The Aviation Heritage Museum at Bull Creek in Perth preserves an extensive collection of military and civil aircraft connected with Australian and Western Australian aviation history. Among its Second World War exhibits is a Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina. Although this particular aircraft did not serve with the Netherlands Naval Aviation Service, Read more
Early life in the Netherlands Cornelis Antonie de Jong was born in 1916 in Asperen, a small rural town along the river Linge. He grew up in a family marked by poverty, limited formal education, and the social pressures of interwar Dutch society. Work was often seasonal or insecure, schooling Read more
A Dutch-Australian gateway to post-war settlement Between 1948 and 1952, the former army camp at Kelso near Bathurst operated as one of Australia’s largest migrant reception and training centres. Originally constructed during the Second World War for military purposes, the site was repurposed to receive European migrants arriving under Australia’s 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
Zwier Albertus ‘Alby’ Mangels was born in the Netherlands on 16 November 1948. In 1955, he migrated to Australia with his parents and siblings as part of the large post-war wave of Dutch migration. The family settled in Mount Burr in South Australia, where Mangels spent his formative years. Growing 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
The following text is from a booklet published by the Federation of Netherlands Societies Ltd. in February 1985. The research for this booklet was done by Mijntje Hage Initially, there were several small Dutch clubs in the various immigrant hostels in and around Newcastle, with Camp Greta being one of the bigger 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
Vale – on behalf of the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre Dear Anita, family and staff of the Dutch Shop, It is with sadness that we learned of the passing of Jan van Altena. Jan was a well-known and highly respected Dutch migrant whose contribution extended far beyond Sydney. Through his Read more