Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij (in English: Royal Dutch Indies Airways) was the airline of the former Dutch East Indies. It was founded on 16 July 1928 as the NILM by a group of 32 Netherlands Indies. Headquartered in Amsterdam, KNILM was not a subsidiary of the better-known KLM (Royal Dutch Read more…
Historical maps relevant to the mapping of Australia from 1521 onwards to 1814 by a great variety of European mapmakers. Most of these maps are digitally available from the National Library, Canberra. The final maps in this series are based on the map (s) by Nicholas Vallard (“Atlas”, 1547), based Read more…
Bambu Magazine In April 1995 a small group of Indische mensen’ (people born in Indonesia), such as Rob Elstak, Eric & Rob Marcus, Leo Vandersar, Jan Schmieman and Andreas Flach, came together in Cairns and founded the ‘Dutch Indonesian. Association – Melati’ (Jasmine). Andreas Flach became the editor of the Read more…
Julius Tahija (13 July 1916 – 30 July 2002) was an Indonesian businessman, politician and soldier. He was a recipient of the Military Order of William for his actions in the Dutch East Indies campaign while serving in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and was the only Indonesian in Read more…
Nicholas Dijkstra tells the story about flying in formation under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. In May 1942, two US ‘Kittyhawks’ flew under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Nobody had done that before! Several Dutch and Dutch East Indies KLM and KNILM pilots were to make a short flight over Sydney for Read more…
In 2021 an archaeological project was announced to investigate the site. Dutch partners in the project includes the Netherlands Ministry of Defence and is funded by the Netherlands Embassy. The project is supervised by Emeritus Professor Ian Lilley FSA FAHA (BA Hons, MA Qld, PhD ANU). Ian is an international Read more…
Not long ago, a book was published about Dick under the title The Incredible Life of Dick van Leer. This very readable account of Dick’s life, a family history really, written jointly with Aubrey Cohen, starts with his birth in 1922 in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies. Dick wasn’t there long though Read more…
Pleun Hitzert left ‘s-Gravendeel in 1980 with his wife Hennie and his daughters. Here he built a piece of ‘Hoeksche Waard’. Including a mill, for which the one in his birthplace stood model. He based his final design on De Lelie from his native village Puttershoek, but he also used Read more…
Ivens came to Australia in early 1945 as the Netherlands East Indies(NEI) Film Commissioner, to document the re-colonisation effort of the Dutch Indies from Australia. He was employed by the NEI Government Information Service (NIGIS) in Melbourne they had 128 staff—25 of these ‘Indonesians’—(a branch office of three in Sydney), Read more…
The Dutch Australian Cultural Centre was founded in 1983 and gives as its aims and objectives in its mission statement, the collection, preservation, promotion and dissemination of Dutch culture and heritage in Australia. The Centre immediately started the collection of material for the archives and Library and now, after almost Read more…