GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY 151
‘Midnight came without any pause in the fighting. The Indonesians took no account of their dead; when one man fell, another came forward, drunk, half crazed at the sight of blood. The hours ebbed slowly away and, as each hour passed, the plight of the defenders worsened ... the sands of time were running out ... this heroic resistance could only end in the extermination of 49th Brigade unless somebody could quell the passions of the mob.’
The Fighting Cock - the History of the 23rd Indian Division, by Lieutenant-Colonel A. J. F. Doulton, O.B.E., referring to 49th Indian Brigade’s desperate stand at Sourabaja, Java, in October 1945.
A rare post-war Java operations M.M. group of six awarded to Lance-Havildar Fazal Hussain, 6th Rajput Rifles, who, in the face of ‘overwhelming odds’, accounted for 70 Indonesian rebels - dead or wounded - in the storm that erupted at Sourabaja in October 1945, when ‘the bestial scenes that followed in the name of freedom rivalled the vilest moments of the French Revolution’
MILITARY MEDAL,
G.VI.R. (14624 L.-Hav. Fazal Hussain, Raj. Rifs.); 1939-45 STAR; BURMA STAR; WAR MEDAL 1939-45; INDIA SERVICE MEDAL 1939-45; GENERAL SERVICE 1918-62, 1 clasp, S.E. Asia 1945-46, unnamed, very fine or better (6) £1200-1400
M.M. London Gazette 4 April 1946:
‘In recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the Far East.’ The original recommendation states:
‘At Sourabaja, Java, near Darmo Station, on 28 October 1945, one platoon of ‘A’ Company was holding a building on the North Bank of the river. The Indonesians commenced to attack about 1800 hours and continued throughout the night of 28th-29th without any success.
At about 0445 hours the enemy put in a fierce attack on both flanks with about 400 men but the position was held. Two or three hours later the attack was renewed with increased ferocity, supported by tanks. One L.M.G. gunner was severely wounded in the first few minutes of the battle. Naik Fazal Hussain, his Section Commander, immediately ran forward, removed the wounded man and took up position behind the gun himself. This attack continued for three hours during which time this N.C.O., with extremely well controlled fire, held a force of 200 before they finally withdrew in confusion. 70 dead and wounded were carried away from in front of his gun position after the truce was ordered, all falling to the fire of Naik Fazal Hussain. This N.C.O’s cool action against overwhelming odds was responsible for holding the position. He displayed courage and determination of the highest order and showed a brilliant example to the men under his command.’
Fazal Hussain was from Takkal village in Rawalpindi district. He was serving in the 5th Battalion (Napier’s), 6th Rajput Rifles, at the time of the above cited deeds, a component of 49th Indian Infantry Brigade, 23rd Indian Division.
Sourabaja (or Surabaya) was the Dutch naval base in East Java, where, in October 1945, the 5-6th Rajputs, and supporting units, were landed to take control of increasing signs of Indonesian hostility - ‘customary unfriendly slogans’ covered the dock installations and a rebel machine-gun was trained on the leading ship as the force made its approach.
On this occasion, however, the rebels guns remained silent, and the troops of the 49th Indian Brigade were able to establish themselves inland, albeit in spread out pockets, often only of platoon strength. They faced a formidable foe, for the ‘People’s Defence Army’ had equipped itself with arms, ammunition and armour from the recently surrendered Japanese garrison. A sense of the scale of the problem facing Havildar Fazal Hussain and his comrades may be found in Lieutenant-Colonel A. J. F. Doulton’s history of the 23rd Indian Division, The Fighting Cock:
‘Suddenly, about 1630 hours, on the afternoon of 28 October, the whole town rose in arms against us, a fanatical mob over 140,000 strong and 20,000 of them Japanese trained, whipped up to an uncontrollable frenzy and armed to the teeth against 4,000 troops, many of them in isolated company and platoon posts. The bestial scenes that followed in the name of freedom rivalled the vilest moments of the French Revolution.’
Here, then, the moment that Fazal Hussain and his comrades in the 5-6th Rajput Rifles found themselves encircled at Dharmo Hospital, around four miles from Sourabaja’s port. Doulton continues:
‘Throughout the city mob rule prevailed. Some officers who were on lone missions when the storm broke were never heard of again ... 49th Indian Brigade were fighting for their lives with odds weighed heavily against them ... It was a situation to try the nerves of the most hardened, but many of these men were veterans of Shenam and Sangshak, of Gibraltar and Rajput Hill, and they knew how to fight. Fight they did with magnificent gallantry - in some cases until their ammunition was gone, when the frenzied mob was free to swarm in for the killing. 5/6 Rajrif suffered the worst, for this battalion was the most dispersed, and already by midnight one of their platoons had been obliterated. There were desperate battles all over the town. The Naik [Fazal Hussain] in command of one Rajrif section took over the Bren when the gunner was wounded and saw seventy of the enemy fall in front of the post ... ’
At length, following the bloody fighting of the 28th-29th, a truce of sorts was established; yet the ensuing negotiations for a proper peace settlement were protracted and exhausting, for the Indonesians were ‘truculent, evasive, dilatory and unco-operative’ from the outset.
The cost to 49th Indian Brigade, as a consequence of the ‘inferno’ that erupted at Sourabaja in October 1945, amounted to 220 killed or missing, and 80 wounded, the former category including Brigadier Mallaby, who was murdered in cold blood during the course of conducting said peace negotiations.
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