Dutch Military Action in Product Operations in Sukabumi. Photo: National Archives of the Netherlands.

As a child, Hetty Kabir still remembers the situation in Sukabumi on July 26, 1947. The woman born in 1937 described how that morning dozens of planes hovered over the city while releasing bombs that destroyed several strategic places.

"One of them is the Sukabumi Train Station, which is directly ravaged by Dutch bombs," recalled the daughter of Major Aaron Kabir, one of the Siliwangi Division officers.

Aware of the danger of threatening, that afternoon also most of Sukabumi people fled out of town. In the meantime, the strength of Surjakantjana Brigade responsible for the security of Bogor, Sukabumi and Cianjur areas instead of resistance, they were forced to retreat towards Nyalindung. In the city between Cianjur and Sukabumi, in cooperation with civilian officials, they set up an emergency government.

For Production Land

In his book Indonesie, Nederland en de Wereld (Indonesia, Holland and the World), H.J. van Mook states that a military operation is necessary to occupy some areas that are politically and economically very important for the Netherlands. Sukabumi is one of them, because there are many economic resources in the form of tea plantation, coffee plantation and the biggest rubber plantation in South East Asia that is Cipetir Plantation.

By deploying approximately 1,000 troops from the 7th Division and Division B, the Dutch began Operation Products (military action to seize economic resources) to Sukabumi on July 21, 1947, past midnight before dawn. They moved from the direction of Bogor and immediately pushed towards Sukabumi by first occupying Cigombong, Cicurug and Cibadak,

"Those who rode carriers and armed with anti-tank cannon, broke through quickly and suddenly, struck all the obstacles that TNI soldiers had installed on the highway," said A.H. Nasution in Around the War of Independence Volume V.

Before the Dutch troops reached Sukabumi, TNI troops who were supposed to be preparing themselves inside the city had even avoided out of town. It was identified by Battalion IV of the Tangerang Regiment led by Captain Kemal Idris who had just reached Sukabumi on his way to Cikampek.

According to one company commander Yon IV Lieutenant One Marzoeki Soelaiman, as they gained legs in Sukabumi the atmosphere was swinging. There were hardly any TNI or lasykar members visible except for some sections that looked confused because there was no command.

"I can even tell from them that the TNI commander who should have survived to defend Sukabumi even escaped with a number of German women," Marzoeki told Historia.

Not wanting to bear the blame, Yon IV Tangerang Regiment finally went to Cianjur. Instead of moving to Cikampek and besieging Jakarta, Yon IV was eventually assigned to make a base in the southern region of Cianjur until the war ended in August 1949.

Evacuate to Nyalindung

From the eastern sector, Dutch military tetiba sank Sukabumi. A pioneer army equipped with an armored cavalry escadron broke straight into the city and directly controlled the Ubrug power plant.

"On July 26, Sukabumi was fully controlled by the Dutch," Nasution said.

The sudden attack of the Dutch made the remaining troops and lasykar troop who survived in the city did not have time to run the charred earth action. In order to avoid a more vigorous attack, they were forced to dodge toward Nyalindung with the refugees.

Sukabumi's secrets were recorded in Hetty Kabir's memory. Still fresh in the memories of the people with a small army flocking out of the city on foot, while Dutch military hunters fly overhead.

"Once in a while, they threw us bombs and shot us as if we were going to play with us in fear," said the woman who had a career in the Defense and Security Department.

Of course they are powerless against these attacks. The victim also fell. Among them was the 12.7 machine gun fire that killed a family of a Siliwangi lieutenant.

"Including the baby's youngest son of the lieutenant who I often teased along the road was also killed bomb," recalls Hetty.

Since July 1947, Nyalindung officially became the seat of emergency government of the Republic of Indonesia in Sukabumi. The high-ranking Republican of the Republic of Sukabumi, Hilman Djayadiningrat himself, never followed his ranks to Nyalindung. He decided to join the Dutch and was appointed governor of West Java in the van Indies government.

This article is quoted in historia.id