Jupiter 39's Parents

   When the Japanese failed with their effort to contain the guerrilla even by forcing an economic blockade, my father and his comrades in battle were offered an amnesty in return of an immediate surrender, or their family would be oppressed and possibly harmed!    My father and his troop with the consent of their Dutch superiors obviously had no other choice than complying with the ultimatum and being sent to the prisoner's camp in Manado.  Fortunately this situation did not last long before the Japanese rule in this land came to an end. While Lieutenant De Jong and Lieutenant Van Daalen — their Dutch superiors — who didn't want to surrender to the Japanese, were eventually caught, being taken prisoner, and executed by the Japanese.

   The story about the Guerrilla War in Central Sulawesi had been written in Dutch by Michiel Hegener (b.1952) — a Dutch free lance journalist — entitled "Guerrilla in Mori:   Het verzet tegen de Japanners op Midden-Celebes in de Tweede Wereldoorlog" (Guerrilla in Mori:   The resistance against the Japanese in Central Sulawesi during World War II), published in 1990 by Contact, Amsterdam. Another book in the Bahasa Indonesia which project is still underway and written by the late Jimmy A. Legoh (edited by me!) is titled “Anoa Jantan dari Timur” (The Male Anoa of The East).

   My grandfather, Willem Mundung, was a traditional farmer from Kumelembuai, a high elevated village on the highlands of southern Minahassa, about 30 kilometers south of Amurang. He had another son (my father's immediate younger brother), Ds. Bertus Mundung, a priest of the Protestant church in the Minahassa who had been further educated in the Netherlands during the early 1930's and later took the position of Chairman of the Council of Churches in the Minahassa. He used to reside in Tomohon, a town located 25 kilometers southeast of Manado, until he passed away in 1948.
   

   My grandmother, Engelina Kalalo, was a native of Tewasen, another high elevated village just south of Amurang.
   My grandfather had 3 other sons: Apollos, Anton, and Wilhelmus (Wim), and 3 daughters: Merrie, Mina, and Dina.

   Note:  The Dutch title Ds. stands for Dominus (Lat.) or Dominee, seemingly equivalent to the English word Reverend (Rev.)

I started to become self-supported only after I had been enrolled as an Air Force pilot candidate, and as a cadet I was sent abroad with my other colleagues for pilot training into the former Czecholovakia. It took me a period of more than 2 years before we met again upon my return from abroad. I met her when I was about to attend a standardization training held in Jakarta before I was eligible to become an Indonesian Air Force officer beside being a pilot.

   Her father, or precisely my grandfather, Willem Henri Warokka (born 1866), who was one of the 7 (seven) only tribal heads in Minahassa, was a "Majoor", a Dutch army rank, the highest awarded to native Indonesians. Although he hailed from Kawangkoan, another town in the Minahassa, but he later became the 1st class district head ("hukum besar") of Amurang until the time he passed away in 1936 at the age of 70. My grandmother, Lefina Runtuwene, a native of Amurang, was my grandfather's second wife. My grandfather's first wife who was of the Lonan lineage passed away after bearing a son, named Henk Abram Kawengian (Henk).

   I have a younger brother, Austenbren Adolf Willem Mundung (Bren), born April 23, 1946, who is now a priest of the Protestant church in Bekasi, West Java. I was supposed to have a younger sister named Amerlina Mundung (Nona), born November 30, 1944, but passed away when she was only an 11-month old baby during the Japanese occupation in World War II.