It only took three months for the Japanese to conquer most of Indonesia, an area the Dutch had dominated for more than three hundred years. This episode continues the World War II narrative of the previous three episodes, by covering the strategy and tactics Japan used in the world's largest archipelago.



Here is the companion map, showing the paths taken by the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies. As you can see, they ignored no island large enough to matter. At the end of February 1942, they also landed on both ends of Java. By the end of March, the only unconquered areas were eastern Timor (where Australian guerrillas resisted until February 1943) and western New Guinea.






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