Early Life
Sumitro was born in Probolinggo, East Java on 13 January 1927. His father worked as a cashier for the Gending Sugar Factory and was also an activist with the Indonesian National Party whilst his mother was a housewife. As a child, Sumitro grew up at a Pesantren. During the Japanese Occupation of Indonesia, Sumitro joined the Defenders of the Motherland Army (PETA), an auxiliary force set up by the Japanese Imperial Army which consisted of Indonesians with the intention of assisting them should the United States invade Java. Sumitro undertook basic training in Bogor and developed a reputation as a cadet who regularly broke the rules. By 1944, Sumitro had achieved enough to have been appointed a PETA platoon commander at his hometown of Probolinggo.
Read more about this topic: Sumitro
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
“The Spirit of Place [does not] exert its full influence upon a newcomer until the old inhabitant is dead or absorbed. So America.... The moment the last nuclei of Red [Indian] life break up in America, then the white men will have to reckon with the full force of the demon of the continent.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)