In memory of the Battle of Surabaya

In memory of the Battle of Surabaya

By Onghokham

JAKARTA (JP): On Nov. 10 we celebrated Heroes Day. In this Golden Year of Indonesia, Heroes Day will not celebrate its 50th anniversary but its 45th anniversary. Another different aspect of Heroes Day is that its monument is not in Jakarta but in the East Java city of Surabaya, Indonesia's second fastest growing city. The Heroes Monument in the city is also the first "national" monument to the revolution. Jakarta's came later.

After the Round Table Conference (December 1949) when the Dutch left Indonesia, our first president, Sukarno, visited his birth-place of Surabaya. On the occasion Sukarno declared Nov. 10 to be Heroes Day and that the monument for Heroes should be in Surabaya. The site of the Heroes monument in Surabaya was near the former alun alun (big square), which during colonial times became the site of Surabaya's High Court and during Japanese occupation (1943-1945) it became the headquarters of the Kempeitai (Japanese Secret Police).

Of course Sukarno did not designate Surabaya as the place for the heroes' monument because it was his place of birth, but because of the Battle of Surabaya in late October and early November 1945.

During these late months of 1945, Surabaya's Republican youth defended the city against the British army which for a large part were British Indian.

Ruslan Abdulgani, who in November 1945 was a Republican youth leader and activist, once said "it is very odd, indeed, that after 300 years of Dutch colonialism (Sic) we have a Heroes Monument fighting the British".

Another British thing is the height of the Heroes Monument of Surabaya. Sukarno wanted it to be 45 meters in height. However, airport authorities protested against it -- the airport of Surabaya was still in the midst of the city. A 45-meter needle would endanger civil aviation. Hence, it was decreed that its height should be 45 yards. An English measurement completing its character as a monument to commemorate Indonesia's fight against the British.

How did the British get involved in the war against Surabaya? Douglas MacArthur, the Allied supreme commander during the Pacific War, choose to ignore Japanese occupied territories. His strategy was to go and attack straight at the heart of the Japanese empire, Japan itself. The only diversion he made was his liberation of the Philippines which Japan occupied since May 1943 in order to keep his promise of "I shall return".

Churchill too saw the need to liberate first Japanese occupied Malaya and Singapore. Just as with MacArthur an Allied victory over the Japanese in their colonies was seen as important to their lost prestige and for restoration of the British empire in Southeast Asia. However, it would only be from Myanmar that the Japanese were driven out by Allied forces. Malaya and Singapore had to wait until after the war ended.

The Dutch government too understood that if their colonies were liberated by non-Dutch troops then their position would be seriously threatened. However, they did nothing to prepare for a military return to their Indies. Their shipping was tied to the Allied command in Europe for six months after the end of the war as was their army. The latter they could have released soon but not their shipping and so they had no opportunity to ship their army to the Southeast Asian war.

In August just before the Japanese capitulation of the Allied on Aug. 15, 1945, there came a decision to split the war command against Japan. MacArthur was to have the Pacific as his area while Southeast Asia including Indonesia, were put under the responsibility of Lord Mountbatten.

Japan's surrender on Aug. 15 took everybody by surprise. Mountbatten could have occupied Malaya and Singapore immediately for British invasion plans were already scheduled for September. However, MacArthur first wanted official Japanese surrender which happened on board the USS Mississippi in Tokyo Bay. It was not until Sept. 2 that the British received the Japanese surrender in Malaya and Singapore which were understandably first British priorities in Southeast Asia.

As we all know, the Conservatives in Britain unexpectedly lost the general elections to Labor. The new government was basically pragmatic in colonial and imperial affairs even in regard to their own as can be seen in their policies towards India. Overshadowing this policy was British experience in Greek affairs in 1944 where they intervened by supporting a minority pro- monarchist faction versus a left-leaning population.

It was the first Allied experience of a quagmire of criticism at home and abroad costing a lot of money to poor war-ravaged Britain and no quick-military results. Where there were no direct British interests involved, British intervention would be avoided as much as possible. As far as continental European countries were involved it was the traditional "perfidious Albion's" policy. One forgot that at the same time Britain was promising India and Myanmar their independence.

The second British priority was the liberation of the Allied prisoners of war, people in concentration camps and returning the Japanese army to Japan after disarming them. All these objectives for many reasons came only to be realized very late within the former Netherlands Indies empire. It was this delay of "Allied" (British) arrival that many Dutch scholars blame for the end of the Dutch empire in the East. However, as Dutch historians of this period have pointed out, there was also as much Dutch delay as British. Especially the Dutch government in the Hague disregarded Indonesian realities in the post-Pacific war situation and perhaps never understood them until the present day.

The Netherlands' post war policies towards its colonies were rooted in a "1930"s view of the Indies of peace and order. It was about a century behind the facts. Moreover, in 1945 the Dutch were too much involved in their own reconstruction problems. They had no time to think of the future of the colonies while their war time isolation prevented understanding of any new dynamism elsewhere. They were very ill prepared to meet Asian nationalism of the post-war world. The colonies as far as the Dutch were concerned had to be retained at all cost. There was a colonial ideology as some called it, that colonies were a must for Holland's prosperity and for it to be a European power. However, now there was a proclamation of independence which did not penetrate Dutch government consciousness until a month later. Dutch reaction was to understandably dismiss it. They were angry as a mother receiving a slap from her child.

At the end of September 1949 the English landed in Jakarta with a small contingent (800 men) and some 200 Dutch soldiers. Almost a month after it Mallaby landed in Surabaya on Oct. 25 with 4000 men, many of them British-Indian battalions. In Jakarta it never came to a full scale war between the Republicans and the Allied forces since the stakes were on both sides too high to let things out of control. However, tensions and incidents were daily occurrences almost taking the dimensions of a racial war between Indonesians and Dutch.

It was in Surabaya that the Allies and Republicans came to a full scale war. Revolutionary nationalism exploded in Surabaya and achieved a fanatic fever if not almost hysterical as one novelist, Idrus, put it in his novel Soerabaya. At first the people in Surabaya received the Allied forces in a friendly way and authorities were cooperative. However, suspicions towards the British rose daily with stories of incidents in Jakarta where the Dutch and British succeeded in slowly consolidating their positions. Surabaya youths' slogan became "we will not be treated like Jakarta". Any small incident could ignite the spark. This came in the form of pamphlets thrown over Surabaya by British airplanes and signed by the British Java commander, Gen. D.C. Hawthorn without consulting Mallaby demanding the surrender of arms by Surabaya's armed youth.

On the afternoon of Oct. 28, "a fanatical armed mob of 120 to 150,000 men..." turned against the scattered British position all over the city. Sukarno was flown to Surabaya to achieve a cease- fire. However, in trying to enforce it Mallaby was killed. This event had deep consequences for Surabaya for it made inevitable a British revenge action launching the second part of the battle in Surabaya on Nov. 10 which until today is commemorated as Heroes Day but which is for many Surabaya people who experienced it a battle for Surabaya.

Again a frenzied armed mob, as the British saw them, battled a modern army. Street by street and from door to door. Armed youth stormed a Sherman tank. How many Republicans died, nobody will ever know exactly though estimates run into tens of thousands.

On the British side there were 300 dead and it took them three weeks to occupy the city. However, it was this battle which convinced the Dutch, especially those in Jakarta, that negotiations with the Republican leadership was the only way to solve the conflict. Once both sides, under heavy British pressure, set down for negotiations, the independence of Indonesia was the only possible outcome.

The writer is a historian based in Jakarta.