Sudirman

General Sudirman , or Soedirman in his original form (January 24, 1916 – January 29, 1950), was the commander of the Indonesian army during the period of armed confrontation with the Dutch following the proclamation of independence of Indonesia , from 1945 to 1949.

Born in the central Java province of Bodas Karangjati village, he attended the Hollandsch-Inlandsche School in Purwokerto , then the teacher training college of the Muslim organization Muhammadiyah in Surakarta . He is then a teacher at the school of Muhammadiyah in Cilacap .

During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies , Sudirman joined the PETA ( Pembela Tanah Air , “defenders of the motherland”), a body of indigenous auxiliaries formed by the Japanese in the event of a landing of the Western Allies ¹ . He became commander of the battalion .

After the surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945 and the proclamation of independence on August 17 by Soekarno and Hatta , he turned his battalion into a regiment of the youngest Indonesian army, based at Banyumas near Purwokerto.

On November 12, 1945, Sudirman was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army, a position he held until his death. His first battle took place in November-December 1945 in Ambarawa in Central Java, against the British and Dutch troops ² . On December 12, he attacked British positions in Ambarawa, forcing them to retreat to Semarang, the provincial capital, on the north coast of Java. The battle December 16 ends ³ .

Suffering from tuberculosis , Sudirman not lead unless the fight guerrillas against the Dutch. He led the resistance to the Dutch attack of December 1948 against Yogyakarta , then capital of the Republic of Indonesia. Theodore Friend (2003) describes him as having “… strangely blended samurai discipline, Marxist disposition, and raw courage” ¹ .

He died in Magelang on January 29, 1950, and is buried at Semaki Military Cemetery in Yogyakarta .

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