Helping for Freedom

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 75, 19 September 1941, Page 2

Helping for Freedom

CONTRIBUTION OF DUTCH

COLONISTS

AIRCRAFT FOR GREAT

BRITAIN

Thirty-four bombers, all Dutch manned, and 77 fighters are the result ,to date of the aircraft drive in Netherlands colonies to help Britain's war effort. Of the total received from the drive, £1,200,000, or more than ten per cent has come from Queen Wilhelmina's subjects overseas.

Netherlands 'East Indies sent £1,000,000 of it, nearly all in dollar exchange. In Batavia, on the anniversary of the invasion of Holland by the Nazis, the people gave one third of their wages. A bootblack -there, Kistoko by name, allotted a daily contribution from his earnings. Even the prisoners gave up their pocket money. The native people of Palembangsche Bovenlanden (South Sumatra) gathered 41,000 florins. In five months these people sent three Spitfires into battle and gave 15,000 florins towards a bomber. In U.S.A. a show of 14 paintings by Van Gogh netted 18,000 dollars. Suriname (Dutch Guinea) sent £5,000. In Curacao off the Mosquito Coast, the Ladies' Spitfire Committee collected 40,000 florins; the whole colony 400,000. Aruba native folk put 6,000 florins together. All of them have given freely of their money, asking one tiling only, that these avengers of the rape of Holland shall bear names like The Flying Dutchman, Middelburg I and 11, Tapanoeli and—Rotterdam.