The Dutch Australian Cultural Centre (DACC) and Badan Pelestarian Pusaka Indonesia (BPPI) – the Indonesian Heritage Trust – have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing a framework for cooperation focused on the shared heritage of Indonesia and the Netherlands in Australia. The agreement recognises that the histories of Indonesia Read more
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 Read more
The wartime story of Jan Bakker and his family The story of Johannes (Jan) Bakker and his wife Maria van Rijswijk is one of war, separation, loss and rebuilding across continents. It begins in the Netherlands in the late 1930s, moves to the Netherlands East Indies during the final years Read more
Samanuddin was born in 1906 in Dacca (now Dhaka, Bangladesh), then part of British India. He later served as a seaman in the Netherlands Merchant Navy. Like many Asian sailors recruited by Dutch shipping companies during the interwar and wartime years, he became part of the multinational crews that operated Read more
The North American B-25 Mitchell N5-128 was one of the early aircraft operated by No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron RAAF during its formative period in Australia in World War II. Arriving during 1942, N5-128 formed part of the initial group of B-25 bombers that arrived at Archerfield Airport in Read more
The American shipwreck at Tulamben in Bali, well known today among divers, is the remains of the USAT Liberty. I was alerted to this wreck by my grandson, Neriya, who dived the site in February 2026. While the vessel itself was American, its final voyage in January 1942 unfolded within Read more
This article is informed in part by a contemporaneous Australian account published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 18 February 1946, reproduced below. That article examined claims raised during United States Senate hearings into the Pearl Harbor attack and addressed Australia’s handling of a warning originating from the Netherlands East Read more
This document presents the first-hand recollections of Jean White (née Forrester), who began working at Archerfield Aerodrome in Brisbane at the age of sixteen during World War II. Jean initially worked for Australian aviation companies involved in wartime transport and support operations. She later moved to the Qantas-operated Engine Overhaul Read more
In a striking twist of history, the Netherlands and Australia are converging around Indonesia’s deep human past. What began as a late-nineteenth-century Dutch scientific quest in the former Netherlands East Indies is now being reframed through Indonesian custodianship and contemporary Australian research. Anthropology, rather than diplomacy or conflict, has become Read more
The Douglas DC-5 was one of the most unusual transport aircraft to see service during the Second World War. Designed and built in the United States by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it featured a high wing, tricycle undercarriage, and a wide fuselage optimised for passenger transport. These modern features, however, Read more