11 August
The small storeroom held the leading conspirators.
Kolonel Ndofa ran his eyes enviously over the map stretched out over the floor before him. “Very well, we don’t have much time. Luitenant Mboya, please outline our plan.”
“Yes Sir. On the issuing of the code phrase on national radio the plan will begin at 6am the following day. The Sixth Provincial Battalion will be in Bangui for pre-arranged exercises so they can capture the barracks at Bangui and neutralise the Royal Guard Dragoon Regiment there and take control of the city power, radio and administrative facilities. Our men inside the Tank Regiment will capture the Dutch officers and soldiers and deploy their tanks in support of the Sixth. A special unit will race to the Royal Palace and keep the Crown Prince under house arrest. The airfield will be captured too by our men inside the barracks there, our pilots will fly off from there to our secret strips near Boda.
We have control of the other Provincial Battalions in Ndele, Obo and Bangassou but not those at Kaga Bandoro or Bozoum. The Third at Bangassou will move to secure the border crossing at Mobaye. The first at Ndele will have to deal with the enemy at Kaga Bandoro and the cavalry at Bria. Once the Capital is secure we must strike at Bozoum to prevent the Dutch from moving Afrikaan reinforcements in from Cameroon. With the small air force either destroyed or in our hands we should have total freedom of the air for a while, we may have to strike the northern airfields in Kongo. We should complete control the south within two days and the north within a week if we can prevent Dutch forces. The Kongolese forces will never move against us, their brothers. Indeed, they may rise up in support.”
One of officers raised his hand, “Sir, when will this happen? How much longer do we have to wait?”
Kolonel Ndofa smiled, “we wait a week or so after the rainy seasons in the north and south have ended, about the middle of October.”
Eerste-Luitenant Mboya nodded, “Good. We have time to prepare our detailed plans and lay some more arms caches. We may even have time to arm our M'baka volunteers.”
19 August
In the Celebes Sea, ships of the 2nd Carrier Division, 3rd Cruiser Division, 5th Cruiser Division, 9th Destroyer Flotilla and the 14th Destroyer Flotilla are beginning a series of naval exercises lasting for six days. Merchant traffic is requested to avoid exercise areas which have been posted in notices to mariners.
The Admiraal of the Far East Fleet, Admiraal Maarten Winters, was quoted in the Batavia Times that these exercises had been planned for some time are not connected to the formation of the German Far East Squadron.
21 August
Largely unnoticed given the movements for fleet exercises, the ships of the 2nd Battle Division, 3rd Carrier Division and the 5th Destroyer Flotilla quietly slipped out of Soerabaja during the night and in the morning the cities residents hurrying to work noted the bay was emptier than usual. Where the ships had gone no-one could guess other than perhaps the Celebes Sea...