almost all railway lines in Java narrowed from standard gauge to 1067 mm by mid-1943.
4. ↑ After the start of the Battle of Guadalcanal only eight battalions and one infantry regiment.
5. ↑ In a way, their recruitment was a continuation of the Dutch practice of compulsory labor ( army service ) as part of native tax payments. Occasionally a timely return was not allowed. Harry Poeze: The Road to Hell: The Construction of a Railway Line in West Java during Japanese Occupation . In: Paul Kratoska (Ed.): Asian Labor in the Wartime Japanese Empire . Armonck NY 2005, ISBN 0-7656-1262-3 , pp. 165 f.
6. ↑ On occupation policy in general see: MA Aziz: Japan's Colonialism and Indonesia . The Hague 1955
7. ↑ On recruiting practice, which differed little from that for Eastern workers , cf. Saitō Shigeru: War, Nationalism, and Peasants: Java Under the Japanese Occupation, 1942-1945 . 1994
8. ↑ Contemporary reports by Tan Malaka (but these could be exaggerated for ideological reasons). See Harry Poeze: The Road to Hell: The Construction of a Railway Line in West Java during Japanese Occupation . In: Paul Kratoska (Ed.): Asian Labor in the Wartime Japanese Empire . Armonck NY 2005, ISBN 0-7656-1262-3 , pp. 164-166