Surabaya, A City of Heroes - History of its logo

I bet, all of Indonesian people ever heard this City - Surabaya. 
Long time ago, this city is so popular because of the citizen braveness, they can killed Aubertin Mallaby -head of the British army to East Java- and also the toughness of its citizen to fight British ultimatum and defend the independence at 10 November 1945.
Because of that this city called ' City of Heroes '


First of all, did you know this city logo?

yap! the logo that included a shark and a crocodile fight each other. the symbol of the braveness and toughness.

 This logo used since 1950.

 The picture below is way the logo began

we know, since 1511 until 1945 Indonesia was colonized by Portuguese afterward Spain then Holland and England but the last is Japan. That's why language, symbol and Indonesian people personality contaminated  by the colonizer -mainly from Holland.

• Symbol firstly used (in 1800) the origin is unknown, but this symbol become ornament  in Sjahbandar monitor tower and ex-CCCL building in Darmokali.
• The second symbol (in 1920) was firstly used by the 'Gemeeente van Soerabaia' - Government of Surabaya- for letterhead and official stamp. There is a sentence in the logo which read " Soera-ing-baia" derived from the Java language which means "boldly against the dangers"
  the reason why two animals (shark and crocodile) displayed as far as still a puzzle.
• In 1950 the third logo was formed and been used until now. But in this logo the two animals was made to attacking each other (makes it more heroic, right?). The reason why the two animals ' displayed attacking each other is still unknown!  All of the citizen thought that the animals displayed is as shorthand for 'Surabaya', the shark means 'Sura' and the crocodile means 'baya', taken from the Java language.  

Now, the citizen of Surabaya develop myths about the quarrel of the shark and the crocodile. And talked how heroic the quarrel is. All the citizen believe that myth's underlie the logo. But in fact 'Sura' does not mean sharks. As evidence, several cities in Java is begin with 'Sura' but does not retrieve the shark as a symbol.