I attended a recent Symposium organized by the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. The subject of the Symposium was “Dutch Connections - 400 years of Australian - Dutch Maritime Links – 1606 -2006”.
A member of the Cabinet of the Netherlands Government, who addressed us, followed by high-ranking staff from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, attended this symposium. The Professor of Maritime Archaeology in particular gave an extremely interesting and erudite speech on the early history of the Dutch East India Company. How the ships of this commercially oriented Company explored and mapped much of the western, northern and southern coasts of Australia, admittedly looking for possibilities of making commercial gain rather than from more altruistic motives. The scope of his address covered most of the Company’s vessels’ voyages around Australia and New Zealand during the early 17th century, but focusing particularly on the voyage of the “Duyfken” in 1606. This is first authenticated landing of a European on Australian soil, exactly 400 years ago and is being celebrated this year.
On the second day of this symposium Dr. Peter Stanley, Principal Historian of the Australian War Museum, presented a paper entitled “Australian and Dutch relations in the Pacific War”. The paper dealt specifically with the Australian Army landing at Tarakan in Borneo during the latter stages of the war. During question time, after the address concluded, I made a comment from the floor expressing surprise at the relevance Dr. Stanley’s paper to the subject of the symposium, in particular to comments regarding some problem with oil stocks in the Tarakan refinery. I have always looked upon the invasion of Tarakan as part of the campaign to free The Netherlands East Indies [later Indonesia] from Japanese occupation rather than part of the Battle for Australia. The fighting for Hollandia, [now Jayapura] Biak, Numfoor and Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies in many ways concluded the Battle for Australia. [After that there no longer remained a serious threat to Australia.]
I also expressed surprise that no mention was made of the fleet of Dutch merchant ships that operated out of Australia and which were a crucial factor in The Battle for Australia. In reply Dr. Stanley mentioned that he was unaware of this involvement by the Dutch merchant service in the campaign and asked if I, and any others involved at the time, could provide him with relevant information, which would be of interest to The Australian War Museum. Dr. Stanley mentioned his desire to obtain as much” oral history” as possible on this subject. I hope the following may be of interest to him and others, particularly as it took place 350 years after “The Duyfken” put Australia on the map. Unexpectedly circumstances arose when “Dutch Maritime Links “ once again had a major influence on Australian history.
I should emphasize that I have no written evidence to substantiate the information I am providing, relying solely on the memories of when I was a 16, 17 and 18 year old boy, very much on the periphery of the events unfolding around him. I could however be part of the “oral history” you are seeking and of which fewer and fewer sources remain. I sincerely hope it proves to be of some interest to you.
Background
My great-grandfather arrived in Australia in 1838 after the death of his wife, with his five daughters and one son. They travelled as immigrants on “The Calcutta.” I am a descendent of his only son. All of my other ancestors were English, Irish or Scottish. To the best of my knowledge I have no Dutch ancestors.
My father served during World War 1 in the First Australian Wireless Squadron, a mounted unit. He did not serve in Palestine with The Australian Light Horse as he had expected. On arrival in India their unit was broken up into small groups and attached to a British/Indian Army being formed to relieve a British force surrounded by the Turks at a place called Kut-el-Amara in what is now Iraq. During the war he was not wounded but did suffer badly from various fevers and as a consequence died end 1942/early 1943 at age 49.
Because my father’s health deteriorated late in 1941 I had to leave school directly after the “Intermediate Certificate” examination in mid November 1941. Today this would be year 9.
I provide this background as it meant I left school shortly after my 15th birthday but more importantly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. Australia was already at war when I left school, but it was all a long way away. The 6th, 7th and 9th divisions were fighting in the Western Desert and the 8th division was in Singapore/Malaya, but as I said it was all a long away from Australia and had little affect on our day-to-day life. With so many men away however I had no difficulty in finding a job and started work immediately with a large British Insurance Company, The Commercial Union Assurance Co, at the princely salary of $2.65 [Aus. One pound six and five pence] which was not much of a salary, even in those days, for an office boy.
As an aside and from the aspect of “Oral History”, the role of an “office boy” is today almost nonexistent, as it implies a rather menial role in the scheme of things. Today everyone enjoys often meaningless but pompous titles, which the holder sees as a status symbol. The other day someone described himself to me as an executive in a pizza Company, being a Branch Manager, with 2 staff under him making and delivering pizzas! In the era I am writing about an office boy on the other hand had no such delusions of grandeur although he was in a unique position in the company hierarchy. Nobody feared him and most CEO’s treated him as an equal! Like their own son.
The office boy knew exactly what was going on, everyone asked him favours [including the high and mighty] and he migrated through the various levels of management with ease. At the Insurance Co one of my tasks was to call on the Resident Director [a Board Member, not a staff member] every second Thursday to get documents signed, as he held a power of attorney. I would present myself at the Australia Club in Macquarie St Sydney [probably the nearest thing in Australia to the private quarters of The Queen at Buckingham Palace.] I would be taken to the lounge, overlooking the Botanic Gardens and the harbour. I would be greeted by the Resident Director as an old friend. I would present the documents to be signed and would be offered a seat in a leather lounge chair. Invariably he asked me to join him for morning tea. He must have been bored stiff and he always seemed to enjoy our morning chat. I’m sure the NSW Branch Manager would have given his back teeth to be treated like this! At KPM I was always warmly treated by the then General Manager, who sported the magnificent name Nicholas Dick Lammers van Toorenberg. I would collect and deliver parcels for him, including picking up the weekend’s meat and delivering it to his home where I would have a friendly chat with his wife and daughters share a cup of tea and return to work. In those days even God, let alone the Dutch staff of KPM, were thoroughly intimidated by Nicholas Dick Lammers van Toorenberg!
Mr Lammers had a buzzer connected to his most senior managers and when he pushed it the Australians in the vicinity would pause from their work to watch the little tableau as it unfolded. A split second after the buzzer sounded we would hear a roar from the manager of ‘JA MIJNHEER LAMMERS’ and he would almost levitate in an effort to be at the door to Mr Lammers office by the time he lifted his finger from the buzzer.
To return to the subject. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour things in Australia changed rapidly. By the second half of 1942 The Commonwealth Department of War-Organization of Industry [known as Manpower] took control of the entire labour market in Australia. Now you didn’t apply for a job, they told you what job you would have and you where you were going to work. One of Dad’s cobbers from the Wireless Squadron, who was a senior Public Servant, contacted me only days after Dad died and said I must find a better [i.e. more appropriate] job otherwise Manpower would pounce and put me where they thought best. He put me in touch with a friend of his who had a senior position in Manpower. It was a sort of informal “Legacy” arrangement. To cut a long story short, Manpower finally directed me to present myself to The Royal Packet Navigation Co {KPM} whom I had never heard of. I did this and remained an employee throughout the rest of my working life. As neither of us chose the other, it could be said it was more a case of “we joined forces” early in January 1943. It has convinced me that arranged marriages can actually work. They didn’t choose me and I didn’t choose them but we remained together through their many transmigrations from KPM, to Royal Interocean Lines, to NSU, to Nedlloyd and finally I ended up seconded to the Australia to Europe Container Service- Seabridge Australia.
Interestingly not one of these organisations remains in shipping today.
Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij - KPM [Royal Packet Navigation Co.]
The day I presented myself for work at the KPM office we both accepted the inevitable with good grace. I had no option but to work for them and they had no option but to accept me.
I had entered a new and exciting world. The place hummed with activity. By this time the Japanese Army had over-run the Netherlands East Indies as quickly as they over-ran Malaya and Singapore. In a frantic stampede to escape the Japanese horde, everyone who could escape from the Netherlands East Indies did so. Australia was the nearest apparently safe haven. Although much of the Netherlands Indies merchant shipping fleet was lost during the Japanese invasion, a significant remnant of this fleet still remained afloat. These ships, filled with men, women and children, made their way to safety in Australian ports. Australia was however a dubious safe haven.
Australia was utterly unprotected and defenceless. Our Army, Navy and Air force were all spread overseas between the Middle East, Britain, Singapore and Malaya. The Singapore/Malaya forces were already lost. In Australia we had nothing. We were just a piece of ripe fruit waiting to be picked. For the first time the government brought in conscription but we were bereft of arms, tanks or artillery and in no state to fight a war on our own soil. Everyone turned to Britain for assistance. We were stunned when it became obvious Churchill had decided that saving India was Britain’s first priority and Australia was left to fend for itself. Two of our divisions returned to Australia as quickly as possible, nevertheless it all took time. When they did eventually arrive in Australia the troops entrained in Perth and proceeded as rapidly as possible to Queensland and NSW to hold the Japanese if and when they invaded Australia.
I remember machinegun nests being built in the sand on the Northern Sydney beaches, where the big-bronzed Anzacs disported themselves before the adoring girls. The 16th brigade of the 6th division had the task of protecting the northern suburbs of Sydney. Quite a challenge! As a 15/16 year old I remember riding my bicycle to Terry Hills to watch the “Changing of the Guard” at brigade headquarters.
Logistics had loomed Australia’s biggest, indeed intractable, problem.
1942 was only 41 years after Federation, when the completely independent colonies agreed to form a Commonwealth, but it was a very close vote winning by only the slightest margin. One colony-New Zealand – rejected Federation and decided to go its own way. From a logistics point of view what was left was an unbelievable hotchpotch, particularly the railways.
Starting from Western Australia there was one rail gauge from Perth to Kalgoorlie, another from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta in South Australia then another from Port Augusta to Adelaide. In those days there was also a different rail system form Adelaide to Melbourne. From Melbourne it was wide gauge rail tracks to Albury on the NSW border where everything had to be transferred to standard gauge railway carriages to be oncarried to Sydney. From Sydney to Wallangarra [on the Queensland border] there was standard rail gauge, but then on to Brisbane was narrow gauge. The rest of Queensland was narrow gauge.
It couldn’t have been worse! But the situation with roads was indeed much worse. The road across the Nullarbor Plain was nothing more than an unsealed dirt track. Rail and sea were the only reliable links between Western Australia and the Eastern States. All this meant added reliance had to be placed on sea freight.
The Battle for Australia was to be fought in New Guinea and adjoining islands as well as The Solomons and New Britain to the north. The only possible transport medium between Australia and this area was by sea. This created tremendous problems. How could sea transport be provided to New Guinea and an archipelago of islands with few ports and an almost complete absence of shore-side infrastructure? Where were the ships?
Three hundred and fifty years earlier the Dutch East India Company had faced similar problems when trading within the Indonesian archipelago. They then realised there was no option but to construct a fleet of specialised vessels suitable for trading in this area. In the 19th century, as sail was giving way to steam, the KPM was founded. It was planned to operate as a “Packet” navigation Co. Today this is an outdated term but in the late 1800’s a “Packet ship” was a small, specialized ship carrying mail, cargo and passengers on a regular schedule. KPM therefore evolved into a unique organization, in some ways a modern replica of the Dutch East India Co. Its ships fulfilled the combined role that rail, road and airways do in today’s world. None of their ships were run- of- the- mill freighters. Each was tailor-made, designed for these waters, indeed specific routes in these waters.
Just as the earlier merchant Company, The Dutch East India Company, played such an important role in the exploration of our country, so, 350 years later, in the war years of the 1940’s, another Dutch Merchant Company, the KPM, was also to play a significant role in Australia’s hour of greatest need. When our country was on its knees and we were impotent to defend ourselves, the KPM fleet of highly specialized ships, custom designed to work in these waters, began streaming into our ports. Suddenly we had at our disposal the logistical tools which would enable our army to fight and defeat the enemy in this area, rather than on the Australian mainland.
Working from memory and in consultation with the other two Australians who worked in KPM during these years, the following is a list of the KPM ships which we remember operated out of Australian ports, as a fleet train for the Allied forces fighting the Japanese in our near north.
BANTAM
BALIKPAPAN
BOTH
BONTEKOE
CREMER
EL LIBERATADOR
FORT AMSTERDAM
FORT RENSELAAR
GENERAAL VERSPIJK
HOUTMAN
JANSSENS
JAPARA
KARSIK
KHOEN HWA
LE MAIRE
MAETSUYCKER
OP TEN NOORT
PATRAS
PAHUD
PLANCIUS
REIJNST
STAGEN
SIBIGO
GG- s’JACOB
SWARTENHONDT
THEDENS
TASMAN
VAN HEUTSZ
VAN SWOLL
VAN OUTHOORN
VAN DER LIJN
VAN SPILBERGEN
In addition to the above one or other of us remembers the following ships that others of us do not.
SIAOE
MELCHIOR TREUB
and
BATAVIA.
None of these vessels is what you imagine a first half twentieth century freighter to be like. They were all small. Most of them were less than half the size of the then average freighter, such as the Liberty ship or the Victory ship. Some in fact were very small. Just 1000t or so. As befits their role as a packet ship the KPM ships tended to have more passenger accommodation than normal. Many were also designed to operate in shallow waters and to travel up rivers without pilot or tug assistance. Some of these ships carried a team of “Badjos” onboard with them. They were little fellows, short but powerfully built; nuggetty fellows [rather like the Nepalese Ghurkhas.] When the ship called at a tiny, isolated trading station in an outlying area of the archipelago, [which were mostly devoid of any port facilities and where the water was very shallow,] the ship would stand out to sea. The Badjo’s jumped into the water and carried the cargo on their backs to and from the vessel through the surf. I remember seeing a pre-second world war KPM tourist brochure, with a photograph of a badjo carrying a Dutch woman of ample dimensions on his shoulders, through the surf.
Pre war the beautiful little passenger ships Maetsuycker and Tasman sailed on the KPM South Pacific Service between French Indo-China [Vietnam etc] Thailand, Singapore, Java, Sydney, and French dependencies like the New Hebrides {Vanuatu} and New Caledonia. As well as cargo they also carried large numbers of “Tonkinese” labourers and their families, to work on plantations. In the post-war musical “South Pacific”, which was set in this area, the hero, a courageous American airman, falls in love with a beautiful native girl who was definitely Tonkinese and not Melanesian. She, or her mother, would probably have been deck passengers on either the Maetsuycker or the Tasman. During the war both the Maetsuycker and the Tasman served as Australian Hospital ships during the New Guinea campaign. A third Australian hospital ship supporting this campaign, a British ship “Centaur,” was torpedoed and sunk in the Coral Sea.
My recollections
Once again, in the KPM my role was office boy, but at least I was better paid. Instead of $2.65 per week at the Insurance Co I was now paid $3.70 per week. Still not much, but a pay increase of 40%! I now worked in an environment where most of the Dutch staff carried imposing titles, and being in the Dutch language they were also very long words, the meaning of which only they understood. As it was a case of if you can’t beat ‘em, join’ em, I gave myself the imposing title of VERTAGENVORDENGER VOOR DE LOST MAIL! (ed. Representative for the Lost Mail). I now had two Indonesian clerks as assistants. They were very dapper little fellows in their American Officers uniforms and seemed to have great success with the girls. On the other hand they both suffered from the most virulent cases of galloping halitosis I have ever encountered. I tried to keep at least 3 meters between us at all times.
It is worth mentioning that these clerks [there were 20 or 30 of them in the office] quite openly told us there was no possibility of the Dutch returning to their country after the war. In fact one of these clerks later became a Cabinet Minister in the first Sukarno government. Not all the clerks were Javanese. Several were from Menado in the Celebes, and they were Christians. Several of the others were Ambonese. Their complexion was darker than the other clerks and they were more reliable workers. Unlike the other clerks they were strongly pro-Dutch.
The Management office for all KPM ships operating in Australia, New Guinea and our near north, was in Sydney. It was quite a big outfit. There was one floor for the engineering department whose superintendent was a Mr Frank Bansma, one floor for the Nautical department whose superintendent was a Captain van Noorden, one floor for the Catering and Providoring Department, whose superintendent was Mr Tony Vermolen. Then there was a very big Accounts Department, plus one floor for senior management [including of course the office boy.]
Most of the fleet was operationally based in Townsville in North Queensland, where most of the traffic for the Army emanated. At some stage all but the smallest vessels came to Sydney for dry-docking, repairs and maintenance. There always seemed to be 5 or 6 vessels in Sydney. The operation in Townsville was very large with a constant flow of vessels carrying supplies, munitions, equipment, food etc to ports all over New Guinea and the Islands. If my memory serves me right the Karsik and Swartenhondt exclusively served the RAAF. Much of detailed shipping work [Customs, entering and clearing ships etc] was carried out by local Agents, The Adelaide Steamship Company. Everyone in Townsville seemed to have something to do with the KPM; I think it was their largest industry at the time. The Superintendent stationed here was a Captain Koning. At some periods when Townsville came under intense pressure Sydney would take a backup role. Then what Captain Koning wanted was law! Appropriately the name Koning means King in English.
One of my responsibilities as office boy was to take the crew mail down to the ships, a task that always made me very popular onboard. Then I had to discuss with the Master a number of very important matters, such as the collection of garbage and the provision of lighters to take away hold rubbish- [dirt, broken dunnage timber and general mess which accumulated in the hold.] take crew to the doctor and the like. I loved every minute of it.
As the war progressed and the demand for waterside labour increased, office workers in the shipping companies had to go down to the wharves, after they had finished work at the office, and act as waterside workers, loading and unloading ships that had been given an urgent priority. We would work through till 11 pm, but not every night of the week.
Usually only the Australian staff at KPM volunteered for this work and the Senior Australian member of the staff, Maurice Pennell, acted as our gang leader. He quickly adapted to the role becoming doing his best to become a typical irascible “wharfie.” It proved to be an eye opener for each of us, particularly our gang leader, who represented the company on many of the peak industry committees. For the first time we all saw things from the other side of the fence.
If work was slow [such as handling heavy lifts with the ship’s jumbo derrick] the foreman would let us take it in turns to have a quick nap. Some exporters of particularly palatable foodstuffs would send down a few extra cases for us but “please don’t broach any of the other cases.” Most of us worked with a handful of sultanas in our pockets. Our gang leader Maurice Pennell, in his other life, was the Chairman of the Shipping Industry Anti-Pillage squad and now learned some of the real facts of life. In many ways it was a good education. On one particular night there was a problem with one of our own ships. It was the “van der Lijn” if I remember correctly and she was running late for an important commitment. Some 500 tons of cement ballast had to be unloaded urgently. This had been taken aboard on a previous voyage to give the vessel sufficient stability to carry some heavy cargo on deck. Probably tanks or the like. There was a shortage of waterside workers at the time, so our emergency gang had to do the job after work. As it was organised at short notice we had to go down as we were.
When they said it was cement ballast we assumed it would be large concrete blocks instead it proved to be paper bags of cement and what was worse, most of the bags were torn by cargo having been stowed on top of them. As the torn bags of cement were being slung out of the hold the whole area was filled with dust. It penetrated every nock and cranny in our bodies. Our eyes were the most affected and we didn’t finish till 11pm. We had hoped to be given a drink onboard before leaving for home, but no such luck. I went home by tram to Mosman but being covered in cement dust I tried to keep as far away from the other passengers as possible. I could feel the disgust obvious from the expressions on their faces as they looked me up and down. As Maurice Pennell would have had the same experience it did have some rewards! From then on Maurice became the strongest advocate in the industry calling for better conditions on the wharves, particularly the provision of showers and somewhere for the workers to hang up their clothes etc. Everybody knew the story of when Maurice and his gang discharged the torn bags of cement ballast.
In lighter vein
When the remnants of the KPM fleet turned up in various Australian ports they naturally did not bring with them any spare crews. Both attrition and the need for leave began to create problems of serious proportions.
As all the vessels were crewed with European Officers and Asian seamen, stokers etc, somehow additional Asian crews had to be recruited. India was the only prospect. It appears the KPM was rushed by volunteers. In all fairness and to put it into today’s jargon, stoking coal into boilers of ships sailing in the tropical heat and subject to air and submarine attack “did not present an enticing job profile.” But as jobs in India were not easy to find eventually a number of Indian crews were successfully recruited. They were mainly lascars [seamen] and stokers. To my recollection there were no stewards or catering staff but I could be wrong.
On the Australian waterfront there has never been a lack of firebrand, radical, leftwing trade union delegates and it was a normal part of life for us to be working with these people. Compared with the Indian trade union delegates however our boys were more like characters out of Jane Austen novels! Frequently a crowd of disgruntled lascars would troop into our office led by their delegate. These spokesmen always seemed to be small, neat little fellows, with wild eyes, who spoke excellent English with great rapidity. They must have been from Northern India as I don’t think I ever saw a Tamil. They obviously preferred to fight first and negotiate afterwards. We didn’t know whether they were Stalinists or Trotskyites or what but whatever they were, it was violently left wing. I’m not exaggerating when I say we had to make our counter 600mm wider so that when they took a swipe at you, they couldn’t reach.
At one stage during the war, in an effort to placate them, the company produced a medal to reward them for their undoubted courage, because there is no doubt they did work in awful conditions and were frequently exposed to considerable danger. Never have I ever seen such a spectacular, magnificent medal. The Victoria Cross, The US Congressional Medal of Valour, The Iron Cross, The French Legion of Honour or Croix de Guerre paled into insignificance by comparison. The centre was a gilt mound about 75mm in diameter from which emanated golden rays from the sun in a star formation. To my recollection there was also red somewhere on the medallion. It was quite massive 100mm or more in diameter and would have been quite heavy. Giving this reward for courage was a masterstroke in the arena of Industrial Relations. The lascars and stokers were just overwhelmed. Never, ever have I seen anyone so obviously proud. Never since the days of Mogul Empire would any of their ancestors have been so honoured! It brought tears to my eyes to sometimes see two or three of them proudly striding down Martin Place with these gigantic gongs pinned to their chest. Probably for the first time in their life they felt truly worthy.
At times of crew transfers, or when ships were in dry dock for example, we frequently had Indian crews staying in boarding houses scattered around Sydney. They usually called at our office to collect their mail but there was always the odd letters that remained uncollected.
Every week or so I would take these letters around to the boarding houses in an effort to find the addressees. It was following one of these visits that The Tribune, the main publication of the Australian Communist Party, announced on Banner Boards around Sydney
“DUTCH SECRET SERVICE AGENTS ACTIVE IN SYDNEY”
Their lead article was a lurid tale about the operations of Dutch Secret Police in Sydney; quoting interviews with the landlords of the various boarding houses I was visiting seeking “clandestine” information in an attempt to trace [presumably to kidnap] Communist Party members. The articles continued over several editions but then finally disappeared. Interestingly a book was printed many years later, by a prominent Communist Journalist, entitled “THE BLACK ARMADA”. This book provided a rather fanciful account of Dutch Ships in Australia with a chapter on the operations of Dutch Secret Police in Sydney. It gave a graphic description of my efforts to deliver the crew mail and provided references to the Tribune articles as proof of these accusations.
As a preamble to this subject it should be emphasised that all the troubles between the Australian Trade Unions and The Netherlands East Indies did not erupt until after the war. There were no problems in this area during the war.
I can’t give a definitive story about this ban, except to say that it was definitely NOT a ban on all Dutch ships. After the war I worked with the previously mentioned Maurice Pennell in the “ Holland Australia Line” department in the KPM office in Sydney. This was the Australia / Europe service of another company known as the VNS. I won’t attempt to provide the full title of this company in Dutch as it would take a full line of this story, suffice it to say the English translation was The United Netherlands Navigation Co Ltd. When the trade unions attempted to extend this ban to the Holland Australia Line vessels, there was such an outcry from the Belgian and French wool buyers that the Australian Government immediately stepped in and the ban was promptly lifted. The lifting of the ban did not apply to the KPM ships trying to return to the Netherlands East Indies however.
At this stage there is a slight gap in this “oral history”. By September 1944 the outlook for winning the war had apparently improved sufficiently for me to be permitted to join the RAAF. I volunteered on my 18th birthday and was accepted for aircrew training but was not called to arms to commence my training until March1945. Not long after this the war in Europe ended.
After an enjoyable 8 weeks or so stint all aircrew training was temporarily put on hold and we were all summarily shipped off to Marangaroo [near Lithgow in the Blue Mountains] to work at a munitions dump. Here we loaded ammunition, flares, bombs etc onto rail trucks, en route to the war. The Government’s intention was to demobilize all aircrew who had served Europe, however the outlook for the war against Japan was far from clear and the squadrons operating in the Pacific remained operational. The American experience at Iowa Jim and Okinawa had shown the fighting spirit of the Japanese soldier was undaunted. Whilst the Americans were victorious in both these battles they suffered appalling casualties. Even worse was the fact that practically all the Japanese soldiers fought to the death and very few surrendered. Whilst there was no doubt as to the outcome of an invasion of Japan, the cost in allied soldiers casualties could be enormous. The Government wisely decided to put all aircrew training temporarily on hold but with trainees “on ice” at each stage of training. If it were to become necessary to train additional aircrew, the ice could then be thawed and within about two or three months trained aircrew would begin to roll off the production line. In the interim my mates and I worked in our white tipped forage caps, loading ammunition, bombs and all the rest on to trains for transport to the operational squadrons.
Lithgow was a pleasant enough spot but in mid winter very cold. There were only a few of us [about 50] but we enjoyed ourselves. The main social event during our stay was the local debutante’s ball. The more presentable of us provided partners for a record number of debutantes [I did not win a jersey] and they all had a great time. One of my mates suffered a glitch in the proceedings, which rather unnerved him. When calling to collect his partner on the night of the great event, the girl’s father took him aside [and remember this was a coalmining town] and made it perfectly clear his manhood would end up on a platter if there was any “funny business.”
Then out of the blue atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki and the war was over. We were each given 7 days leave and on our return learned our services were no longer required and we were offered immediate discharge. I was one of the few to accept discharge, most of the others preferring to stay on for another six months or so as they would be entitled to free University enrolment. One became a highly regarded Architect and another was my Dentist until we both retired. So the result was that I returned home to Mum and I still have most of my teeth.
A week later I was back at work at KPM. I returned to the Holland Australia Line and Overseas Ships [i.e. not KPM ships] Department with my old boss. Consequently I had no direct involvement in the so-called Ban on Dutch Shipping. As an oral history must have its lighter moments there was however one fracas in our office that I witnessed.
A crowd of Indonesian crewmembers -at least 100 strong- stormed into our office one morning demanding to see the General Manager. He was not in fact in the office, but the demonstrators didn’t believe us when we said he wasn’t here. They were quite well behaved, in fact most seemed rathe bored with the whole idea. The younger element took the opportunity to chat up all the young girls in the office. All in all it was quite a cheery atmosphere. Then the tea lady arrived on the scene wheeling her enormous trolley, piled high with tea cups, urns of tea and coffee as well as three large tins of Arnotts mixed sweet biscuits. She was not in the mood to take no nonsense from the demonstrators. She had a job to do and she intended to do it, demonstrators or no demonstrators and began to bulldoze her way through the crowd. When they obstructed her she became quite sharp with them, so they unceremoniously bundled her out the door. The rioters then began serving themselves from her trolley, quaffing cups of tea and coffee, winking at all the girls and finally sat on the floor and cleaned up all the biscuits. The intended violent demonstration was by now degenerating into a farce, so one of the Dutch staff who could speak fluent Malay, explained that the Big Boss was no here and took them into his empty office to prove it. The riot then imploded and the rioters, thoroughly dispirited with the whole event, gradually dribbled out the front door and adjourned to the nearest pub to drown their sorrows.
Not being privy to all the machinations that took place when the fleet of KPM ships silently slipped out to sea from the various ports and returned to Java, I can offer no comments. All I do know is that it was brilliantly organized and somewhere I am sure it is well documented.
Australia had around 6 years wool clip in store by the time the war ended. Europe urgently needed the wool to enable the great woollen mills in Northern France and Belgium to resume production. Australia was flat broke with years of wool production unsold. Wool was then our major export earner. Those were the days when we “rode on the sheep’s back.” Every opportunity to ship wool to Europe had to be firmly grasped. This included utilizing the cargo space on any passenger ships carrying the flood of people returning to Holland from The Indies. One of these ships was the “ Bloemfontein “ also owned by the VNS. It was a passenger ship employed in peacetime in The Holland Africa Line, a sister to the Holland Australia Line. Bloemfontein had substantial amount of cargo space even though the tween decks and all passenger accommodation would be filled with people returning to Holland. With the [enthusiastic] agreement of the Owners we booked a large quantity of wool and sheepskins from Sydney to Antwerp to fill all the space available.
Now no longer the office boy, I went aboard Bloemfontein on arrival to discuss cargo matters with the Master. He explained that it was crucial that the loading take place as quickly as possible because of the number of passengers aboard, particularly as most of them were accommodated in primitive conditions in the cargo carrying decks, not cabins. Maurice Pennell succeeded in wheedling permission from the Port Labour Priority Committee for the ship to work “around the clock”. The Waterside Workers Federation also co-operated unstintingly and work proceeded without delay.
When I went back to the ship a few hours later, to check-up on how work was proceeding, I looked down the hatch into the lower hold where the cargo was being stowed and I saw a sight I have never forgotten. Hundreds and hundreds of Dutch men, women and children sitting, standing and talking in the wide cargo- carrying tween decks, in the midst of a jumble of baggage and clothes and bedding. God knows how they ate or where they cooked and the six-week voyage that lay ahead would have been pure hell. These were the people left behind in Java over the war years when the remnant of the KPM fleet sailed to Australia and played a pivotal role in saving our country from invasion and the sort of ordeal these people had experienced.
It was a humbling experience.
Having worked with the Dutch for most of my working life, people often ask me “What are the Dutch really like”. Well, the answer is that they are just like us. That is, they are all different. I always find that the ones who emigrated from Holland are more like Australians than any other race, apart from those coming from The British Isles. I don’t think any migrant group has assimilated the mores and culture of the Australian way of life better than the Holland Dutch. These people, their children and their grandchildren are in every way “Fair Dinkum” Australians. Australians to be truly proud of.
As I said earlier they [and us] are all different. It always fascinated me as a boy how the Dutch Officers of the KPM ships spoke English with a definite Dutch/Australian accent. During the war Holland America Line ships occasionally visited Sydney, such as the great transatlantic liner the “Nieuw Amsterdam”, as a troopship carrying our boys overseas and later back again. We also had occasional calls by the “Dijk” cargo ships. On these ships the officers looked, dressed & acted like Americans. They spoke English with a broad Dutch/American drawl. Some even chewed cigars like Americans.
My biggest surprise came when the British Pacific Fleet arrived towards the end of the war. I lived in Mosman as a boy and always travelled to work by ferry. One morning the ferry turned out of Mosman Bay into the main Harbour to find the port filled with warships. Big Fleet carriers like the “Indomitable” and the “Indefatigable” and others whose names I can’t remember.
There seemed to be shoals of Escort Carriers, Battleships, Cruisers, and Destroyers etc. It was a sight never before seen. Later the Fleet Train arrived. Included in the Fleet Train was the hospital ship Tjitjalengka, a large passenger ship and flagship of The Java, China, Japan Line fleet. As it came under the umbrella of the Overseas Department in KPM Sydney office I went down to meet the Captain. This was another surprise. The Master, Captain Novotny looked British to the eyeballs, he even had a swagger cane tucked under his arm. He spoke English with a brusque, clipped Dutch/ British accent. A real pukka sahib.
Well, that’s about all I can remember at short notice. If any other juicy bits come to mind that I think may interest Dr. Stanley, I will pass them on.
I’ve enjoyed regurgitating all these reminiscences of bygone days.
Dick Ullett.
Sydney
5 July 2006