Menteng Pulo, a graveyard full of history<\/p>\n
By David Jardine<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): It was November, 1983 and my first trip to
\nIndonesia. Getting off the train in Surabaya and not knowing what
\nto expect, I looked around for a taxi. The vehicle I got into
\noutside the main railway station was unmarked and a shade
\nunroadworthy. Not to worry, the driver seemed friendly enough.<\/p>\n
\"Where do you come from, Mister?\"<\/p>\n
\"Britain. I am British.\"<\/p>\n
A huge smile spread across his face. \"Ah, we killed a British
\ngeneral here in 1945.\"<\/p>\n
\"Oh,\" I replied and floundered for a proper answer. \"What was
\nhis name?\"<\/p>\n
\"Mallaby.\"<\/p>\n
And so it was that I developed an interest that took me to the
\nbeautifully maintained Commonwealth War Graves Commission
\nCemetery in the Jakarta suburb of Menteng Pulo. This seldom-
\nvisited spot, tucked away behind the Dutch church (Gereja
\nBelanda) off Jl. Casablanca, is where I went to find the spot
\nthat commemorates the man that the smiling Surabaya taxi driver
\nspoke of.<\/p>\n
And to check out a little-known corner of British history, our
\ninvolvement in the post-World War II attempt by the Dutch to
\nreimpose colonial rule in their former colony, the East Indies.<\/p>\n
Brigadier (not General) Mallaby of the 2nd Punjab Regiment was
\nthe British commanding officer on the ground in Surabaya in
\nOctober, 1945. The date on the plaque on his grave -- immaculate
\nlike all the others in this cemetery -- is Oct. 30, 1945. To the
\ninquiring mind, it, and many other dates here, raise many
\nquestions. First and foremost: \"What were the British doing here?
\nHad not the Pacific War come to an end officially on Sept. 3 when
\nthe Japanese signed the surrender document aboard the USS
\nMissouri in Tokyo Bay?\"<\/p>\n
Wars seldom come to tidy ends and the Pacific War in the
\nIndonesian theater was no different to most. The Japanese had
\ncapitulated three days after the bombing of Nagasaki, but there
\nwere to be some very serious complications. Indonesia, seizing
\nthe hour, declared its independence on Aug. 17, five days after
\nthe Emperor Hirohito's surrender notice was broadcast to the
\ndumbfounded Japanese people. The Allies, under the overall
\nSoutheast Asian command of Lord Louis Mountbatten, were presented
\nwith several tasks, including the release of Allied POWs and the
\ndemobilization of the Japanese forces.<\/p>\n
There were, to put it mildly, several competing agendas, and,
\ndespite an almost universal wish on the part of the Commonwealth
\ntroops to go home, the British and the Indonesian nationalists
\nsoon found themselves on a collision course. The British, partly
\nbecause they had no advance intelligence to warn them of
\nIndonesian desires, did not recognize the Indonesian Republic of
\nSukarno and Hatta and instructed the Japanese to maintain order
\nprior to the arrival of a force called RAPWI (Return of Allied
\nPrisoners of War and other Internees).<\/p>\n
A British naval force arrived off Jakarta in early September.
\nIts commander, Admiral Patterson, was directly responsible to
\nMountbatten and he was in no doubt that the Indonesian
\nnationalists were to have no say in the matter. Meanwhile, the
\nfirst of the Dutch prisoners, who had been instructed to stay
\nwhere they were until RAPWI arrived, were back on the streets of
\nJakarta determined to restore the 'status quo ante'. Robert Cribb
\nin his excellent Gangsters and Revolutionaries; the Jakarta
\nPeople's Militia and the Indonesian Revolution 1945-9 has
\ndescribed how an irregular Dutch formation called Battalion X --
\nbecause it worked out of the pre-war headquarters of the KNIL
\n10th Battalion in North Jakarta -- appeared on Jakarta's streets
\nintimidating and beating up anyone daring to show the Indonesian
\nflag.<\/p>\n
Everything came to a head rather quickly. The main locus of
\ncombat was Surabaya where three weeks of fighting took place
\nbetween the ill-equipped nationalists and the battle-hardened
\nCommonwealth troops. British military observers were to remark on
\nthe bravery of the Indonesians, faced as they were with the
\nfighter planes of the Royal Air Force and the Bren Guns of the
\nground troops.<\/p>\n
Menteng Pulo is, as stated earlier, immaculately kept, its
\nlawns trimmed, its flower beds well turned. An air of respect and
\ndue honor prevails. To walk around the carefully tended plots is
\nto feel what the great WW I poet Wilfred Owen called \"the pity of
\nwar\" and sense the poignancy of \"golden lads all gone to dust\".<\/p>\n
There are 715 British, 304 Indians (including Nepalese) and 96
\nAustralians, as well as smaller numbers of other nationalities,
\ncommemorated here in land which \"is a gift from the people of
\nIndonesia\", as a plaque in the entrance arch tells the passerby.
\nThere are women as well as men, one Lt. Ann Allingham of the
\nBritish Red Cross Society among them. Hindus, Muslims, Christians
\nand Jews are all honored here, although not in contiguous plots.
\nOfficers and other ranks are buried side by side in democratic
\nrecognition of their service.<\/p>\n
The last date on a plaque here is for Major P.J.W. Cuckney of
\nthe King's Shropshire Light Infantry who died on Dec. 14, 1946.<\/p>\n
Visitors to this site and to the much larger Dutch cemetery on
\nthe other side of the splendid church may ponder on the nature of
\nunnecessary sacrifice and the waste of mainly young lives; the
\nyoungest soldier honored here is a 17-year old of the British
\nIndian Army. Of course, not all of them died after the end of the
\nwar or during the course of the hostilities with the Indonesian
\nnationalists. Hostilities, it might be argued, that delayed the
\ndevelopment of this country by several decades.<\/p>\n
Some had died in the early days of the Japanese invasion in
\n1942 and there was a heroic Anglo-Dutch resistance then around
\nthe Sumatran oil city of Palembang. Others still died in the
\nappalling conditions of the Japanese POW camps, where women and
\nchildren also suffered terrible privations. One of the bitter
\nironies, however, of the British presence here in 1945-6 is that
\ninstead of expediting the release of internees from these hell-
\nholes it actually delayed it, and numerous prisoners were not
\nreleased until mid-1946.<\/p>\n
Menteng Pulo is a fine memorial to the Allied men and women
\nwho died here, a lasting tribute to the generosity of the
\nIndonesians who donated the land and another sad reminder of the
\nfolly of war.<\/p>",
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