ON one night in Manokwari circa 1941, Marthen Indey and the Dutch Indies police seized a coffin from a group of Japanese men who were preparing to bury it. To Marthen’s query as to what was inside the coffin, the group answered that it was the body of a deceased plantation worker. Doubting their answer, Marthen pried the coffin open. 

“It turned out there were small cannons, hand grenades, machine guns of all sizes and many type