From Baarn to the Netherlands East Indies Evert Herman van Hummel was born in Baarn, the Netherlands, on 29 January 1916. He was known variously as Evert and Herman. Fascinated by engines from an early age, he left secondary school when he was fifteen and became an apprentice motor mechanic. Read more
The Douglas DC-3 now preserved at the Queensland Air Museum in Caloundra has an exceptional Dutch–Australian history. Built for KLM in 1937 and named Wielewaal—Dutch for Golden Oriole—it served on the Amsterdam–Batavia route, escaped from Java carrying Lieutenant Governor-General Hubertus van Mook, entered Allied military service in Australia and was Read more
DACC researchers came across ‘The Dutch Club’ in Sydney. There are no records of this club, further research revealed that the Dutch Club of Sydney and the restaurant The Flying Dutchman in the City (Elizabeth Street) are always mentioned together. The restaurant was run by famous Dutchman Dick Groenteman. It Read more
Shell Australia is the Australian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. Shell has operated in Australia since 1901, initially delivering bulk fuel into Australia, then establishing storage and distribution terminals, oil refineries, and a network of service stations. It extended its Australian activities to oil exploration, petrochemicals and coal mining, and Read more
By her son David Hill. Joan McConachy was a secretary at Camp Columbia, Brisbane working for the Dutch Army as she later told her son David (perhaps at NEFIS). Joan was born in 1924 at Winton (Central West QLD) and moved to Brisbane around 1943 from the then family home Read more
Being the 2nd largest export of agriculture products, The Netherlands has a very long relationship with Australia in relation to agriculture. Already in the 1970 the Netherlands participated in agriculture events in Orange NSW. Further down below is an article from the Washington Post providing an overall state of the Read more
The Sydney-based Dutch Australian Weekly (DAW) was founded in 1951 by Alfred Schuurman and A. Hilbrink with the assistance of Earl White from the Cumberland Newspapers. The paper was established to serve the Dutch community in Australia, providing news, features, and information about events and issues of interest to Dutch Read more
This is the only official Dutch War Cemetery in Australia. It is only one of three non Commonwealth War Cemeteries in Australia, the other two being the Tatura (German) War Cemetery in Victoria (250 graves) and the Cowra (Japanese) War Cemetery in New South Wales (523). At Cowra the Dutch Read more
Hans van de Drift – Hans The story of one of Australia’s largest sausage manufacturers ‘ Hans’ begins in the Netherlands. Hans van der Drift tried to escape being in the army (draft was still a thing back then) AND having to work for his dad on the weekends in Read more