The Dutch passenger liner Oranje became one of the most important hospital ships serving Australian and New Zealand forces during the Second World War. Offered by the Netherlands Government-in-Exile for Allied use in 1941, she completed 41 wartime voyages, travelled more than 382,000 nautical miles and carried 32,461 sick and wounded patients.
Oranje remained a Dutch ship, sailing under the Dutch flag with a Dutch captain and maritime crew. Her medical service, however, became a multinational undertaking involving Dutch, Australian and New Zealand doctors, nurses and medical orderlies.
A modern Dutch passenger liner
Oranje was built for the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland, generally known in English as the Netherland Line.
The ship was constructed by the Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Maatschappij in Amsterdam. Queen Wilhelmina performed the ceremonial launch and naming on 8 September 1938, and the ship was completed in 1939.
At approximately 20,000 gross tons, Oranje was one of the largest and most modern Dutch passenger liners of the period. Her three diesel engines provided a normal service speed of about 22 knots and a maximum speed of approximately 26 knots.
Oranje departed Amsterdam for the Netherlands East Indies on 4 September 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe. She arrived in the Indies later that year but could not establish the regular passenger service for which she had been built. After Germany occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, returning to Amsterdam was no longer possible.
The Dutch offer to Australia and New Zealand
In February 1941, the Netherlands Government-in-Exile, led by Prime Minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy, offered to make Oranje available as a hospital ship for Australian and New Zealand use.
Australia had deployed substantial military forces to the Middle East and needed ships capable of returning sick and wounded personnel over very long distances. The Netherlands agreed to meet the cost of converting and equipping the vessel.
Initial preparations were undertaken in the Netherlands East Indies. Oranje arrived in Sydney on 31 March 1941, where the conversion was completed. Passenger spaces were transformed into wards, operating theatres, treatment rooms and accommodation for medical personnel. The hull was painted white, with a broad green band and large red crosses identifying her protected status under international law.
A ceremonial handover took place in Sydney on 28 June 1941. Those attending included representatives of the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, among them Major-General Hein ter Poorten, commander of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army.
The vessel became officially known as 1 Netherlands Military Hospital Ship Oranje. Although placed at the disposal of the Allied governments, she remained Dutch-registered and retained a Dutch captain and maritime crew.
Voyages between the Middle East and Australasia
Oranje departed Sydney for Suez in July 1941. At Port Tewfik, near the southern entrance to the Suez Canal, she embarked Australian and New Zealand patients for transportation home.
The voyage between Egypt and Australia took several weeks. The speed of Oranje was therefore a considerable advantage. Capable of approximately 26 knots, she was described as the fastest hospital ship in the world.
Her patients included personnel wounded during the campaigns in North Africa, Greece and Crete, as well as servicemen suffering from illness, disease or the physical effects of prolonged military service. The term “patients” is more accurate than “wounded soldiers”: Oranje carried sick and wounded members of several Allied services and nationalities.
A multinational medical organisation
Oranje initially operated with Dutch medical personnel as well as a Dutch maritime crew. After Japan entered the war in December 1941, Allied medical requirements changed substantially. Australian and New Zealand doctors, nurses and medical orderlies joined the ship, while Dutch personnel continued serving aboard her.
Financial and operational responsibility also changed during the war. From May 1942, the British Government assumed responsibility for maintaining the ship, but Oranje remained under the Dutch flag.
The hospital ship was therefore Dutch in ownership, registration and maritime operation, while its medical staff, financing and operational direction reflected the changing requirements of the wider Allied war effort.
Matron C.A.J. “Rientje” van der Roest
One of the senior Dutch medical personnel serving aboard Oranje was Matron C.A.J. “Rientje” van der Roest, later known by her married name Van den Bos-Van der Roest.
As matron, Van der Roest was responsible for the ship’s nursing service and worked within the medical organisation led by Colonel J.C. Gerards. Her responsibilities included supervising the nurses and helping maintain standards of care aboard a hospital ship operating over exceptionally long distances.
An Australian War Memorial photograph taken aboard Oranje at Darwin on 21 September 1945 shows Van der Roest with Colonel Gerards, Lieutenant Colonel W.A. Bye and Major K.J. Fagan. Bye and Fagan were former prisoners of war from Singapore, where they had performed medical and surgical work under extremely difficult conditions.
Van der Roest’s service received recognition from both the Netherlands and the British Commonwealth. The Netherlands appointed her an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. She was also made an Honorary Member of the Royal Red Cross, First Class, a British military nursing decoration awarded for exceptional nursing service.
She received the insignia of the Royal Red Cross from the Governor-General of New Zealand in Wellington on 14 August 1945. At the same ceremony, Colonel Gerards received the insignia of an Honorary Commander of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire. The awards recognised their work caring for Australian and New Zealand servicemen aboard Oranje.
The medals preserved by Museum Bronbeek provide a tangible reminder of the Dutch medical personnel whose work aboard Oranje formed an important part of the Allied medical evacuation system.
Forty-one hospital voyages
During her wartime service, Oranje completed 41 hospital voyages, travelled more than 382,000 nautical miles and carried 32,461 patients.
Her destinations included ports in Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, India and the United Kingdom. Her facilities provided wards, surgery, nursing care and medical supervision during voyages lasting several weeks.
Although clearly marked and registered as a hospital ship, Oranje was not entirely free from danger. She travelled through waters in which submarines, mines, aircraft and surface raiders operated. Her safety ultimately depended upon the belligerent powers recognising her protected medical status.
Australian personnel transferred to Centaur
As the main task of returning Australian casualties from the Middle East declined, Australian medical personnel began leaving Oranje in early 1943. A number were transferred to the newly converted Australian hospital ship Centaur.
Research by the Australian War Memorial has established that a group portrait of the Australian staff aboard Oranje was taken on 2 March 1943, shortly before the transfer.
Twenty-eight Australians who served aboard Oranje subsequently joined Centaur. Twenty-seven of them appear in the group portrait.
On 14 May 1943, Centaur was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-177 south of Moreton Island, Queensland. Of the 332 people aboard, only 64 survived. Eighteen of the 28 former Oranje personnel were killed.
The Australian War Memorial has also identified a photograph of twelve Australian Army Nursing Service nurses who served aboard both ships. Eleven of these nurses died in the sinking. Sister Ellen Savage was the only nurse in the group to survive.
These photographs are more than conventional shipboard portraits. They record the personnel of Oranje shortly before many became victims of one of Australia’s worst wartime maritime disasters.
The connection is examined in greater detail in the companion article: “From Oranje to Centaur: Australian medical personnel and the tragedy of 14 May 1943”
Continued Allied service
Following the withdrawal of most Australian medical personnel, Oranje continued serving New Zealand and the wider Allied medical evacuation system.
Oranje remained a Dutch-registered vessel under the Dutch flag throughout her hospital-ship service. As Allied requirements changed, New Zealand personnel assumed a larger role in her medical organisation, while financing and operational direction were adjusted through agreements between the participating governments.
The ship continued making long-distance hospital voyages and eventually reached Britain carrying casualties from the fighting in Italy. Her patients included New Zealand, British and other Allied service personnel.
During the final stages of the war, Oranje also assisted in transporting former prisoners of war and civilian internees liberated in Asia.
Repatriation after the war
The humanitarian role of Oranje continued after the fighting ended. She carried former prisoners of war, civilian internees and other displaced people from Asia.
Many Dutch and Indo-European civilians released from Japanese internment camps were malnourished, ill and traumatised. The ship’s medical facilities and long-distance capacity made her particularly suitable for their repatriation.
Thousands of people subsequently travelled aboard Oranje from Indonesia to the Netherlands during the upheaval surrounding Indonesian independence. For many Indo-European families, the voyage represented a permanent departure from the country in which they had been born and the beginning of a new life in the Netherlands.
Post-war passenger and emigration service
Oranje returned to Amsterdam in 1946 and was restored to civilian service. From 1947 she again operated for the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland.
Her principal route initially connected the Netherlands with Indonesia, but her post-war voyages also brought her to Australia and New Zealand. She carried government and military personnel, business travellers, tourists, returning residents and emigrants beginning new lives overseas.
Unlike Groote Beer, Waterman and Zuiderkruis, Oranje was not converted into a dedicated, high-capacity emigrant ship. She remained one of the Netherlands’ leading passenger liners, with accommodation divided into passenger classes. Nevertheless, she formed part of the wider maritime network through which Dutch and other European migrants travelled to Australia after the Second World War.
During the 1950s, as political change reduced the traditional Netherlands–Indonesia passenger trade, Oranje was increasingly employed on services connecting Europe, Australia and New Zealand, including round-the-world voyages.
See: Dutch emigration ships to Australia – Portal
Collision with Willem Ruys
On 6 January 1953, Oranje collided with the Dutch passenger liner Willem Ruys in the Red Sea.
Passenger liners passing in opposite directions sometimes approached one another closely as a spectacle for their passengers. During this encounter, manoeuvres and miscommunication aboard the two vessels resulted in a collision.
Oranje suffered serious damage to her bow but remained seaworthy. She omitted her scheduled call at Colombo and continued to Jakarta. Willem Ruys sustained less extensive damage. No lives were lost.
From Oranje to Angelina Lauro
In 1964, Oranje was sold to the Italian shipping company Flotta Lauro. Following extensive reconstruction, she returned to service as Angelina Lauro and continued carrying passengers between Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
She was later employed as a cruise ship. In March 1979, while berthed at St Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands, a serious fire spread through the vessel. Although the passengers and most of the crew were safely evacuated, the ship was declared a total loss.
The damaged hull was taken under tow for demolition but began taking on water during the crossing of the Pacific. Angelina Lauro sank on 24 September 1979.
A Dutch contribution to Allied medical care
Oranje was one of the most visible Dutch contributions to the care of Australian and New Zealand personnel during the Second World War.
Her importance extended beyond the 32,461 patients she carried. A modern Dutch passenger liner was transformed into a multinational medical institution in which Dutch maritime and medical personnel worked with Australian and New Zealand doctors, nurses and orderlies across several theatres of war.
The service of Matron Rientje van der Roest represents the contribution of the Dutch nurses and medical personnel who helped operate this floating hospital. The later fate of the Australians transferred from Oranje to Centaur adds a tragic human dimension to the ship’s history.
After the war, Oranje continued carrying repatriates, passengers and emigrants between Europe, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. She should therefore be remembered as a passenger liner, hospital ship, repatriation vessel and part of the wider story of Dutch migration.
Sources and further reading
- Australian War Memorial – Hospital ship Oranje
- Jonathan Ford, “The Netherlands Merchant Navy in the Pacific War,” Journal of Australian Naval History, vol. 6, no. 1, 2009
- Australian War Memorial – Matron C.A.J. van der Roest aboard Oranje, Darwin, 21 September 1945
- Open Archives – C.A.J. van der Roest, Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau
- UK Parliament – History of the Royal Red Cross
- The National Archives, United Kingdom – Registers of recipients of the Royal Red Cross
- Papers Past – Presentation of decorations to Colonel Gerards and Matron Van der Roest, 15 August 1945
- Australian War Memorial – From Copy to Clarity: Before Centaur
- Het Scheepvaartmuseum – The passenger ship Oranje and post-war migration
- Lorna Howlett, The Oranje Story, 1991.
eturn to the Research Portal: The Dutch Merchant Fleet and the Allied War Effort in Australia.
Contemporary newspaper reports
The Australian newspaper reports provide contemporary accounts of Oranje’s hospital-ship service. Both newspaper items were published before 1955 and are available through Trove.
This report describes the return of 630 Australian and New Zealand patients from the Middle East aboard Oranje. It records the ship’s speed, medical facilities and the appreciation expressed by the returning servicemen for its Dutch doctors, nurses, voluntary aides and maritime crew.
Published during Oranje’s first wartime return to Britain, this report describes her multinational medical organisation, Dutch maritime crew and continuing service under the Dutch flag.
Oranje in the Royal Netherlands Navy photographic collection
The following photographs are preserved in the photographic collection of the Netherlands Institute of Military History. Each image should be accompanied by its NIMH object number, original description, date and reuse attribution where available.
A former crew member remembers Oranje
This model of Oranje belongs to Bert Broekman, who sailed aboard the vessel as a young seaman’s cook from August 1955. Cleaning the model evokes memories of the ship returning along Amsterdam’s IJ to the Javakade and of the excitement that accompanied the arrival of one of the Netherlands’ best-known passenger liners.
Although modest in size compared with modern cruise ships, Oranje was regarded as a magnificent vessel by those who travelled and worked aboard her. The Oranje was launched at Amsterdam on 8 September 1938 by Queen Wilhelmina, in the presence of Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard performed the ceremonial launch and naming in Amsterdam on 8 September 1938.
Historical document relating to MS Oranje
The Dutch-language document reproduced below provides additional historical information about the passenger liner Oranje and its significance in Dutch maritime history. It complements the account of the ship’s wartime hospital service, post-war repatriation voyages and subsequent passenger operations.
