by Rory Marron
‘Once again then, please,’ said Ishida. Sukarno began to read. ‘The Indonesian people hereby declare their independence. The existing administrative organs must be seized by the people from the foreigners.’
Ishida grunted in disapproval. ‘Wait! Not “seized from foreigners”. It’s crude. I understand the pemuda enthusiasm, but phrases like that will only provoke the Army. It may have surrendered but it is still proud. Don’t risk insulting them.’
Hatta concurred. ‘How about something like “transfer of power”? That’s vague enough.’
‘That’s better,’ agreed Sukarno. ‘The pemuda will just have to accept it.’
There were more weary nods around the table and Sukarno laboriously crossed out the changes and began to write again on a fresh sheet of Ishida’s writing paper. Sukarno began reading again. ‘We, the People of Indonesia hereby….’
When he finished speaking there was silence for several seconds.
‘At last,’ sighed Hatta standing with relief.
The others also rose, looking tired but elated at the same time. As Ishida shook hands with Sukarno and Hatta it occurred to him that he had probably donated the paper for his own death warrant. He bowed. ‘Congratulations, Gentlemen!’
‘Now we are on our own,’ Hatta said to him quietly. ‘We had better go through and get the others’ signatures.’
Ishida looked at his watch and sat down. It was four-thirty in the morning. It was not long before they heard the howls of dissatisfaction. The exchanges were loud enough for Nishioka to provide a commentary. ‘The text is too tame. It has no revolutionary spirit! The pemuda will not sign with the “kenpei nominees” on the Independence Committee because the Committee is a Japanese creation…. Now the Committee will not sign with the pemuda…. Sukarno and Hatta are refusing to change a word.’ Finally, Nishioka was smiling. ‘The vote has been carried!’
Ishida closed his eyes.
Ten minutes later, as the Indonesians were leaving, Nishioka showed him the paper. It bore only two signatures: Sukarno and Hatta.
At noon that same day, Sukarno stood outside his home at Parapatan with Hatta by his side and addressed a small crowd. His speech was brief. ‘We, the people of Indonesia, hereby declare the independence of Indonesia. Matters concerning the transfer of power and other things will be executed by careful means and in the shortest possible time.’
As Sukarno spoke, the merah-putih—the red and white—flag was raised and the group sang ‘Indonesia Raya’ as their anthem for the first time.
Word spread by word of mouth, telephone and telegraph. From seven o’clock that evening, Radio Bandung’s hourly broadcasts of the declaration in Javanese and English were fed through to the short-wave transmitter and out into a largely indifferent world.
Book Two
Chapter Ten
South-East Asia Command HQ, Kandy, Ceylon, August 1945
Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia, was pensive as he sat listening to his political advisor, Esler Dening, summarise the latest in a long and growing list of instructions and urgent requests from London. Mountbatten was not unhappy about this but he did not like being pushed.
Dening cleared his throat in an attempt to reclaim his superior’s attention. ‘Well, Admiral, the highest priority is to get troops into Hong Kong. The Navy are rushing a couple of destroyers there from Australia to fly the flag but General Chiang’s forces are a bit too close for comfort. We want our troops there a.s.a.p. Up to now, Chiang has agreed to us taking the Jap surrender but London is understandably nervous. They suggest, and I quote, we “divert troops previously earmarked for Operation Zipper, the now cancelled invasion of Malaya”, unquote.’
Mountbatten was in no mood for instructions and his irritation showed. ‘You would think that by now Whitehall might credit me with knowing something about Zipper! Perhaps I should remind them it was an invasion scheduled for three months’ time and for which we now have few troops and no transports. For God’s sake, doesn’t anyone in London have any idea of how thinly spread we are?’
Dening shifted uncomfortably. After thirty years in the Foreign and Colonial Office he didn’t like to hear his Ministry criticised. Yet he had to agree. London’s wish list was changing and growing by the day. He tried to sound sympathetic. ‘I think from this point on we must concentrate on Malaya, Hong Kong and Singapore. Everything else must take its turn. We need to impress the Malays that we have the men and equipment to do the job. Lord knows, in 1942 we had neither! It’s important, too, that the Japanese see our current strength before they are repatriated.’
Mountbatten shifted in his chair and stretched out his long legs under the desk. Once again he ran through his ‘priorities’. It was a long list: disarming and confining close to three-quarters-of-a-million enemy soldiers, then screening them for war crimes; providing food and medical care for a so far unknown number of Allied prisoners of war; planning for the repatriation of a quarter-of-a-million British and Indian troops; and trying to maintain law and order in the tinder kegs that were Burma and Malaya. As if that was not enough, several million people in the region faced starvation unless he sent them food he did not have, on ships he did not have. Virtually overnight he had effectively changed from a military commander with a single, clearly defined mission to defeat the Japanese army to a glorified administrator who had to consider the political implications of his every move. As it was, he was lucky if he got six hours of sleep as he tried to keep up with the signals. Peacetime was certainly harder than war!
His reply was measured. ‘I am not going to send troops to Hong Kong, Singapore or anywhere else for that matter until we know that the surrender order is being obeyed. You’ve heard the stories of the suicide squads. In Malaya and Sumatra the Japs are still undefeated. And they could carry on in China for years!’
Mountbatten sat back and closed his eyes. Everything had changed since the A-Bomb. He had been told about it only on 29th July. Sworn to absolute secrecy, he spent ten days planning troop movements that he suspected might never be needed. He had hated to deceive his officers but the Americans had been insistent. When, finally, on 8th August, confirmation of the Hiroshima bombing had been heard on Japanese civilian radio he had called an immediate meeting of his officers and led a discussion on the implications of the new, ultimate weapon. They, like him, had been astounded. Japan had surrendered a week later, four days after a second bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki. Among his officers the consensus was that the bombs had shortened the war by at least two years.
Dening took a deep breath. He did not like being the bearer of bad news but it was time to deliver General MacArthur’s latest order. ‘Admiral,’ he ventured quietly. ‘Your area of responsibility has been increased.’
‘What! Again? Where?’ Mountbatten was incensed.
Dening kept his eyes down on his file as he read. ‘General MacArthur has assigned the entire Netherlands East Indies east of Sumatra from his command to SEAC. You are now in charge of an additional 300,000 square miles of enemy-occupied territory and approximately 70 million people on the islands of Java, Madura, Lombok, Borneo and several hundred others.’
‘London has approved this?’ Mountbatten’s face was flushed.
‘Yes,’ Dening replied softly, in awe of the fury building before him.
Mountbatten stood up shouting. ‘Where’s MacArthur now? We’ll see about this!’
Dening tried to keep his voice calm. ‘He’s in Manila, preparing the formal surrender document before he flies to Tokyo.’
Mountbatten checked and then sank back slowly into his chair. A genuine laugh escaped him. ‘And I thought I had problems!’
Dening was relieved. His boss was now his usual composed self. They would have a productive morning after all.
‘Quite an empire,’ ventured Dening.
‘Not as big as MacArthur’s,’ Mountbatten smiled cynically. ‘He’ll see to that!’
Dening produced a map of t
he Netherlands East Indies from under his arm and spread it out on the desk in front of Mountbatten. Unusually for a SEAC map it was not annotated. Even the largest islands of Java and Sumatra were unmarked. Mountbatten looked up quizzically. Again Dening felt uncomfortable, embarrassed by the lack of preparedness, even though they could not have expected this eventuality.
‘We have no information on the current situation in the Netherlands East Indies,’ he said apologetically. ‘I have asked London to liaise with the Dutch Embassy, the Dutch Government in The Hague, and the Netherlands Indies Civilian Administration in Australia to let us have copies of all their latest intelligence reports.’
‘They’ll have to do a lot better than that,’ Mountbatten grunted. ‘A lot better.’
Berlin, Germany, early August 1945
Meg Graham was picking her way along rubble-strewn and cratered streets. Berlin was like one enormous builder’s yard. Devastation was total. Every wall was holed, every pane of glass shattered. Scarcely a brick had escaped a hit from a bullet or shrapnel. Around her the dark, shattered ruins reminded her of rows of enormous decaying teeth. She paused briefly to jot down the allusion for her next article.
Despite the warm day and cloudless sky, she was in sturdy, scuffed boots and her Press Corps uniform jacket because she did not want to be mistaken for a German civilian. After she turned on to what remained of the once-imposing Kufurstendam she headed for the fire-blackened shell of the Brandenburg Palace. Allied servicemen were everywhere and the atmosphere, for them, was festive, even though it was already over two months since the German capitulation. Some were pocketing bits of masonry for souvenirs. Others were posing for photographs amidst the ruins of the Third Reich.
Ignored by the soldiers, elderly women were queuing quietly at makeshift stalls for watery soup and stale bread, while old men and boys scratched in the ruins for firewood. Younger women and girls stood bartering for food and clothing. They had only one thing to trade and were not ignored. Meg saw their thin, drawn faces and empty smiles chasing likely clients. She felt no pity. Instead, she pictured the same faces cheering and waving swastika flags as their menfolk had marched past promising them a thousand, glorious years.
‘You reap what you sow,’ she said to herself without emotion.
Meg was restive. In truth, the notion of peace still troubled her and secretly she was afraid she was becoming bored. Newspapers and magazines in the United States were insatiable for stories about Berlin. But it was always the same stories. ‘Our boys standing on the ruins of fascism,’ as her editor in New York liked to put it. Those stories were still selling papers and Meg was meeting some soldiers for that very reason but her angle would be that little bit different.
She was seeing some of the paratroopers she had met in Nijmegen. At the time, the suggestion to meet in Berlin had seemed merely a hasty, parting throwaway. In fact, the platoon had not forgotten and now, ten months later, she was delighted to be keeping the promise. Yet with every step she was steeling herself to ask, as she knew she had to, how many of them had been lost on the painfully slow four-hundred mile trek to Berlin.
Sudden shouts made her jump. ‘There she is!’—’Meg, over here!’
Meg saw a group of waving and smiling GIs. Two of them were arm-in-arm with German girls. She waved back.
‘Hey, fellas! How ya doin’?’
They swarmed round her, grabbing her hand or hugging her like a long-lost friend. Their bright faces were already losing the stress-lines of war. Boys again, she thought happily. Death no longer walked with them. They were all speaking at once.
‘We didn’t think you’d make it.’—‘I read all your stuff. My Mom sends me the magazine every week!’
They did not notice that she could not remember their names. To hide her embarrassment she turned quickly to greet others behind her and stumbled on some loose bricks. Several pairs of arms steadied her.
‘Can you join us for dinner?’—‘When are you going home?’
Here I am, she thought, with these guys again and still surrounded by rubble! Then she remembered it was German rubble and she was not sorry about it, or for that matter, Japanese rubble. With Japan’s surrender a week earlier the world was at last at peace, or so she had thought. That morning she had received a three-word telegram from her editor. It read, ‘Fighting in Java!’
Looking around, she made her decision. This story on the 82nd would be her last from Germany. If she were quick, she could still catch the last of the war against Japan. With the decision came a faint rush of adrenalin.
‘Sorry guys, ‘I won’t be going home just yet.’ Suddenly Meg was no longer bored.
Imperial Japanese Army HQ, Djakarta
General Yamagami did not get up to greet his guest. ‘Well, Ishida, you got what you wanted. I must say you’ve got some nerve, coming round here after the trouble you’ve caused.’ The General paused to sip his tea, eyeing his visitor in quiet exasperation.
Ishida tried to be affable. ‘In a few years, General, you will be an Indonesian hero. You are, after all, the man who made their independence possible.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Ishida!’ Yamagami snapped. ‘As I see it, you played me for a fool. You’ve also written a warrant for my execution. Ha! Two days after I’m ordered to maintain the status quo what happens? The Republic of Indonesia is declared! Have you any idea how that looks to the Allies?’
‘With respect, General, I don’t think it matters. They do not know the situation here. If the Dutch try to reassert control by force, then the Indonesians will resist. There will be another war. I am not sure that the Allies can dare allow that to happen. They have made too much talk of freedom and ‘self-determination’ to suddenly ditch those ideals in the first few weeks of peace.’
Yamagami raised his eyebrows. ‘We’ll know soon enough!’
‘That’s the reason I’m here, General,’ Ishida said, nodding. ‘Java is the key to the Indies—to Indonesia. Even if the Dutch take back the outer islands, which they probably will because the Republic can’t defend them, without Java the rest is not viable as a colony. If they don’t have Java they won’t hold the other islands.’
‘What do you want?’ Yamagami asked cautiously.
Ishida hesitated, pursing his lips before he answered. ‘The Indonesians need weapons and ammunition. You disarmed most of the militia. If they are not rearmed the Dutch will walk back into power. There is confusion all over Java. If you were to abandon the armouries to the militia they—’
‘Don’t say any more!’ Yamagami said holding up a hand, his temper fraying. ‘After I have just told you that the Allies are screaming at me over the independence declaration, you seriously expect me to disobey a specific order not to let weapons fall into the hands of Indonesians! You must really want to see me dancing at the end of a rope!’
Ishida felt the anger but kept calm. ‘Of course not, General! My point is that the militia is an established organisation. The Allies do not know that they were recently disarmed—’
‘Let me tell you something,’ Yamagami interrupted. ‘If you had consulted the Army or even waited before accepting the surrender we could have let the Independence Committee meet as planned on the August 18th and make their precious declaration on the 19th as planned. Japan could have recognised the Republic within the status quo.’ Yamagami’s eyes bore into Ishida’s. ‘Tokyo had agreed to terms, not to cease administering the Empire. Your actions obliged us to accept here in Djakarta terms offered to Tokyo! My forces stood down only on August 22nd. In those lost days we could have done a lot more for the Indonesians!’
Ishida was nonplussed. ‘I hadn’t considered—’
‘Obviously not!’ Yamagami snapped back. ‘Now you have a Republic without recognition and arguably unlawful because our surrendered administration was not in a legal position to grant independence. That’s it! The Republic of Indonesia is on its own. From now on I must carry out Allied orders to the letter.’
Ishida gave
up and accepted Yamagami’s decision with a bow of his head. ‘You can still make a difference here, General,’ he said with a trace of bitterness in his voice. ‘Is there no attraction in seeing the Allies forced to continue fighting in Asia even as their “atomic peace” has just been imposed?’
Yamagami straightened his arms to push himself back in his chair. Though the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki angered him, he knew revenge was no longer an option. ‘And what if the Allies accuse the Emperor of complicity in all this? Have you given any thought to that possibility and what it could mean for the future of the monarchy?’
Ishida looked sharply at Yamagami. ‘I believe that the Emperor is…irrelevant.’
Yamagami’s eyes narrowed. ‘At least the Army is still loyal…. Good-bye, Admiral. Do not come here again.’
Djatingaleh Barracks, Semarang
Ota looked at his meagre hinomaru bento or ‘sun-flag lunch’—a half-bowl of rice topped with a single red, salted plum—and sighed. For three weeks since the surrender the garrison had been reduced to a rice lunch and an equally small rice and dried fish or vegetable dinner.
‘I’m fed up with this,’ he said to Nagumo.
‘Yeah,’ replied Nagumo. ‘What I’d give for some seared bonito!’
Ota groaned. ‘Oh, don’t mention proper food!’
‘On that subject,’ Nagumo said with exaggerated formality, ‘later on, Private Second Class Kondo is going after something for the pot. Want to come along?’
‘With Kondo?’ Ota said warily. ‘I thought he was on a charge for running a still?’
‘Two charges, actually. The Adjutant can’t do anything until the court martial documents come back from Singapore.’