Nov. 10, 1945 solemnizes Indonesians' fearless spirit

By K. Basri

JAKARTA (JP): There are lot of heroic stories in Indonesia's history but the country marks its heroes on Nov. 10, Heroes Day. The date marks a bloody clash between Indonesian freedom fighters in Surabaya, East Java and the British-led Allied forces 51 years ago.

The annual nationwide commemoration is meant to solemnize the fearless spirit of the Indonesian people, who put aside differences in age, ethnicity and social levels to fight a fierce battle against the British-led Allied forces in the East Java capital.

The Surabaya clash unquestionably showed the Indonesian people's strong determination to defend the independence they proclaimed three months earlier.

The clash apparently did not take place only on that day but the battle on Nov. 10, 1945 was a do or die battle for the poorly-armed Indonesians.

Of that day, Ktut Tantri, an American woman who witnessed the clashes in October and November, wrote in her autobiography Revolt in Paradise: "It was an atrocious deed against a defenseless city. Hundreds upon hundreds were killed. The streets ran with blood, women and children lay dead in gutters. Kampongs were in flames, and the people fled in panic to the relative safety of the rice fields. But the Indonesians did not surrender."

Lt. Col. A.J.F. Doulton in his book The Fighting Cock said: "The Indonesians in Surabaya took no count of their dead; when one man fell, another came forward, ... The Brens continued to speak, the piles of dead at the barricades mounted, but more and more Indonesians came forward trampling on the fallen."

Historical figure Roeslan Abdulgani, who at the time was a liaison officer between the Surabaya regional government and representatives of the Allied Army, recalled: "Freedom or death. That was the slogan of our people. Surrender was alien to them."

But, what actually made the people in Surabaya shoulder arms and fight to the death against the well-armed British-led forces?

It was an ultimatum dated Nov. 9, 1945 signed by Maj. Gen. R.C. Mansergh, the commander of allied land forces for East Java, that ordered all Indonesians in Surabaya to kneel before the British before 6 a.m. the next day.

What made Mansergh issue the famous Nov. 9 ultimatum as if Indonesia had been defeated in a war with Britain?

It was because of the death of his predecessor, Brig. Gen. Mallaby, who was shot on Oct. 30.

According to Roeslan, Mansergh's ultimatum did not frighten the local people but fired their spirit to defend their homeland from the occupiers.

"The people rose! I have never seen a mass movement of such a kind as that. In the kampong where I lived, my neighbors prepared themselves on the Friday night of the Nov. 9, both spiritually and physically, to face the danger upon them," Roeslan recalled.

According to Mansergh, the British forces came to East Java to disarm and concentrate the Japanese Forces, bring relief to Allied POWs and internees and maintain law and order.

However, the locals sensed their arrival as a new occupation.

The expectation came true shortly after the arrival of some British ships on the coast off the Tanjung Perak port in Surabaya on Oct. 24. The ships landed on the next day with a large number of Gurkha soldiers.

According to Roeslan in one of his articles written in November 1946, the Surabaya coast guard's request that the British not land immediately, but await orders was answered with signaling lamps saying: "We don't take any order from anybody."

Then, an agreement between the British and Indonesian officers which was reached over the next two days, was violated by the English, which started the first two-day fighting which began on Oct. 28.

The battle which went for two days and nights was stopped only when President Soekarno and Gen. Hawthorn came. A contact bureau was set up to ensure the best possible cooperation.

It was the bureau's first sitting on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 1945 when Brig. Gen. Mallaby was shot dead in a battle which flared up at the meeting place of the Internatio Building, which was in front of the contact bureau.

The so-called Mallaby incident evoked anger on the allied side. Gen. Mansergh said he would "bring the whole weight of sea, land and air forces and all the weapons of modern war against the Indonesians who committed this act."

Over the following days, Roeslan recalled, "a sense of indignation filled our breasts."

On Nov. 9, a circular letter, later known as the famous ultimatum, was dropped and distributed from the air.

As the Indonesian people ignored his ultimatum to put up their hands and surrender their weapons, Mansergh who already had strong back-up troops held firmly to his words.

Tens of thousands of the well-armed British troops opened fire on the locals, who were armed only with bamboos and guns.

Surabaya turned into a hell, leaving thousands of casualties and losses.

The British forces called the Surabaya clash an "inferno".

In the book of reminiscences of the 23rd Division of the British Army, it is written: "The losses in this inferno were grievous enough."

Roeslan said: "For us, Surabaya was a 'cauldron' in which we were 'cooked' -- not half-boiled, but truly cooked in boiling water, the blaze for which rose high. We were 'cooked' into a new nation, wherein the strength of our people and of the Army was welded fast into one; wherein the dynamic energy of our youth was welded into one with the calculated thinking of our elders; and wherein all of the people of our nation who at that time were in Surabaya (the young people of Sumatra, Sunda, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, Nusatenggara and the boys and girls of Surabaya) were welded fast into one!"