THE TIDE WILL TURN

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4572, 2 July 1942, Page 4

THE TIDE WILL TURN

HEROES OE THE NETHERLANDS When Queen Wilhcmina spoke over the radio from London recently, giving a message to Netherlander in all parts of the world, she devoted part of her broadcast to words of encouragement directed to her compatriots in the East Indies: “I assure you how deep my sympathy is for you and my understanding of your sorrow, but I thank God that for you the tide will turn.” These words wore spoken to brave men who are still stubbornly fighting in the forest fastnesses of Silmatra and Java, concerning whom the public knows little beyond the kindling fact that, aided by the native population, they carry on against heavy odds. They were spoken to the Netherlander now in Australia and elsewhere who are gallantly fighting with the resolution that in the days to come they will be part of the force which will recover the Netherlands Indies from the Japanese. I'hosc who have left Java are resolved to return. . ■ An American airman has told the story of one of these men who came out of Java. ■ ‘‘After we left Java and landed at an airport in the north of Australia, we heard a single plane coming in at midnight. There was a hell of a crash as an old box-kite zoomed crazily and (nearly nosed over. We rushed out and there was an old Curtiss —God knows what model, but it must have been early experimental smashed badly. None of us would have been allowed to fly it, let alone fight in it. Under the plane there lay a Dutch pilot about 40. He was beating the ground and sobbing, net because he was hurt, but beceause he bad no more tools to fight with. ‘' Well v. r .re short of pilots and '.vc lu-.d : dr. c bomber we had to abandon to ■ apr wafers. So we told this Dutch phot lie could have it. Mind you, he ban i.ev. r flown one before. But the butch: an’s face lit up like (he South Seas’ full moon. He took only b() minutes' instructions, and then raid he was ready to have the gasoline tanks and bomb bays tilled because he had a date at dawn with some Jap transports and it ws getting late. He

took off to the north, leaving only an exhaust stream visible, against the starry sky. I know he isn’t alive now, but I’ll bet he caused a lot of damage before he went down. He died happy. ’ ’ “There was a Dutchman up in Broome, where the Japs had killed-so many cilivians, ’ ’ said a captain. ‘ ‘ This Dutchman hud escaped from Java. During that surprise attack, which caught us on the ground without antiaircraft or pursuit, the Dutchmn ran out to one of the Fortresses and wrenched a 30-calibre machine gun out of it. He .started firing like mad, and damned if he didn’t shoot one down. You know, it’s a hellish job even to hold a machine gun. This Dutchman had held it by the barrel, which was almost red-hot. He held up his left hand. The flesh was burned off. He just smiled and said: ‘But I got him, yes?’ ” Some time after the main forces had left Java, a Flying Fortress lauded in Australia. She was filled with Netherj landers. They had patched up a machine abandoned in Java because of engine trouble and they had flown out with it. As the plane landed one jumped out and said to the Australians and Americans at hand: “Can you paint the Dutch flag on this ship and let us have some bombs and gas? We are going back to Java.’’ An American' correspondent describes his meeting with a young lieutenant of the Netherlands Navy. He was limping badly from a piece of shrapnel in his thigh, a souvenir of the Battle of the Java Sea. “The doctor had forbidden him to leave the ship,’’ the correspondent wrote, “but he hadn’t been ashore for nine months. After a couple of high-balls he had to leave because the leg hurt so much, but before leaving he told his story: since the war started in ’39 he had had seven ships shot out from under him, and the last time only 40 of the 300-man crew got away. As he started to go, with pain written deeply in his face, I asked him where his home in the Netherlands was. “In Rotterdam, sir,” he said. These, and hundreds ike them, were the men to whom Queen Wilhelmina spoke, men who joined silently but resolutely with their brothers and sisI tens in the homeland, in echoing the Queen’s words:"The tide will turn.”