In the presence of the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Australia, H.E. Mrs Marion Derckx, at an event hosted by the Pooh Corner Environment Centre and Dutchlink Brisbane a plan was launched to preserve the last remaining heritage items of Camp Columbia (which are situated in the Read more…
Dr Jack Ford wrote an extensive history of the Dutch war effort in the South West Pacific. He published this in: Allies in Bind: Australia and the Netherlands East Indies relations during World War Two. He also wrote a number of articles on this history, below the one on the Read more…
At the time of the Japanese invasion in the Dutch Indies Hendrik (Henk) Paardekooper was employed – since 1938 – by the Droogdok Maatschappij Surabaya (DSM) being responsible e.g. for the floating docks and cranes used for the maintenance and repair of larger sea-going vessels, including those of the Dutch Read more…
The Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Australia, H.E. Mrs Marion Derckx will at her official visit to Brisbane attend an information event at the site of the former Camp Columbia at Wacol, Brisbane. It was here that the Netherlands East Indies Government-in-Exile had its headquarters during WWII. Read more…
Roland Spuij attended a guided tour by conservator Maggie Patton of the “Maps of the Pacific” in the Mitchell Library in Sydney. A brilliant exhibition of original maps going back to 1490, including the famous Tasman map of 1644 and other beautiful maps of Dutch cartographers and wonderful globes. And Read more…
After the heavy losses during the Battle of the Java Sea the British and American forced started to withdraw and the Dutch and Australians were left on their own. On Sunday, 8 March, Lt. Gen. Hitoshi Imamura met with the Governor-General of the NEI, Jonkheer (Lord) Alidius Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer and set a deadline for the next day for an unconditional surrender.
The Society was formed in 2000 by a group of history enthusiasts that were: Concerned at the lack of general knowledge about maritime events that took place in the 17th and 18th centuries off and on Western Australia’s (WA) coastline hundreds of years before the settlement of WA in 1829 Read more…
Updated with newspaper article from 1945 below It is 80 years ago this month that this heroic, but at the same time disastrous Battle took place. By that time the Dutch Allied Forces had already been involved in the war in SE Asia for three months. Here they had occurred Read more…
by Doug Hurst – 2001 The Fourth Ally tells of the Dutch forces who fought from Australia against the Japanese during WW II. Driven by the Japanese from Indonesia (then the Netherlands East Indies), they relocated ships, aircraft and personnel to Australia. They joined with United States, British and Australian Read more…
Early in Roger Bell’s book Unequal Allies,he states: ”Relations between the governments of Australia and the United States underwent fundamental changes during 1941-46…Indeed it was not characterized by general bilateral accord on political, defence and economic matters during war time.” These comments can be equally applied to the Dutch/Australian wartime Read more…