During the Second World War, Camp Columbia at Wacol was more than the headquarters of General MacArthur’s Sixth Army. It also housed the American Officer Candidate School, a facility with classrooms, lecture halls and barracks that trained thousands of young Allied officers.
When the Netherlands Indies Government-in-Exile moved to Australia in 1942, the Dutch quickly realised that they would need a cadre of trained administrators to re-establish civil government after the Japanese defeat. In April 1944, the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA) was formed in Brisbane. Camp Columbia became one of its staging and preparation bases.
The Dutch were permitted to use the American Officer School facilities. Here they trained young officers for the entire Netherlands East Indies. The aim was to prepare detachments to land with the Allies as they advanced into Java, Sumatra, the Outer Islands, and Dutch New Guinea.
The curriculum was broad: civil law, justice, population registration, taxation, health, and education. All NICA candidates received this common grounding. Within the groups, some were earmarked for Java or Sumatra, while others received special briefings for Dutch New Guinea, stressing that Papuans were distinct from Indonesians and should follow their own path of development.
From Brisbane, the first NICA detachments deployed to Hollandia in April 1944, accompanying Allied forces. Later, other detachments followed the Allied landings in the archipelago. The legacy of Camp Columbia thus extended well beyond Australia: the young officers trained here carried with them the ideas and practices that shaped Dutch administration both in the Netherlands East Indies and in Dutch New Guinea in the post-war years.