Many
of the questions surrounding the death of British Brigadier AWS Mallaby
in Surabaya have not yet been answered. For example, it has never been
clarified in which car this British officer was driving - a not
unimportant detail, isn't it?
By Bert Immerzeel
I do not
really consider myself a big car enthusiast, and I am certainly not the
type that will quickly get into a conversation with other men at
birthday parties about the pulling power of the new diesel engine of the
VW Passat or the design of the Alfa Romeo. But still, I have to admit,
the subject sometimes touches me. And I think that has everything to do
with my own 15 year old BMW. My wife regularly sighs: "Buy a new car,
it's getting too old!", To which I keep coming up with the same defense:
"but he still works, right?"
The funny thing is, the longer I
drive my own car, the harder I find it to part with it. And well, if
that may be called 'loving', then that's just 'loving'. And so I slowly
but surely start to become more interested in the stories of others,
assuming that they (of course: men) also have such a connection with
their car.
Mallaby's car
So it happened that recently I suddenly became curious about Mallaby's car.
Perhaps
a brief explanation is in order here. Historical events or periods are
sometimes better explained by a single photo than by dozens of books or
articles. When it comes to the war period in the Dutch East Indies, some
photos always stand out because they have a more symbolic value than
others: for example, that photo from the Japanese era with women bowing
in an internment camp, or the photo from 1945 of the car of British
Brigadier AWS Mallaby in Surabaya (another photo is known of that car,
probably from a few days earlier).
The flame in the pan
Much
has been written about Mallaby's death on October 30, 1945, but not all
questions have been answered. The assassination of the British army
commander was one of the crucial moments in Surabaya that gave rise to
the Battle of Surabaya. Mallaby, who hoped to relieve some of his troops
in the Internatio building at Willemsplein through negotiations with
the Indonesians, had gone almost unarmed among the people in a car
driven by an Indonesian. With him in the backseat were Captain RC Smith
and Captain TL Laughland. According to a later report by Smith, the men
were disarmed at some point, but Laughland managed to hide another hand
grenade. The driver got out and left the car in the midst of the crowd.
As darkness fell, the British in the Internatio building fired at the
crowd and a firefight ensued between the two sides. The disarmed Mallaby
was shot dead at close range by an Indonesian while he was still in the
back seat. The other two men threw out the grenade and jumped into the
Kali Mas. A few hours later, and with a wet suit, they were able to
establish communication with their troops in Tandjoeng Perak.
So
much in brief is happened on Willemsplein. Because it has never been
known who actually killed Mallaby, nor because it could not be
established with 100% certainty that the British were the first to open
fire, hundreds, if not thousands, of research pages have been devoted to
this event. And most of this material is still "classified" in British
government safes. What has been published, however, focuses entirely on
the question of the actions of the protagonists involved, and reveals
little or nothing of the technical details. And, surprisingly enough:
not even an article about the car itself!
The LaSalle Sedan
What
brand is that car actually from? - I wondered when looking at the
famous photo. In search of the answer, I could not come up with much
else than to compare the car with images on the internet. After some
surfing I thought I had found the answer. It looked very much like a
1940 or 1941 Chevrolet Sedan. At the same time, I knew this was wrong.
Some details (the grille, the headlights, the window bars) were slightly
different from that Chevy. But then what was it?
Because I
couldn't figure it out, I put the question to a friend who I knew is
such an automan-man. And yes, less than an hour later I had the answer:
Mallaby was sitting in a LaSalle 1940 series 52 Sedan when he was shot
dead. Without any doubt!
The LaSalle, like the Chevrolet and
Cadillac, is a chic car brand from the General Motors factories. And
this immediately explains why they look so similar at first glance. The
brand was launched by GM in 1927 to fill a price gap: the American
middle class needed a better car than the Buick, but did not yet have
enough income for a Cadillac. The cheapest LaSalle was still a hefty
investment with its price of $ 2685. The name - like that of the
Cadillac - came from a French 17th century explorer. In 1940 the brand
was withdrawn from the market because it was outstripped by other models
and sales figures had fallen too much.
Gray, dark gray
Even
though we now know which car Mallaby was in, many other questions of
course remain unanswered. Who owned this car? It is well known that the
LaSalles were imported into the Dutch East Indies before the war.
However, were cars still shipped from the United States to the Dutch
East Indies in 1940? If the latter was the case, then this car would of
course have been confiscated in 1942 and used by the Japanese for three
years.
The strength of the photo is of course largely in the
contrast between the pathetic car wreck ('the colonial power') and the
proud Republican sign behind it. This also begs the question of whether
the picture was not directed for political reasons.
The
image shows few other details. We even have to guess about the color of
the car. However, given the outcome of the vehicle and its occupants, I
stick to gray, dark gray.
Thanks to Gjalt van der Molen, the man who knows so much about cars!
Source :
https://javapost.nl/2010/12/14/de-auto-van-mallaby/
