The amtracs drifted slowly to the other side of the river. The ramps creaked open and we were left to make our way to Mojosari on foot, straight through the jungle at times. We avoided the roads whenever we could for fear of landmines. Trees had been felled to form roadblocks, and booby-trapped barricades meant dangerous work for the Demolition Group.
We made decent progress, encountering sporadic light artillery fire along the way, but the enemy stood no chance against our modern weapons. As we marched, other marines swept the area clean. Here and there I saw the bodies of dead pemudas. Approaching a rice-husking plant, we came under heavy fire. Pemudas had set up machine-gun posts in two abandoned KNIL pillboxes close to the factory building, each gun manned by three fighters. We called back for bazookas. Marksmen with Browning Automatic Rifles provided cover and before long the pillboxes had been blown to kingdom come, pemudas and all. There was no time for celebration: we needed all our wits about us to take the plant itself. A bazooka rocket slammed into the main entrance and I ran into the factory with a handful of assault troops, guns blazing. I had to be quick reloading my M1. One of my reserve slings was already empty and I could see pelopors skulking among the heavy machinery. With a tight group of marines, I headed for the machine rooms, where we fanned out, surrounding the pelopors and picking them off one by one. We were lucky: they had been planting explosives under the machines. Outside, marines were hunting down pelopors as they ran. Not one of them escaped with his life.
We marched into Mojosari to find the place deserted. Almost all the villagers had fled. A few old men and women were the only ones left, wandering around with nothing but dogs and chickens for company. A good place to rest. We sat down by a dry ditch with a few lads from the Demolition Group. I slid the knapsack from my shoulder, took out two tins of K rations and pulled my water bottle from my belt to swig leftover tea from our early breakfast.
After resting a while, the entire column moved on in the direction of Mojokerto to join the main force. Above us flew a number of Fairey Firefly strike fighters belonging to the KNIL air force. Every now and then the planes dived to fire rockets. Reunited with the other units, we made rapid progress. Arriving in the centre of Mojokerto, we all had to jump off the trucks and advance on foot to the market square. There I saw three of our Sherman tanks, one firing its mighty gun at the mosque, where a clutch of fanatical Hizbullah units were thought to be holed up.
There was a pasar that day. With the assault troops I ran across the square and opened fire. Market vendors and customers scattered in all directions. I picked out soldiers among the crowd and gunned them down. Running alongside me was a Dutch corporal, a good-hearted lad from Limburg. He spotted a Jap lying on the ground. After the capitulation, many Japanese soldiers without an exit plan wound up fighting alongside the Indonesians. This one was bleeding heavily, lying face down with his right hand under his belly, an odd position for a fallen soldier. The corporal wanted the Jap’s insignia for his collection and went over to him. ‘Stick him with your bayonet first,’ I yelled. ‘The bastard is still alive and reaching for his gun!’
The corporal was too cocky to listen. Suddenly the Jap rolled onto his back, drew his Nambu pistol and fired two shots at my comrade in rapid succession. Fatally wounded, he collapsed in a heap. His last words were, ‘Oh mother, what have I done?’
In anger, I blasted my entire clip of eight rounds into that Jap bastard.
There was no time to dwell on the dead boy from Limburg. Fierce fighting had broken out across the town. With a few lads from the assault platoon, I charged down a side street and was amazed to find Indonesian policemen directing traffic amid the chaos. They were trying to wave through a couple of heavy tanks. I recognized them as Japanese tanks from the time of the occupation, only now their gun turrets were painted with the red-and-white of Sukarno’s Indonesia. I signalled to a corporal rifleman to load his M1 with anti-tank rounds. I led by example and fired four shots at the turret, which immediately stopped turning. I had taken out the gunner. The others took care of the second and third tanks.
No sooner had the marines wiped out the Indonesian policemen than hordes of Hizbullah fanatics came charging at us wielding bamboo spears and machetes in all shapes and sizes. I let loose with one clip after another, exhausting my slings of back-up ammo, and ran with a small troop of marines to the veranda of a house that had been shot to pieces. There we pulled our knapsacks from our shoulders, grabbed our hand grenades and lobbed them among the advancing hordes. BAR and tommy gunners came to our aid. At last the enemy turned and ran. Little did we suspect how much fight those fanatics had left in them.
Night had fallen and my combat pack was pretty much empty. But I still had clips of phosphorus rounds on my belt. If I suspected pelopors might be hiding in one of the kampong houses, I fired one or two of those tracer bullets into the roof. In no time the attap thatching would catch fire and the walls of bamboo matting would start to burn. Those bastards would come running out soon enough and we were waiting to gun them down one by one.
Head of Prisoner Interrogation at Surabaya HQ-II
When Mojokerto was fully under our control, I was sent to Mojosari, where Surabaya Headquarters II of the Marine Brigade Security Service was located, SHQ-II for short. There I was made Head of Prisoner Interrogation under the command of First Lieutenant Lichtenberg of the Marine Corps. My main task was to gather as much intelligence as possible regarding the enemy’s overall military situation in the areas around Pacet and Trawas. Before the war, both had been popular holiday resorts for colonial families.
With a team of five interpreters at my disposal, I interrogated dozens of prisoners a day and had no qualms about the use of force. After a week of grinding out counterintelligence and combat intelligence reports based on these interrogations, I began to suffer from acute insomnia and Lieutenant Lichtenberg sent me to Surabaya for a few days’ leave. I travelled by food truck and took a becak through the city to our home in Undaan Kulon.
As soon as I arrived, I took an invigorating bath, after which Mama treated me to a delicious meal. While we ate, Mama asked me to recount my experiences. Curious to hear more, Babu Tenie and Kokkie Tas hovered close by until I ordered them to join us at the table. Though taken aback, they both obeyed. It was unheard of for servants to sit at the family table and they did not know quite what to do with themselves, but I reassured them and soon they were eating with us. Mama laughed and did not seem to mind. Of course, I gave them only the sketchiest account of my exploits. The meal over, I retired to my room, collapsed on the divan and fell into a deep sleep.
In the tropics, night falls within ten minutes at around six in the evening and that was when Babu Tenie woke me. I took a bath, put on my khaki dress uniform and strolled over to the Marines Club on Tunjungan, a thirty-minute walk. There I ordered a tray of stiff drinks and found myself a quiet spot at the back of the dance hall. The atmosphere was good. They were spinning tunes by Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman on the gramophone. I steadily drained one shot glass after another.
After a few days, I reported to Firefly Barracks and was duly dispatched to Mojosari. ‘Good break, Nolan?’ Lieutenant Lichtenberg asked on my arrival. ‘You look rested at least. Preparations are under way for the big push to Pacet and Trawas. Make sure you have sufficient ammunition and grenades, then help the others pack up the intelligence records and prepare them for transport.’
The day came when all Marine units, including the Security Service, were ready for action. I was once again ordered to join the vanguard and climbed onto the first truck of the column, already full of lads from the assault platoon. ‘Welcome aboard, Intel!’ they said and broke into the battle song of the US Marine Corps.
We were led off by three Greyhound armoured cars and two Sherman tanks from the Heavy Artillery Company. Then came the first truck, with me on board, followed by the Marine Brigade’s second infantry battalion. As we headed south in the early morning and left Mojosari behind us, the road began to rise
beneath our wheels. The mountainous terrain was magnificent but with it came the danger of snipers. We passed deep ravines and walls of sheer rock. No one said much. Some of the men smoked nervously. I maintained an icy calm and kept a sharp lookout in all directions. My M1 rifle was primed and loaded with anti-tank rounds, which could pass through walls and the trunks of young trees.
A couple of Fairey Firefly fighter-bombers escorted us on the way to our objectives in Pacet and Trawas. They launched rockets at enemy positions here and there, after which our Demolition Group had to spring into action to make sure they did not pose a threat: a time-consuming process. Those boys usually had to perform this dangerous work under sniper fire. When the bullets began to fly, we leapt out of the truck and fanned out on both sides of the road to provide cover. By chance, I spotted a sniper in a tree at the edge of a ravine some 200 yards away, his carbine aimed at one of our mine disposal squad. Without a second’s hesitation I pulled the trigger of my M1 and fired three shots in quick succession. The carbine fell from the tree first, then the pemuda.
‘Good shot!’ someone behind me shouted.
Then all hell broke loose. From behind rocks on the slopes around us, the enemy let rip with light artillery and small mortar shells. Almost to a man we jumped from the trucks, ran for cover and began returning fire. A single BAR gunner per truck stayed behind. Everywhere on the mountainside and against rocks I saw pemudas being blown to bits. Latching onto the assault troops, I pressed ahead of the column, scouting deeper into hostile territory. We stumbled upon a nest of pemuda resistance, one of them armed with a Japanese Taisho machine gun. We dispersed rapidly and gunned all five of them down.
After a mile of walking and shooting, we reached a ramshackle bridge that spanned a deep ravine. The railing had been knocked away. The town of Pacet was already visible on the other side.
‘There lies our first objective,’ I said to a few of the lads in the platoon.
The sergeant came and stood next to me. ‘Damn it,’ he said, ‘that bridge is in bad shape. Wait here. I’ll go back to the column alone and put this to the commander.’
Thirty minutes later, the column arrived. Assisted by the boys from the Engineering Corps, the commander examined the construction and the state of the bridge. After weighing up our options for a while, it was decided that a single Sherman tank should cross first. When it reached the other side safely, two more followed. I jumped aboard the second tank. All the way across I could feel the bridge swaying under the heavy weight. The remainder of the column followed. Only the drivers remained in the trucks, while the rest crossed on foot.
The hills of Pacet were studded with splendid bungalows, once the property of wealthy colonials and the Indo elite. Now they stood abandoned and shot to pieces. I searched each building for military documents and translated the few I found for the column commander. This yielded some information on where to expect pockets of resistance as we advanced towards Trawas.
In great haste, a sick bay for wounded marines was set up in one of the larger bungalows and a detachment of marines stayed behind, occupying the buildings that were relatively intact. The main force advanced the extra mile to Trawas, which was already taking a pounding from our Fairey Fireflies. As we approached the town, our party – which included a number of journalists and one or two representatives of the UN Committee of Good Offices – came under intense fire from Japanese knee mortars and machine-gun posts in the sawahs, well camouflaged among the plantain trees.
I was among the dozens of marines who leapt from the road into the sawahs below and opened fire on the enemy. A likeable Frisian lad was running not far from me. I caught sight of a gunman hiding behind a couple of plantain trees some two hundred yards away and, raising my M1 in a reflex, shot him in the head. Not quickly enough: my Frisian comrade fell face down without so much as a whimper. Blood and brains spilled out as I pulled him from the mud and laid him on his back. I wiped the dirt from his face with my handkerchief. A dumdum bullet had hit him square in the forehead. His skull was cracked and stuck to the inside of his helmet.
Members of the UN Committee came over to take a look and a journalist snapped a few photos of the poor Frisian boy. I swore out loud and walked on, straight through the sawahs, in search of more extremists. One or two raised their hands in surrender, but I did not trust them and shot them dead. Further along I spotted another machine gunner and his helper, hidden behind plantains and tall reeds. He was a lousy shot and I eliminated him in seconds. Before his helper could even take aim, one of my mates had blown him to bits with his tommy gun. The Frisian boy was our only fatality that day, though several men were injured, some of them seriously.
The main street in Trawas led up to a grand hotel with a beautiful swimming pool. It turned out to be the pemuda headquarters. Ten marines stormed the building. Resistance was weak and in no time we had seized control of the entire complex and immediately began putting things in order for the staff of the second infantry battalion.
In Pacet and Trawas, we all went in search of decent accommodation among the abandoned holiday bungalows. Sentries were stationed at strategic points. A bunch of us from the Marine Brigade Security Service settled into a bungalow beside a waterfall. I stripped off and showered in the wonderfully cool water. The Dutch lads followed suit.
Events took an unfortunate turn. It transpired that we had advanced much too far into hostile territory and put the government in an awkward spot, politically speaking. The order came down from on high to relinquish our newly won positions in and around Pacet and Trawas. This meant pulling all the way back to the boundary between Mojosari and Mojokerto. It felt as if our hard-earned victory had been for nothing and most of us refused to comply. Colonel Roelofs, our senior commander, was obliged to travel all the way to the front from GHQ in Surabaya to address us in person. He too expressed regret at this state of affairs but insisted that retreating was not an act of cowardice. As marines, we had no choice but to follow orders. Grumbling, everyone prepared for the journey back. Out of revenge and frustration, we booby-trapped buildings, houses and even pianos. Mines were laid on the access roads and on the day of departure we dynamited all the sluice gates to drain the water from every single swimming pool.
*
In the lowest of spirits, we made our way back to Mojosari. At Surabaya HQ-II, I resumed my work as head of Prisoner Interrogations with Department III. In consultation with the head of Department IV, we selected a number of prisoners to conduct espionage operations in the areas we had abandoned. One week later, our informants returned with news that Pacet and Trawas were once again crawling with Indonesian Army units.
*
From Mojosari, I was transferred with another interpreter to the Marine Brigade Security detachment at Purwokerto, some fifty miles south. The entire area had to be purged of extremists, a mission that involved lengthy and exhausting daily patrols, and the occasional skirmish. Indonesian forces were waging a guerrilla war but though the US-trained marines had been primed for conventional warfare, they quickly mastered a range of guerrilla tactics. As local interpreters, we had all been born and raised in the country and spoke the language. Not only that, but we knew the mindset and habits of the Indonesians through and through. This made us invaluable to the Marine Brigade. When I manned the border control with a few marines and saw people heading to market early in the morning, I could pick out suspects among the hard-working locals with considerable accuracy. A look in their eyes or something in the way they moved their arms was often enough to tell me who I was dealing with. Searching market-goers at the checkpoint, I often surprised my Dutch comrades by discovering cunningly concealed hand grenades and landmines under a load of rice sheaves hanging from a trader’s pikolan, or Sten guns and revolvers in the food baskets women carried on their heads. A tough round of interrogation would usually result in arrest and transport to Surabaya for trial. If the danger was more immediate, I shot the pelopors dead on the spot or had them shot. These were men whose
sarongs were rolled up at the waist to conceal a knife, a revolver or a hand grenade, men out to kill marines in a surprise attack. Within a week, we had purged the entire Purwokerto area of extremists and other subversive elements, and I returned to Surabaya for a few days of heavy drinking, scheming Indo girls and an anxious mother.
Tinned cabbage and Bali
In mid-June 1947, I received a telephone call ordering me to report to Surabaya HQ-II in Mojosari. There my commander, Adjutant Mulder of the Marine Corps, told me to travel to Surabaya the next day with my full transport pack. On arrival, I was to report to Captain Groeneveld.
I travelled with a column of food trucks and asked to be dropped near Porongstraat. From there I walked to Firefly Barracks, where I made my presence known to the duty officer. A little later, I was knocking on Captain Groeneveld’s door.
‘Enter!’
I walked into the office, snapped to attention and saluted, awaiting further orders. Instead, Captain Groeneveld came up and shook me by the hand. He offered me a seat, then a cigarette and asked for news from the front. ‘Nolan,’ he said, ‘we will soon be gearing up for a major military operation. Within a limited time frame, we have to capture East Java from the pelopors and occupy the entire area. But before we undertake this mission, I am sending you and a detachment from the Marine Brigade Security Service to Bali for three weeks’ leave, departing in three days. Until then, you will continue your intelligence work here at the office and translate a number of military documents that have been seized. To date, your work at the front has been exceptional. I am extremely satisfied with you. Enjoy your leave.’
‘Many thanks, Captain Groeneveld.’ I rose to my feet, saluted and left.
I began sorting out my pack for the trip. Fortunately I was not required to bring a camp bed or mattress. Any unnecessary items I put in my duffel bag, which I deposited with the quartermaster. In the meantime, the chaplain had given me the addresses of a number of Dutch girls and writing to them struck me as a good way to spend my time, especially during the quieter moments at the front. There was a lively trade in photographs of female penfriends from Holland. There were Dutch girls here in the Indies too, of course, but they were mostly the daughters of civil servants with a colonial posting and were forbidden to have any contact with Indo men, let alone an illegitimate young man like me.
The Interpreter from Java Page 30