BANDUNG SEA OF

FIRE
Orientation :
Bandung is the capital city of West Java Province. Talking
about Bandung, Indonesian people must know Bandung Sea of
Fire (Bandung Lautan Api). It isn’t a real “sea of fire”, but it refers
to the burning of the city Bandung in march 1946. It was one of
the most famous events of the independence struggle, one of
the handful of incidents.
Events :
 October 12, 1945, the Allied troops arrived in Bandung. They gave the
ultimatum to hand over all their weapons which they seized from the Japanese
troops. They also ordered the Indonesian militias to leave Bandung. However,
the Indonesian militias ignored the ultimatum.
 November 24, 1945, the civil security army and the militia attacked British
headquarters. This condition continued until 1946
 1 February 1946, a British officer described the situation as a ‘very
uncomvortable rest’. He compared the concentration of Indonesian militias
south of the railway tracks with a large army garrison. The city of Bandung was
divided by railway tracks into an Allied zone in the north and an Indonesian
zone is in the south. In the hope of ending the clashes, the British commander
ordered the militias to leave. The stand off reached its climax with an extremly
violent confrontation in late March 1946 that forced the Indonesian to pull out.
In response, the militias burned public buildings, warehouse, factories, and
homes on their way out. The southern part of Bandung was deliberately burnt
down in an act defiance as they left. They burned down almost all important
buildings and infrastructure while withdrawing from southern Bandung to show
their resistance. It’s called Bandung Sea of Fire .
 March 1946, During the evacuation, Mohammad Toha, a member of
Indonesian militias, smuggled several sticks of dynamite past Japanese and
Dutch troops, and into the Dutch military Headquarters in Dayeuh Kolot. He
detonated the dynamite in warehouse of ammunition in the area. The
explosion created a small lake in Dayeuh Kolot. To commemorate his
sacrifice, the main street in this area is called Mohammad Toha Street.

 Reorientation :
 Bandung Sea of Fire event is a big event fires that occurred in the city of
Bandung, West Java, Indonesia on March 24, 1946. within seven hours, about
200,000 inhabitants of Bandung burnt their homes, leaving the city to the
mountain in the shouthern region of Bandung. This is done to prevent the allied
troops and the Dutch troops to be able to use the city of Bandung as a strategic
military base in the war of independence Indonesia