The history of the Burgers and Hevel families connects several important chapters in Dutch, Indonesian and Australian history: the Boven Digul political prisoners’ camp in Dutch New Guinea, No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron RAAF, the Indonesian struggle for independence and the Indonesian graves at Cowra. This article introduces a Read more
The history of No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron RAAF is usually told as one of Allied cooperation and operational success. Yet during its formation in Australia, the squadron experienced a profound internal crisis that culminated in one of the most controversial military trials involving Dutch forces in exile during Read more
This research portal brings together 92 individual article listings documenting the Dutch and Netherlands East Indies air-force presence in Australia during and immediately after the Second World War. Following the Japanese conquest of the Netherlands East Indies in early 1942, surviving Dutch and Indonesian air-force personnel, naval aviators, civilian aircrews Read more
Sophia Kruyswijk-van Thiel was both a member of the Vrouwenkorps Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger (VK-KNIL) and one of its most important historians. Her wartime generation had been among the first Dutch women formally admitted to military service, but its contribution was largely forgotten after the dissolution of the KNIL in 1950. Read more
In December 1946, the Curaçao newspaper Amigoe di Curaçao published the recollections of a young woman who had volunteered for the Dutch Women’s Corps, the Vrouwenkorps KNIL (VK-KNIL). Her article, “Ik ging naar Java als Vrijwilligster” (“I Went to Java as a Volunteer”), described an extraordinary journey from Curaçao through Read more
Joan Butler grew up in a Dutch migrant family on a farm in Western Australia. During the Second World War, she worked as a Land Girl before joining the Women’s Corps of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. At Camp Columbia in Brisbane, she trained as a soldier and worked Read more
The Second World War transformed Ineke Thysse’s life. She arrived in Australia from the Netherlands East Indies intending to study architecture, but the Japanese occupation separated her from her family and prevented her return. She subsequently became one of the earliest members of the VK-KNIL and served as a medic Read more
Johanna Maria van Bommel was born in January 1927 in Sabang, a small island NW of Sumatra, Indonesia. She is now 95 years old, widowed and living in a low-care unit of the Prins Willem Alexander retirement village in Birkdale, Qld. She moved here in 2018. I talked with Jo Read more
Antonius (Tony) Sanders met and married his wife Elizabeth (Liz) van Steijn in Indonesia after the end of World War II. Their migration journey took them from the Netherlands to Indonesia, Dutch New Guinea, back to the Netherlands, and finally to Australia. Their story is documented below. The Sanders Family Read more
On 27 March 1948, Adolf Petrus Gerardus Mulder and his wife, Cornelia Wilhelmina Maria Mulder–van Riek, departed Rotterdam aboard the motor ship Talisse. Known as Dolf and Corrie, the young couple had been married for less than a year. They were part of one of the earliest organised groups of Read more