D. I. Pandjaitan

D.I. Pandjaitan was born in Sitorang, Balige in the Tapanuli region of North Sumatra. After completing elementary and high school, with the arrival of the invading Japanese, he underwent Japanese Giyūgun military education. He was then posted to Pekanbaru, and was there when Indonesian independence was declared on 17 August 1945.^[3][4][5]

In November 1945, Pandjaitan, together with other young people, helped establish a local branch of the People’s Security Army (TKR), initially serving as a battalion commander. In March 1948, he was appointed commander for the organization and education of the XI/Banteng Division at Bukittinggi, West Sumatra. Not long after, he became the fourth deputy commander (supplies) for the Sumatran Army Command, then when the Dutch launched their Second Police Action against the republic, he was put in charge of supplies for the Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia.^[5]

After the Dutch recognition of Indonesian sovereignty in 1949, Pandjaitan was posted to the headquarters of the Sumatran Division in Medan, and on 2 January 1950 became head of the operational staff of the I/Bukit Barisan Division. He was then transferred to Palembang, South Sumatra, and appointed deputy commander of the II/Sriwijaya Division. From October 1952 to July 1957, he served as the military attaché to the Indonesian embassy in Bonn, West Germany. Upon his return to Indonesia, he joined the Army General Staff. He attended a course at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth from December 1963 to June 1964. He then took up his final post as fourth assistant to the Army Chief of Staff for logistics and ordnance.^[3][5]

In the early hours of 1 October 1965, several members of the 30 September Movement left Lubang Buaya on the eastern outskirts of Jakarta to seize key military figures and take them hostage. Pandjaitan was among their targets, so they broke the fence near his house along Jalan Hasanuddin, Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta. They shot and killed one of the household staff sleeping on the ground floor of Pandjaitan’s two-storey house, before calling on Pandjaitan himself to come down. Two of the men involved at the time were Albert Naiborhu and Viktor Naiborhu, who were seriously injured during the attempted kidnapping, with Albert dying shortly afterward. Pandjaitan, then in full army dress, came from the second floor and allowed himself to be led away, stopping briefly to pray in his front yard. After some minutes of irritatedly waiting for Pandjaitan to finish prayers, his captors lost their patience and shot him dead from behind.^[6][7]

His body was put in a truck and brought to the movement’s headquarters at Lubang Buaya. His body, along with those of his colleagues who had also been killed, were thrown down a nearby disused well. The bodies were found on 4 October, and all were given a state funeral the following day. Pandjaitan, along with the other victims, are buried at the Kalibata Heroes’ Cemetery in South Jakarta. Pandjaitan was posthumously promoted to major general and awarded the title Hero of the Revolution.