Early life in Amsterdam
Pieter Robert (“Robby”) Boele van Hensbroek was born in Amsterdam on 18 October 1920, the son of André Boele van Hensbroek and Jo Sluiter. He grew up with his sister Elsje in a close-knit family that valued education, culture, and sport. Despite the hardships of the Depression—his father lost his job, and the family moved in with his grandmother—Robby remembered his childhood as happy and full of cycling trips, visits to museums, games of tennis and hockey, and long holidays at the Sluiter family retreat in Elspeet.
He attended the Hervormd Lyceum in Amsterdam, completing his secondary education in July 1938. That same year, inspired by his fascination with visiting warships in Amsterdam, he joined the Royal Netherlands Navy as a midshipman.
Wartime service
Robby’s naval career spanned the most turbulent years of the Second World War. When Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, he escaped to England. He served aboard Hr. Ms. Van Heemskerk and Hr. Ms. Sumatra, escorting Princess Juliana and her children to safety in Canada. By late 1940 he was transferred to the Netherlands East Indies, where he completed his studies and was commissioned Sub-Lieutenant in June 1941.
He later joined the light cruiser Hr. Ms. Tromp, the only major Dutch warship to survive the Pacific campaign. Tromp fought in key engagements against the Japanese and withdrew to Australia after sustaining heavy damage in February 1942.
From mid-1942 Robby served in England on minesweepers and coastal patrol craft, becoming commanding officer of several small vessels. In November 1945 he returned to Indonesia as commanding officer of Hr. Ms. Schokland, tasked with clearing minefields in harbours such as Soerabaja and Makassar.
It was during this posting, in May 1946, that he met nurse Wilhelmina Richarda (Mieneke) Hissink, serving aboard the hospital ship Oranje. The two married in Amsterdam on 10 February 1947.
A principled resignation
Robby rose quickly in the Navy, but he was troubled by the Netherlands’ handling of Indonesian independence. He could not reconcile his service with what he regarded as the betrayal of the Indonesian people. On 28 February 1951 he resigned his commission on moral grounds, one of many decisions in his life guided by principle.
Only days later, with Mieneke and their two young children, May and Andrew, he boarded a plane for Australia, arriving in Sydney on 9 March 1951.
Migration and new beginnings
Like many postwar migrants, the Boele van Hensbroek family faced hardship in their early years in Australia. They built their own prefabricated house at French’s Forest in Sydney, only to lose all their belongings when the garage burned down in a bushfire. Robby found work with a Dutch dredging company in Newcastle, and in 1953 the family moved to Perth with the company.
There, Robby and Mieneke soon saw opportunities in their new country. They founded a building company that grew rapidly and eventually evolved into one of Australia’s largest home builders. Robby also became a founding figure in the Home Building Society, which developed into Western Australia’s biggest building society.
Their family expanded in Australia with the births of Katie (1954), Emma (1956), Richarda (1958, who sadly died in infancy), and Martyn (1959). In total, they raised five children. Despite personal tragedy and financial challenges, the family built a warm, welcoming home where hospitality and laughter were constants.
Entrepreneur and pioneer
After selling the building company in 1960, Robby pursued other ambitions. A strong supporter of self-determination, he wanted to contribute to the development of West Papua, but these plans collapsed when the Dutch ceded the territory to Indonesia in 1961. The 1960s were a restless period, marked by ventures in real estate, finance, and business.
It was in forestry that he found his long-term passion. In the early 1970s he established Australasian Pines, a forestry company that later expanded to Queensland. The family moved to Brisbane in 1975, settling in Brookfield in a Cape Dutch–style home called Welkom. Robby oversaw the development of a 2,000-block forestry subdivision at Glenwood, north of Brisbane, and built a reputation as a determined pioneer who left lasting marks on local communities.
Community engagement and public voice
Alongside his business life, Robby remained engaged with Dutch-Australian networks. In Queensland he was involved with the Netherlands Ex-Servicemen and Women’s Association (NESWA). He contributed articles, opinion pieces, and reflections on the war in the Netherlands East Indies and the complex road to Indonesian independence. His writings showed his continued concern for the fate of peoples caught between colonial legacies and new nations.
Family and legacy
Robby and Mieneke raised five children, sending them all to university despite financial struggles. Their home was always open to friends, neighbours, and extended family, reflecting their belief in respect, inclusion, and hard work.
Robby lived by the family motto Wie wil, wint—“Who dares, wins.” Of the 27 in his naval class, only six survived the war. That sobering fact shaped his outlook: life was a gift not to be wasted. He channelled this into his businesses, his forestry projects, and above all his family.
When he died in 2011, he left behind not only a large family of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren but also a remarkable legacy of resilience, principle, and service.
Articles by Robbert – published in Marineblad 1995/96
We start with english abstracts of the Dutch artiscles, with full articles in the pdf.
Het rapport Visman (commissie-Visman, 1941)
This essay explains P. R. Boele van Hensbroek’s view that the Netherlands’ post-war course for the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) should be read through the lens of the 1941 Visman Report. He argues the report—compiled by a mixed commission of Indonesians, Dutch and a Chinese member after extensive hearings with 147 groups—showed broad support for continued association with the Netherlands within a reformed “Kingdom in a new style”. In his reading, most groups sought a federal Indonesia (to prevent Javanese dominance), progressive removal of discrimination, and shared “realm” institutions for defence, foreign affairs, shipping and the economy.
He contrasts these plans with the turmoil of 1945–49. In his account, Dutch military presence was intended to restore security and allow Indonesia’s diverse peoples to determine their future free of intimidation after the Japanese occupation. He also contends that Allied great-power interests—particularly British and Australian calculations and, later, UN dynamics—undermined Dutch-Indonesian federal plans, sidelining Visman’s framework. Boele’s conclusion is that the Netherlands’ intentions were “verantwoord en eerbaar” (responsible and honourable), and that Dutch public discourse should not be governed by a guilt complex. The Marineblad editors published the piece as a contribution to debate, while noting concerns about selectivity of sources and a strongly Netherlands-centred perspective.
Het Nederlandse optreden in Indonesië 1945–1949: verantwoord en eerbaar
In this companion article Boele develops the Visman-based thesis across the chronology of 1945–49. He highlights pre-war developmental gains (education, health, agriculture and industry) as the platform for federal self-government; summarises Visman’s consensus for a states-union with the Netherlands; and argues that Dutch policy from 1945 aimed to convene a realm conference once order and economic recovery were restored. He maintains that the first and second “police actions” were conceived to protect non-Javanese regions and federal states from coercion, and that the Round Table Conference’s outcome—the United States of Indonesia—matched Visman’s federal logic until it was rapidly dissolved by force.
The essay is deliberately polemical: it claims Allied decisions in 1945–46 prevented timely Dutch landings, advantaged the republican leadership diplomatically, and framed the conflict internationally in ways that made a negotiated federal outcome untenable. A Marineblad editorial afterword (1995) acknowledges the article’s resonance for a generation of veterans but counters key points: it disputes Visman as a policy blueprint, emphasises the decisive impact of the Japanese occupation and republican revolution, notes the limits of Dutch capacity in 1945, and cautions against reading complex decolonisation through a single report.
De strijd in Nederlands-Indië 1941–1942
This operational study argues that the fall of the NEI cannot be reduced to Dutch military failure. Drawing on Dr Jack Ford’s “Duping the Dutch” thesis, Boele contends that Allied command arrangements (ABDA), the sidelining of Dutch local knowledge, and a series of British and American decisions materially worsened the position:
• command: creation of ABDA under Gen. Wavell and Air Cdr. Brereton marginalised Dutch commanders and severed the Navy’s control of its flying boats;
• lost opportunities: late or missing intelligence on invasion convoys; failure to commit “Blackforce” at Palembang; withdrawal of the Timor convoy; inadequate air cover for naval operations;
• squandered advantages: rejection of Dutch submarine innovations (snorkel/tactics) and ineffective US submarine torpedoes;
• operational consequences: the Battle of the Java Sea fought without adequate air support; subsequent withdrawals that forfeited chances to attrit invasion fleets.
He stresses Dutch endurance relative to Malaya/Singapore and the disproportionate damage inflicted by Dutch naval and air units in late 1941–early 1942. The piece prompted a robust exchange in Marineblad (1995–96): supporters urged a reassessment of Allied decisions; critics argued that Dutch rearmament and doctrine were already insufficient, that ABDA’s priorities reflected hard strategic constraints, and that focusing on missed Allied support underplays the structural imbalance and the revolutionary context on Java.
See also:
Dinner with Casey: Dutch divisions over West New Guinea – Some call it Treason.
