ABSTRACT
Introduction Close to dawn on 1 October 1965, seven teams of soldiers boarded trucks in an isolated rubber grove south of Jakarta and headed for the houses of seven army generals inside the city. Their aim was to capture the generals, dead or alive. They were largely successful. Only one team failed to accomplish its mission; its target, the Defense Minister, General Nasution, managed to escape, leaving his adjutant, a lieutenant, to be abducted by mistake. The soldiers sped back to the grove located in an area called Lubang Buaya, next to the Air Force’s Halim airbase. With three of the generals either dead or dying from wounds inflicted when they were abducted, the soldiers decided at some point later that morning to kill all of the officers and dump their corpses down a well. The organizers of this early morning action also seized the national radio station in Jakarta and announced the name of their group: the September 30th Movement (Gerakan 30 September, abbreviated as G30S).
