Free Indonesian Gold by Kerry B. Collison Page B

Australia. These were proud times for the Republic’s young pilots, the more

fortunate assigned to fly the recently acquired, TU-16 long-range Soviet bombers. Jonathan was

impressed with this huge aircraft, the USSR’s equivalent of the American B-52, which his comrades

regularly flew from their airfields in Java, to points provocatively close to British Vulcan

bomber bases in Singapore. Jonathan watched, proudly, as his country’s defense forces grew to

threatening proportions, amassing half a million servicemen by the close of 1964, supported by an

array of soviet tanks, missiles, warships and, by the close of that year, several squadrons of

MiG fighters.
    At twenty-three, Captain Jonathan Dau was posted to Number

14 Squadron, located at the Kemayoran Air Force Base in Jakarta where he flew MiG21s.

Increasingly disillusioned with President Soekarno’s all-embracing, political philosophies, and

his failure to make payments for the arsenal Moscow provided, the Soviets ceased supplying spare

parts. Within six months, even with cannibalizing most of their aircraft inventory, all but four

of AURI’s fighter fleet had been grounded, and Jonathan’s dream to remain airborne came crashing

down. Across the nation, morale fell to an all-time low. In Borneo, Australian and British SAS

successful deep-penetration operations across the Sarawak-Kalimantan borders, had brought the

Indonesian Army to a standstill. British Vulcan bombers now flew regular missions over AURI bases

threatening to drop atomic warheads on Indonesian cities in the event the Soviet supplied TU-16

bombers reappeared on RAF, Singapore or Darwin-based radar screens.
    Bitter with the country’s rapidly deteriorating military

position, one of Jonathan’s fellow MiG squadron pilots decided that Soekarno should be removed

from the nation’s helm. The officer waited for his chance and, when a Palace informant phoned

advising that the President would attend a formal reception that evening, the pilot climbed into

his MiG and went charging into the capital. He flew south and around Kebayoran, along Jalan

Jenderal Sudirman, the jet’s engine screaming above the Selamat Datang statue outside the

Hotel Indonesia as he tore along Jalan Thamrin, before lining up on Merdeka Barat. With the

Palace directly in his sights, he commenced firing his canons into the well-lit structure, and

continued to do so until exhausting his ammunition. Inside, guests screamed and fell to

highly-polished, marble floors, the MiG’s cannons piercing the former Dutch Governor’s colonial

offices’ solid walls, showering diplomats and other dignitaries with debris and shattered

chandeliers.
    Unbeknown to the young officer, the President was not

present when the attack was executed, Soekarno finding humor in the fist-sized holes throughout

the Palace when he finally strutted into the reception, half an hour late, surviving what was to

be the first of six assassination attempts on his charmed life.
    The pilot returned to base where word of his transgression

had yet to reach his fellow pilots’ ears but, when it did, each in turn was equally devastated by

the news that their comrade had failed. Stigmatized by the assassination attempt, the squadron’s

other pilots accepted that their careers would, undoubtedly, take an abrupt turn, and most

resigned their commissions.
    The following year, General Suharto successfully effected

his own coup d’etat and turned Indonesia upside down. During the bloody aftermath,

Suharto’s brutal co-conspirators, Sarwo Eddhie, Ali Murtopo and Amir Machmud specifically

targeted the air force – the cleansing process implemented reducing the officer corps by

more than eighty percent. The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Omar Dhani, was arrested and tried,

his replacement, the thirty-seven year old Rusmin Nuryadin who, the year