Very little has been written about the twilight of Dutch rule in the Netherlands East Indies, in the period immediately after the Japanese army swept through Java and parachuted its forces into south Sumatra. When the Commander-in-Chief of the Netherlands Indies Army, Lt. General Hein Ter Poorten, surrendered to the Japanese in Kali Jati on March 9, 1942, that incident did not mark the end of Dutch control throughout the Indies. Major elements of the colonial government on Sumatra held out for a further three weeks before finally capitulating on March 28. The following memoir, Prisoners at...