| Operation Trikora | |||||||
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Operation Trikora was an Indonesian military operation which aimed to seize and annex the Dutch overseas territory of Netherlands New Guinea in 1961 and 1962. As a result, the Netherlands agreed on 15 August 1962 to hand over Western New Guinea to Indonesia.
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When the rest of the Dutch East Indies became fully independent as Indonesia in December of 1949, the Dutch retained sovereignty over western New Guinea, and took steps to prepare it for independence as a separate country. After its independence until 1961, Indonesia attempted to gain control of Western New Guinea through the United Nations without success. On 19 December 1961, Indonesia's President Sukarno announced that Indonesia would annex the territory by force.
Operation Trikora was to unfold in three phases, infiltration, exploitation and consolidation, all under cover of the Indonesian Air Force. The plan called first for the insertion of small bands Indonesian troops by sea and by air drop who would then draw Dutch forces away from areas where the exploitation phase would stage full scale amphibious landings and paratroops operations to seize key locations. The consolidation phase would then expand Indonesian control over the whole of Western New Guinea.
On 15 January 1962 the infiltration phase of Operation Trikora began with three Indonesian motor torpedo boats attempting to land troops on the south coast of Western New Guinea. The force was detected by a Dutch Neptune aircraft and one of the torpedo boats was sunk by an intercepting Dutch Navy vessel. Over the next eight months, the Indonesian forces managed to insert 562 troops by sea and 1154 by air drops. The inserted Indonesian troops conducted guerilla operations throughout Western New Guinea from April 1962 onwards, but they were largely militarily ineffective.
Indonesian military activity continued to increase in the area through mid-1962 in preparation for the second phase of the operation. The Indonesian airforce began to fly missions in the area from bases on surrounding islands and Soviet-supplied Tupolev Tu-16 Badger bombers armed with AS-1 Kennel / KS-1 Kometa anti-ship missiles were deployed in anticipation of an attack against the HNLMS Karel Doorman.
On 13 and 14 August 1962, air drops of Indonesian troops were staged from Sorong in the Northwest to Merauke in the Southeast as a diversion from an amphibious assault against the Dutch military base at Biak Island by a force of 7000 paratroops, 4500 Marines and 13 000 Army troops. Dutch patrol aircraft detected the invasion force and alerted their command. On 15 August, recognising the Indonesians' resolve to take Western New Guinea and not wanting to engage in a protracted conflict involving jungle warfare on the other side of the world, the Dutch government signed an agreement to hand over Netherlands New Guinea and the invasion was called off.