Revolution in the City of Heroes: Book Excerpt

CHAPTER 1: PLANNING OUR REVOLUTION

SETTING THE SCENE: THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION

The Japanese Occupation of the Netherlands Indies (1941–45) began with a welcome from many Indonesians keen to rid themselves of the Dutch colonial administration. The Japanese Imperial Army had overpowered the Dutch, who had held the territory for two centuries. By 1943, however, the Japanese had revealed their contempt for the Indonesian people under their control, enslaving hundreds of thousands of villagers, confiscating agricultural produce and sending unpaid laborers to the Japanese Army in Thailand and Burma. They controlled all media, executed anyone caught listening to war news, and dismantled scores of steel bridges to send to Japan to be melted down for the war needs. Thousands of innocent people were summarily executed for minor infringements and beatings, including of women, were common.  By the end of 1943 the people were wishing the Japanese had never come, seeing them as far worse than the Dutch colonial rulers.  Both foreign rules had given rise to a strong nationalist movement led by Sukarno and Dr Hatta, who fought for self-rule as the better future path for the Indonesian people.

The Japanese landed in Surabaya on the First of March 1942, raising their flag over the Wonokromo Bridge. They began immediately to ‘Nipponize’ Surabaya, removing signs in Dutch or English, destroying Western films and books, and demanding Indonesians learn the Japanese national anthem and bow towards Japan to honor the Japanese Emperor. Suhario ‘Kecik’ was a medical student and early victim of the Japanese anti-Western hysteria that closed educational institutions in cities and brought misery to the entire population. In August 1945 the Surabayans turned on the Japanese, armed themselves, and prepared for a fight to determine their independence against the British-Indian Army attempting to reinstate the Dutch. Kecik was in the middle of the fray, first as a student planning underground moves, then as Deputy Commander of a 500-strong youth force that took on the British in the crucial Battle for Surabaya, 10–24 November 1945.

THE LONG JOURNEY BEGINS

The Anatomy Department…was by 1943 flooded with bodies of the homeless and those unfortunates who later became known as romusha, men recruited on rosy promises to help ‘Brother Japan’ in their war. They were in fact slave labourers used by the army.  So many had died of … exhaustion, hunger and beatings that the bodies soon piled high … we had to stop taking delivery.  

The Japanese Imperial Army marched into Surabaya on Friday 6 March 1942, announcing what would be a torrid, repressive three year occupation by flying the Japanese flag over the Wonokromo Bridge. They closed the Medical School I had been enrolled in and other institutes of Western learning, so my parents suggested I go to the Veterinary School in Bogor, West Java, to continue my studies. They had also closed the Jakarta medical school; I had nowhere to turn, and Veterinary Science seemed the closest I could get to my desired profession.

I said goodbye to Hartadi, my childhood friend, without realising he would later play a major role in the Battle of Surabaya alongside me four years later. He had been offered a job in the Railway Workshop in Surabaya, so would ‘guard’ Surabaya for us while I went to Bogor, and of course we promised to keep in touch, neither of us guessing that his railway connections would soon become vital to the anti-Japanese independence fighters’ network.

When I arrived at Bogor I discovered I was not the only Surabayan student there. Basuki and Bahar Razak, old friends from the Faculty of Medicine in Surabaya, were also there, so I stayed in a group in unfamiliar surroundings.

There was still a little pocket money secretly available to me from Hartadi who had what he called the ‘Robin Hood funds’ from a Dutch government office the Japanese had seized in the first days of Occupation. The senior Dutch and other office workers had fled as the Japanese soldiers blustered in, leaving behind a full cash box used for fees and taxes and the like. None of those fleeing wanted the cash box, so Hartadi, not wishing the Japanese to get it, carried it away, renaming it the ‘Robin Hood funds’ for him and his close friends. Used quietly, the funds lasted for many months and helped our circle of friends get through some nasty scrapes. When the Japanese were entrenched they printed their own paper money, which was soon useless and fell apart. Dutch money was illegal, but still the best guard against inflation.

The Robin Hood fund was not entirely used for altruistic ends. After especially enervating days, several of us would splurge on a memorable meal down at the main market. Alas, those meals became memorable for the wrong reason. It would be many years before we could again live in safety, or have adequate food or clothing.

We were in the Bogor Veterinary School for just a few months. The Japanese soon realised they would need to reopen at least one Faculty of Medicine because the Imperial Army would need a lot of trained medical and paramedical staff. Along with the Faculty of Medicine in Jalan Salemba which reopened in Jakarta in April 1943 as Ika Daigaku, (a name which nobody used), they also opened a Faculty of Pharmacy.

In Surabaya, where they had closed my medical school, they chose instead to open a Faculty of Dentistry, a decision which would come to haunt them in mid-1945 because Dr Moestopo, the chief lecturer, turned it into a school for amateur spies, whose intelligence gathering while posing as menials and waiters to the enemy was very effective. It became a “public secret” that we were eavesdropping on both Japanese, and later, Dutch conversations.

In the first months, our student dormitory or asrama was in a Christian middle high school opposite what is today Jakarta’s biggest public hospital, the RSCM Cipto Mangunkusumo. The dorm wasn’t big enough to hold all the students, most of whom were from outside Jakarta, so we crowded together while the new rooms were built.

The lecturers wore Japanese military uniforms, and, although we didn’t then know all the ranks, we knew that one young surgeon, who spoke German, was a major. Major General Dr Itangaki, head of the Faculty, seemed sympathetic to Indonesian students, in contrast to most unsmiling Japanese. Suwadi, an older student who lived on the edge of town in Jatinegara with his wife and two children, seemed to organise everything, employing a middle-aged woman who prepared three meals a day for us. The food wasn’t too bad, and the Japanese left the asrama management to Suwadi, which allowed us to concentrate on studies. Were we wrong about the Japanese? We had little cause for concern.


This is an excerpt from Chapter 1: Planning Our Revolution pp 1-4 from Revolution City of Heroes: A Memoir of the Battle that Sparked Indonesia's National Revolution by Suhario Padmodiwiryo translated by Francis Palmos.