Menteng Pulo, a graveyard full of history

Menteng Pulo, a graveyard full of history

By David Jardine

JAKARTA (JP): It was November, 1983 and my first trip to
Indonesia. Getting off the train in Surabaya and not knowing what
to expect, I looked around for a taxi. The vehicle I got into
outside the main railway station was unmarked and a shade
unroadworthy. Not to worry, the driver seemed friendly enough.

"Where do you come from, Mister?"

"Britain. I am British."

A huge smile spread across his face. "Ah, we killed a British
general here in 1945."

"Oh," I replied and floundered for a proper answer. "What was
his name?"

"Mallaby."

And so it was that I developed an interest that took me to the
beautifully maintained Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Cemetery in the Jakarta suburb of Menteng Pulo. This seldom-
visited spot, tucked away behind the Dutch church (Gereja
Belanda) off Jl. Casablanca, is where I went to find the spot
that commemorates the man that the smiling Surabaya taxi driver
spoke of.

And to check out a little-known corner of British history, our
involvement in the post-World War II attempt by the Dutch to
reimpose colonial rule in their former colony, the East Indies.

Brigadier (not General) Mallaby of the 2nd Punjab Regiment was
the British commanding officer on the ground in Surabaya in
October, 1945. The date on the plaque on his grave -- immaculate
like all the others in this cemetery -- is Oct. 30, 1945. To the
inquiring mind, it, and many other dates here, raise many
questions. First and foremost: "What were the British doing here?
Had not the Pacific War come to an end officially on Sept. 3 when
the Japanese signed the surrender document aboard the USS
Missouri in Tokyo Bay?"

Wars seldom come to tidy ends and the Pacific War in the
Indonesian theater was no different to most. The Japanese had
capitulated three days after the bombing of Nagasaki, but there
were to be some very serious complications. Indonesia, seizing
the hour, declared its independence on Aug. 17, five days after
the Emperor Hirohito's surrender notice was broadcast to the
dumbfounded Japanese people. The Allies, under the overall
Southeast Asian command of Lord Louis Mountbatten, were presented
with several tasks, including the release of Allied POWs and the
demobilization of the Japanese forces.

There were, to put it mildly, several competing agendas, and,
despite an almost universal wish on the part of the Commonwealth
troops to go home, the British and the Indonesian nationalists
soon found themselves on a collision course. The British, partly
because they had no advance intelligence to warn them of
Indonesian desires, did not recognize the Indonesian Republic of
Sukarno and Hatta and instructed the Japanese to maintain order
prior to the arrival of a force called RAPWI (Return of Allied
Prisoners of War and other Internees).

A British naval force arrived off Jakarta in early September.
Its commander, Admiral Patterson, was directly responsible to
Mountbatten and he was in no doubt that the Indonesian
nationalists were to have no say in the matter. Meanwhile, the
first of the Dutch prisoners, who had been instructed to stay
where they were until RAPWI arrived, were back on the streets of
Jakarta determined to restore the 'status quo ante'. Robert Cribb
in his excellent Gangsters and Revolutionaries; the Jakarta
People's Militia and the Indonesian Revolution 1945-9 has
described how an irregular Dutch formation called Battalion X --
because it worked out of the pre-war headquarters of the KNIL
10th Battalion in North Jakarta -- appeared on Jakarta's streets
intimidating and beating up anyone daring to show the Indonesian
flag.

Everything came to a head rather quickly. The main locus of
combat was Surabaya where three weeks of fighting took place
between the ill-equipped nationalists and the battle-hardened
Commonwealth troops. British military observers were to remark on
the bravery of the Indonesians, faced as they were with the
fighter planes of the Royal Air Force and the Bren Guns of the
ground troops.

Menteng Pulo is, as stated earlier, immaculately kept, its
lawns trimmed, its flower beds well turned. An air of respect and
due honor prevails. To walk around the carefully tended plots is
to feel what the great WW I poet Wilfred Owen called "the pity of
war" and sense the poignancy of "golden lads all gone to dust".

There are 715 British, 304 Indians (including Nepalese) and 96
Australians, as well as smaller numbers of other nationalities,
commemorated here in land which "is a gift from the people of
Indonesia", as a plaque in the entrance arch tells the passerby.
There are women as well as men, one Lt. Ann Allingham of the
British Red Cross Society among them. Hindus, Muslims, Christians
and Jews are all honored here, although not in contiguous plots.
Officers and other ranks are buried side by side in democratic
recognition of their service.

The last date on a plaque here is for Major P.J.W. Cuckney of
the King's Shropshire Light Infantry who died on Dec. 14, 1946.

Visitors to this site and to the much larger Dutch cemetery on
the other side of the splendid church may ponder on the nature of
unnecessary sacrifice and the waste of mainly young lives; the
youngest soldier honored here is a 17-year old of the British
Indian Army. Of course, not all of them died after the end of the
war or during the course of the hostilities with the Indonesian
nationalists. Hostilities, it might be argued, that delayed the
development of this country by several decades.

Some had died in the early days of the Japanese invasion in
1942 and there was a heroic Anglo-Dutch resistance then around
the Sumatran oil city of Palembang. Others still died in the
appalling conditions of the Japanese POW camps, where women and
children also suffered terrible privations. One of the bitter
ironies, however, of the British presence here in 1945-6 is that
instead of expediting the release of internees from these hell-
holes it actually delayed it, and numerous prisoners were not
released until mid-1946.

Menteng Pulo is a fine memorial to the Allied men and women
who died here, a lasting tribute to the generosity of the
Indonesians who donated the land and another sad reminder of the
folly of war.