Simon Hendrik Spoor

Vocation

Notable

Dutch general. Spoor was Chief of Staff of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and the Royal Dutch Army in the Dutch East Indies, from 1946 to 1949, during the Indonesian National Revolution. Spoor was educated at a secondary school in The Hague, the cadet school in Alkmaar and the Royal Military Academy in Breda. In 1923 he was appointed as second lieutenant of infantry and was seconded to the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army from 1924 in Dutch Borneo. From 1929 to 1932 he studied at the Higher War College in The Hague. After having served in the General Staff in Bandung for two years, in 1934 he took a position as teacher of strategy and tactics at the Royal Military Academy in Breda. In 1938, Spoor returned to the Dutch East Indies, as Head of the Political Affairs Department of the General Staff and the Higher War College in Bandung. He taught Laws of war and East Indies Martial law. He was also an employee of the military 'Javabode'. In March 1942 Spoor belonged to the select group of senior officials and military staff who after the capitulation of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army high command in Java to the Japanese Imperial Army emigrated to Australia. He was charged with building the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS). He became a staff member to the American General Douglas MacArthur during the New Guinea campaign and was also present at the invasion with General MacArthur. By Royal Decree of 19 January 1946, the then 44-year-old Colonel Spoor was appointed army commander in the Dutch East Indies with the temporary rank of lieutenant general. On 31 January, he took over the command of Lieutenant General L H van Oyen. In March 1946 Major General D C Buurman van Vreeden, as well as Spoor former staff officer of the KNIL, were assigned to him as Chief of Staff, Major Julius Tahija became his personal Adjudant. Operationally the army commander functioned in the Dutch East Indies, until autumn 1946, under the Allied South-East Asia Command (SEAC) (under Mountbatten), such that only small numbers of Dutch troops were allowed in Java. From September 1946 the integration of the Dutch troops coming from the Netherlands into the KNIL troops required a large and cumbersome organization. He led the two large Dutch military offensives (Dutch: Politionele acties) into Java against Indonesian Republican positions; Operation Product and Operation Kraai. General Spoor died unexpectedly on 25 May 1949. He was buried on 28 May 1949 in the Ereveld Menteng Pulo Dutch Cemetery in Jakarta, among 'his men'. Some critics say he was poisoned, the Dutch historian Jaap de Moor explains in his biography about General Spoor that he was just an 'overworked man. He fought for a military solution, and he felt betrayed when Dutch and Indonesian diplomats signed the Roem–van Roijen Agreement. Personal His father was the Concertgebouw violinist Andreas Petrus Spoor (23 September 1867, Amsterdam - 29 March 1929, Den Haag). His mother was Catharina Petronella Jautze (20 June 1872, Den Haag - 13 May 1917, Voorburg). On 21 December 1923 he married in Den Haag, Louise Anna Maria Ooms, born 27 January 1902 1h30 AM Den Haag. Their son André Simon Spoor (22 June 1931, De Haag - 18 September 2012, Den Haag) was a noted Dutch journalist . From 1970 to 1983 he was chief editor of NRC Handelsblad and from 1986 to 1988 of the weekly Elsevier. Link to Wikipedia