Suharto was born on 8 June 1921 during the Dutch East Indies era, in a plaited bamboo walled house in the hamlet of Kemusuk, a part of the larger village of Godean.

[3] Difficulties in paying the fees for his education in Wonogiri resulted in another move back with his father in Kemusuk, where he continued studying at a lower-fee, Schakel Muhammadiyah (middle school) in the city of Yogyakarta until 1938.

[10] Following a spell of unemployment, he joined the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) in June 1940, and undertook basic training in Gombong near Yogyakarta.

With the Netherlands under German occupation and the Japanese pressing for access to Indonesian oil supplies, the Dutch had opened up the KNIL to large intakes of previously excluded Javanese.

[11] In October 1943, Suharto was transferred from the police force to the newly formed Japanese-sponsored militia, the Pembela Tanah Air (PETA; Defenders of the Fatherland) in which Indonesians served as officers.

[13] Suharto was posted at a PETA coastal defence battalion at Wates, south of Yogyakarta, until he was admitted for training for company commander (chudancho) in Bogor from April to August 1944.

[14] As republican groups rose to assert Indonesian independence, Suharto helped to establish a fighting unit together with a former PETA colleague, Umar Slamet.

Suharto's battle performance attracted attention of Sudirman, the Republican armed forces commander, who promoted him to lead newly formed Regiment III of Division IX (2,250 men) with rank of lieutenant-colonel on early 1946.

As evidence of Suharto's increasing stature, in June 1946 Lieutenant-Colonel Sunarto Kusumodirdjo invited him to draft the working guidelines for the Battle Leadership Headquarters (MPP), a body created to organise and unify the command structure of the Indonesian nationalist forces.

[16] The transfer of Republican capital from Jakarta to Yogyakarta in January 1946 exposed the armed units there to civilian political intrigue, most notably the "3 July Affair".

Sukarno government's decision to commence negotiations with the Dutch caused much opposition from various Indonesian factions, which coalesced into a group called PP (Persatoean Perdjoangan) led by communist politician Tan Malaka.

PP's opposition to negotiation with the Dutch received sympathy from many sections of the armed forces, including its commander Sudirman and Suharto's direct superior Major-General Sudarsono.

When Sukarno issued order for Sudarsono's arrest, the plot leader took refuge in Suharto's regimental headquarters at the outskirts of Yogyakarta, bringing the kidnapped Sjahrir with him.

Dutch intelligence reported that Suharto was assisting smuggling syndicates in the transport of opium through the territory he controlled with the help of Chinese-Indonesian merchant Liem Sioe Liong to be bartered with weapons, clothes, food, and other supplies.

The signing of highly disadvantageous Renville Agreement in January 1948 resulted in evacuation of 35,000 Republican fighters from the Dutch-occupied side of the ceasefire line into the shrunk Republican-controlled territory.

The unpopular rationalisation policies met often bloody resistance from many factions of the Republican forces, which again coalesced around the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) under the leadership of Musso who recently returned from the Soviet Union.

On late-September 1948, PKI-linked armed units seized control of Madiun in East Java and declared a "Soviet Republic of Indonesia" in opposition of Sukarno and Hatta.

[citation needed] Suharto's later accounts had him as the lone plotter, although other sources say Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX of Yogyakarta and the Division III commander ordered the attack.

From late-December 1951 to late-January 1952, Suharto led "Operasi Merdeka Timur V" which successfully defeated the rebellious battalion in vicious fighting in Klaten area.

[24][25] In March 1953, Suharto was appointed commander of Infantry Regiment III consisting of four battalions (3,704 men) based in Surakarta, organizing its participation in battling Darul Islam insurgents in northwestern Central Java and anti-bandit operations in Mount Merapi area.

He also sought to stem pervasive leftist sympathies amongst his troops (one of his leftist-leaning subordinates in this period was Untung bin Sjamsuri who would later lead the 30 September Movement in 1965).

His experience in this period left Suharto with deep distaste for both Islamic and communist radicalism which he believed could be countered only with material and financial sufficiency on the part of the people.

[26] On 3 September 1956 Suharto was promoted to command the Diponegoro Division with the rank of colonel, based in Semarang and responsible for Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces.

Developing on the fund-raising tactics he used during the revolutionary war, Suharto established charitable organizations ("jajasan") which would receive "donations" from all enterprises operating in the provinces as well as levying "unofficial tax" on provision of goods and services.

With the aid of ethnic-Chinese businessmen such as Bob Hasan, Suharto organized bartering of sugar and copra to Singapore in exchange with much-needed food supplies.

With massive Soviet armaments and even manpower aid, Suharto formulated a highly risky plan to invade and capture Dutch military headquarters in Biak using 25,000 soldiers in an airborne and amphibious operation code-named Operasi Djajawidjaja set for 15 August 1962.

On 15 August, under heavy American pressure, the Dutch signed the New York Agreement whereby control over West Irian was relinquished to UNTEA (United National Temporary Executive Authority) in October 1962.

On that day, Suharto led a "victory parade" of Indonesian soldiers in front of President Sukarno at West Irian's capital Sukarnapura (formerly Hollandia, now Jayapura).

[30] During this period, Sukarno gradually shifted the country to the left by promoting the growth of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in order to counter the power of the military within his Guided Democracy system.

Suharto's position in KOLAGA also provided him with more sinister commercial opportunity in organizing the smuggling of rubber, timber, and other primary products from North Sumatera to Malaysia using ethnic-Chinese fishermen.