VJ Day 2024

[Hanno Spoelstra]

The 79th anniversary of the end of World War 2 triggers the recollection of what my late father’s family had to go through.

#VJDay, #lestweforget

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

An exposition about the MS Oranje (see link below) triggered a recollection of my late father, Rob Spoelstra. He lived in the Netherlands East-Indies (now Indonesia) from 1931-1945. After V-J Day, he fled from a Japanese interment camp and went looking for his father, mother and sister. Note: his family was separated: his father was in a mens camp, his mother and sister in a women and children camp. At 12 years of age, he was taken away from his mother and put in a boys only camp.

So, in August 1945 they hear the war is over and as a 14 year old boy my father and a friend decide to go and find their family. They had some letters via the Red Cross so they had a clue where they could be, not knowing if they were still alive. They traded some clothes for a couple of goose eggs, made a knapsack and crawled under the barbed wire and headed in the direction of their father's camp.

Out on the road they were stopped by a Japanese patrol (who were now tasked with protecting the Dutch against the Indonesians). They were about to be taken back to the camp, when a column of British-Indian Army trucks passed by. A British officer asked what was happening and after his explanation, my father and his friend were taken along by the British-Indian troops as they were heading in the direction of their father’s camp.
My father told me they “drove in trucks with peculiar back-slanted windows”, identifying them as Cab 13 CMP trucks. My father told me this story when I first showed him my Ford F15A CMP.

Luckily, my father was reunited with his father, mother and sister and they were repatriated to the Netherlands very much in the same was as can be seen in the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/24315614237...61874503832943

[Ed Storey]

There were certainly a lot of people on the move worldwhile as boundaries were redrawn, armies demobilized and all manner of humanity were just trying to return home. Thinking back, it was quite a resilient generation as I cannot think of too many 14 year-olds these days who could or would these days set out on their own. I like to think that the fruit from all that termoil, destruction and death is at least now a united Europe and hopefully someday, all huminity will learn something from the past.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Well said, Ed!

My Father, having lived through WW2 as a young boy, never felt remorse towards his oppressor, but always emphasized the importance of international peace and stability.