At the barracks, Captain Willems assigned me to the assault platoon under the command of Lieutenant Havik. I walked down the column and loaded my things into the farthest truck, which would be leading the way. Soon the whole column set off towards Surabaya’s port district, bound for Ujung naval docks.
Landing ships were waiting at the quayside. We passed LST Wundi and arrived at LST-4 Pelican. Having shouldered our marching packs, we lined up and filed aboard, leaving the rest of our gear in the trucks. It was high noon and the heat was blistering. On deck I found a spot in the shade of an armour plate and a cannon, put down the dead weight of my pack and took off my shirt. Lunch consisted of a two-pound tin of sausage, cabbage and mash, a can of Pabst beer and a few slices of bread with cheese and jam. Once again, I fished the sausage from the tin and tossed the rest to the tiger sharks.
It was late afternoon before the Pelican was finally loaded with materiel and fighting men. The ship’s whistle sounded and slowly we set sail. A little later, I saw the Wundi ease away from the quayside behind us. The cool sea breeze was a tonic.
The Pelican was carrying the men of Blue Column, the Wundi the men of Red Column. When we landed, Blue was to head east and push through to Jember and the rest of the Eastern Salient. Red was to head west to Probolinggo and Pasuruan.
*
On 20 July, our Pelican was making steady progress through the Madura Strait. The water was choppy and I began to feel seasick again. The atmosphere on board was tense. Some of the lads wrote letters to their loved ones back in Holland. A ship’s chaplain for the Catholics and a pastor for the Protestants made their rounds, trying to boost morale. The pastor noted my personal details and asked me what I wanted to happen in the event of my death. I answered that I wanted my belongings to be given to my mother, Sie Swan Nio, and the band of the Royal Marines to play Glenn Miller’s ‘Moonlight Serenade’ at my funeral.
That night I was unable to sleep below deck. I clambered out of my bunk and went looking for a quiet spot in the open air. Seeing a jeep that was lashed down, I climbed on the bonnet, set my heels against the ship’s railing and leaned back against the raised windscreen. Scenes from my past flashed before my eyes. The beatings I took as a boy. The horrors of the Japanese occupation. The violence at the start of the Indonesian revolution. It did not matter much to me whether I lived or died.
I lit a cigarette and stared up at the countless stars in a cloudless sky. After a while, a marine from the Heavy Artillery Company appeared and kept me company. He was worried about what was in store for us and told me about his girl, his family and his life in Holland. Since I only knew Holland from my schoolbooks and a handful of movies, I was an eager listener. I had yet to write to a Dutch girl, though I was planning to. He told me brown lads like me were accepted as equals in Holland and were popular with the girls. This surprised me and piqued my curiosity about those girls, far away in Holland. Mama had always warned me that Indo girls were nothing but lazy two-timers. ‘Marry an Indo girl, and I will curse you till the day you die. You deserve a better woman when you are older!’
*
The night drifted past. Dawn broke in the east to reveal the contours of the Wundi, the torpedo boat Piet Hein and other Navy vessels. Feeling sluggish, I left my spot on the jeep, went down to the washrooms and took a refreshing bath, perhaps the last of my short life.
Back at my bunk, I put on my utility uniform and buckled my belt. I got my marching pack ready for action and stowed the rest of my things in my transport pack. My comrades rubbed their sleepy eyes in astonishment at seeing me up so early. I returned to the deck and ambled over to the bridge. There I saluted Lieutenant Colonel Aberson of the Marine Corps, commander of 2-INBAT and of Blue Column, to which I now belonged. Directly on landing, I was to travel on with 2-INBAT’s assault platoon.
Between six and half past it was ‘up and at em’, then off to the galley for a meagre Dutch breakfast of coffee and a few slices of bread with ham and cheese. As an Indo, I was used to starting the day with nasi goreng, but I found myself a quiet place on the footboard of a truck and made the best of things. I rinsed my mug in the washrooms, put it in its holder and carefully placed my water bottle on top, before attaching the whole thing to my combat belt. In the galley, I asked the cook to pour some coffee into my water bottle.
Between nine and ten in the morning, a Convair PBY Catalina flying boat belonging to the KNIL air force flew over, heading south towards the famous beach at Pasir Putih, where we were due to land. It was followed soon after by a couple of Fairey Firefly fighter-bombers. Before long, I saw them launch their deadly rockets at Indonesian Army and Navy positions, and heard our naval artillery bombarding the beach.
After the barrage, the boys from 2-INBAT’s assault platoon took their places for landing. Rope ladders were rolled out midships and the marines clambered down into the landing craft.
Just as I was about to join them, Lieutenant Havik grabbed me by the shoulders. ‘Nolan,’ he said, ‘head straight for the lower deck. I need one man in the first truck, directly behind the Sherman tank. As soon as that truck hits the sand, your job will be to look out for enemy gunfire and warn the assault troops as they land.’
This effectively made me a sitting duck, drawing enemy fire by revealing my position. Not the most enviable assignment.
I rushed to my bunk, strapped on my marching pack, grabbed my M1 and my transport pack, and descended to the stifling heat of the lower deck, where the rolling stock were already warming up their engines. I glanced in the direction of the landing point and saw that the Pelican was heading straight for it at speed. I climbed aboard the truck behind the Sherman tank. The driver was bathed in sweat. My own uniform was sopping wet too.
Moments later, the Pelican scraped onto the burning sand. Its bow doors opened and a stiff breeze blew in. The tank rumbled down the heavy ramp onto to the beach and started up the slight incline towards the Panarukan road. Our truck was right behind. I stood up and began scanning for flashes of gunfire among the trees that lined the coast road above the beach. To my left a marine yelled, ‘Look out, right above you! A pelopor in the trees!’
I spotted a shadow among the dense leaves and fired twice. Instead of a sniper, a big black monkey tumbled from the branches. I looked deflated, while every lad who saw it happen fell about laughing. For a moment they forgot the danger they were in.
Once the Pelican had disgorged its rolling stock, we formed a column on the road to Panarukan. The trucks were manned in no time and the tanks and armoured vehicles soon got the column moving. We met scant resistance and suffered only one casualty: a marine was shot in the chest and had to be carried back to the Pelican. Even so, he was lucky: the bullet had passed through his rib cage and out the other side.
As we approached Panarukan, the leading tanks began firing. Every one of our trucks had a .50 calibre machine gun mounted on a pivot behind the driver’s cabin. I shouted to the trucks behind, ‘Up ahead! Two o’clock… enemy naval barracks, still manned!’
We found out later that many of those Indonesian marines were armed with nothing but wooden training rifles. Our gunners opened fire as we drove past and the trucks slowed to let us jump off. I ran to the barracks gates, while our assault troops spread out for a turkey shoot, targeting anything that moved. One of our armoured vehicles blew the gate off to give us access to the compound. Gun blazing, I sprinted across the parade ground, heading straight for the main building. With a couple of marines covering my back, I went through every office in search of military documents, yanking open desk drawers and filing cabinets, kicking in doors and blasting locks apart. It was rich pickings. Fellow marines helped me carry piles of military maps from the barracks. Lieutenant Colonel Aberson immediately began outlining the next phase of his strategy with the other commanders. Things moved so quickly that I did not get to interrogate a single prisoner of war. Every last Indonesian had been killed.
We jumped back on the trucks and made slow but steady progress
towards Situbondo, one of the easternmost points of Java. Resistance grew and the column came under intense fire from heavily guarded buildings on either side of the road. Our tanks and armoured vehicles shot back. We had to leap off the trucks again, this time to storm the buildings. Enemy fire was so fierce at times that troops with bazookas and flamethrowers had to come forward while we gave them cover. The buildings were being defended by fanatical Revolutionary Front and Hizbullah units. Many were armed with only bamboo spears or machetes, while a few had hand grenades and rifles. Amid loud cries of ‘Merdeka’, those maniacs charged towards our tanks and armoured cars, running headlong to their deaths, completely mata gelap. Not one man surrendered. We blew them all to pieces.
When that massacre was behind us, we came across trenches and bunkers manned by the Indonesian Army. Our bazookas and flamethrowers came forward again, destroying one bunker after another. We lobbed hand grenades into the trenches and heard the sudden quiet that followed the blast. I crept over to size up the situation, a tactic I had learned from the Gurkha soldiers. But further on, resistance flared again and the column advanced at little more than walking pace.
*
We battled on through fierce fighting and reached Situbondo without losing a single man, though some had been wounded. Almost the entire company surged forwards as back-up for the assault troops as we searched every house in Situbondo for military documents of possible use to our commanders. Here and there we saw old people and children by the roadside. One old man told me there was an internment camp for women and children out towards Prajekan. I reported the existence of this camp to Lieutenant Havik and he ordered twenty lads from the assault platoon to board a truck and help me find it.
Sure enough, a few miles past Situbondo we spotted barbed-wire fences, patrolled by men armed with bamboo spears and machetes. We leapt from our truck and ran towards them in formation. I gunned down two of the guards and took out a third by the gate, which I proceeded to unlock with one of the keys from his belt. We walked in past the barracks and saw countless women and children: Indos, Dutch, Ambonese and Manadonese. Most lay on the ground, staring up at us in terror.
‘We are Dutch marines! We are your friends!’ I shouted in Malay. ‘Collect your things and walk to the main road. Go on, leave this place. You have nothing to fear!’
Almost all of the women and children got to their feet, weeping with joy. They seemed lost and bewildered, but a feeble cheer rose up among them. Tears sprang into my eyes. The poor souls straggled towards the Prajekan road. By this time, more trucks had arrived and the marines on board handed out K rations. Lieutenant Havik pulled up in his jeep and ordered that the internees be sent to the rear of the column. We had to push on towards Prajekan, a short distance inland.
*
Prajekan was reached late in the afternoon and, after a brief but intense gun battle, we succeeded in capturing the sugar factory that was our objective. We had to halt and spend the night there.
In the fading light, I walked back to the truck for the rest of my things. Dog-tired and lumbered with the weight of my transport pack, I headed for the factory offices and joined the boys from the assault platoon poking around in the shadows for a place to bed down. One or two of the office cabinets were packed with mines and we felt uneasy enough to call in the Demolition Group. Disabling the mines turned out to be an impossible task. For want of a better idea, we carried them out as carefully as we could and laid them in the far corner of a large open-plan office. When that was done, we were finally able to make up our beds on the floor. Our only light came from tins of paraffin oil and small spirit lamps but the engineers kept working on the generators at the rear of the factory and within a few hours they managed to restore some power, which gave us electric light here and there. The mobile kitchens were working flat out, as all the men were in dire need of warm tea and coffee. For food we had to make do with more K rations.
Two .50 calibre machine guns were positioned at the door and guard posts were set up. I spread my poncho on the floor and laid a folded blanket on top. My knapsack, crammed with gun cartridges and hand grenades, served as my pillow. Still wearing my uniform and my boots, I pulled a second blanket over me.
At two in the morning I was woken by a dig in the ribs from one of my mates, whose watch I had to take over. I got up immediately, folded my blankets and poncho, and buckled everything, knapsack and all, to my transport pack. I grabbed my M1, strapped my fighting knife to my leg and headed for the machine-gun post to which I had been assigned. The gun had been set up to cover a wide stretch of the main road.
The sky was clear, moonless and full of stars. Beside me sat a seaman from E Company, whose watch ended at three. The boy seemed very edgy but when he saw I was an Indo, he relaxed a little and began asking question after question about life in the Indies and the customs and traditions of its peoples. We spoke in whispers.
When my watch was almost over, I went to dig another seaman in the ribs and tried to catch some more sleep, sitting because I could not face making up my bed again. Just as I was nodding off, the sound of both machine guns firing almost simultaneously jolted me awake. I grabbed my M1 and ran back to the guard post.
‘I got them! Two of them!’ my replacement shouted excitedly.
‘Give me your flashlight. I’ll go and take a look,’ I shouted back.
More marines came running. With the flashlight in my left hand and my M1 in my right, I stepped out into the road. Instead of a couple of dead pelopors, I saw the body of a water buffalo.
‘Hey, you just shot a water buffalo. Stone dead!’ I yelled back. A few of the others came over to take a look and we creased up with laughter. The gunners looked more than a little sheepish.
‘Oh well,’ I chuckled, ‘it’s a better catch than that monkey I shot earlier.’
Before long, a couple of cooks appeared with their helpers. Armed with butcher’s knives and dragging huge pots, they began carving the poor creature up. ‘This will make fine soup. Enough for the whole column!’ they shouted cheerfully. ‘Fresh meat at last!’
Breakfast next morning was a piping hot mug of tasty soup, made from the meat and bones of our sad old water buffalo. It did me a power of good.
*
Breakfast over, we started preparing for the big push to Bondowoso and Jember, the region where my grandfather had brought vast tracts of land under cultivation a century earlier. I loaded my transport pack onto the truck along with a replenished supply of ammunition. There was a ditch across the road. The water was not clear, but good enough for me to wash my face and rinse my mouth.
Road blocks hampered our progress. Trees had been felled and landmines concealed under them. We finally made it to a strategic road bridge with a kampong on the other side. There, more hell broke loose. Every gun on our tanks and armoured vehicles spat murderous fire at the camouflaged enemy positions in the surrounding bushes and woodland.
When the resistance became overwhelming, we called for close air support. Before long, Fairey Fireflies came roaring over, unleashing rockets and machine-gun fire on the enemy’s positions and bunkers. This wasn’t much help and some marines wore orange patches on their backs so that our pilots would not shoot their own men from the air.
The full force of our infantry jumped off the trucks and advanced on the enemy. Fierce gun battles broke out. Our flamethrowers and bazookas went into action.
Along with a few marines from the assault platoon, I ducked into the bushes at the roadside and headed for the bridge to locate the source of the machine-gun rattle. We circled wide in an effort to outflank the enemy and attack from behind. Around fifty yards ahead, I saw a handful of extremists firing a double-barrelled machine gun on a double mount – as was standard on pre-war navy patrol boats. I crept up behind them and threw a hand grenade, then dived to the ground among the bushes. A violent blast followed and the machine-gun post was silenced for good, the bodies of five dead extremists lay scattered. More machine-gun posts were destroyed
by other lads from the assault platoon.
The resistance was far from broken. We were still under constant fire from all directions. Now and then I saw our fighter-bombers strafing targets on the ground and soon after, our lads managed to take the bridge. The Demolition Group immediately moved in to disarm the mines planted under it. When their job was done, we surged across in the direction of the kampong.
I loaded my M1 with tracer bullets and fired at the kampong houses to set them alight. Pelopors came running out and were mowed down by waiting marines. The column ground to a halt not far from the bridge, the road blocked by felled trees and chevaux de frise. I could see booby traps among the spikes of the barricades. They had to be defused with great care. Some marines, equipped with light-weight jungle carbines, lost their patience and blew the booby traps apart. This made one hell of a racket and there was a danger of being hit by flying shrapnel.
Once the barricades were stripped of mines and booby traps, our tank-bulldozer came through to clear the debris and the column advanced once again. All the infantrymen continued on foot. We had to keep our eyes peeled, from the grass to the highest branches. Every now and then, a marine would shoot and a sniper would fall from a tree. A few of our men were wounded, but none seriously and we had suffered no fatalities.
Along the road, we had to look out for wires that might lead to more booby traps. Here and there I saw the bodies of women and children in the bushes. If we saw a woman’s body on top of a man’s, we shot them, knowing that pelopors often used women and children as shields.
I took a short detour and returned to the Bondowoso road to see a huddle of small boys and girls sitting on the ground, terrified. I asked them where I could expect further resistance from pelopors and, without hesitating, they told me the locations of enemy positions and an internment camp for women and children a mile or so up ahead. I passed this information on to the assault troops and asked Lieutenant Havik for back-up from BAR and tommy gunners. On the lieutenant’s orders, a truck with a rifle squad of eight marines came to the fore. I jumped on, keeping low to use the sides of the loading platform as cover. One corporal stayed on his feet to man the .50 calibre machine gun. The truck was moving too fast for us to take aim, but he sprayed bullets left and right wherever we drew pelopor fire.
The Interpreter from Java Page 32