Dutch Remembrance Day 2009 / Friends visit

Last Sunday (May 2nd) the Dutch club in Perth (Neerlandia) organised the Dutch Remembrance Day. This is in effect the Perth version of the 'dodenherdenking' in the Netherlands which takes place every year on the 4th of May.


The Australian War Cemetery (in Karakatta/Nedlands) has a Dutch Annex were 28 (Dutch) victims have been buried. These 28 people were refugees that fled the Japanese army from Indonesia to Broome (in the North of WA) only to be killed in the air raid on Broome.
(the Dutch Annex at the Australian War Cemetery in Nedlands, WA):


This is the story as per a government website:
In February 1942, Broome in Western Australia was used as the Australian end of an air shuttle service from Java. Hundreds of evacuees were ferried to Broome in Dutch, American and Australian military and civil aircraft, including flying boats of Qantas Empire Airways.

By the end of that month, the town was overflowing with military personnel and refugees. People slept wherever they could while waiting for a flight to continue their journey south. During the last weeks of February 1942 over 7000 people, including the former commander of the 8th Australian Division, Major-General H Gordon Bennett, who had escaped from Singapore, passed through Broome. On one single day, 57 aircraft landed there.

On 3 March 1942, without warning, Japanese fighters attacked. The attack lasted no more than 20 minutes, during which time 25 Allied aircraft were destroyed and dozens of people were killed or wounded. Many victims were Dutch women and children packed into flying boats on the harbour either waiting to be unloaded and ferried ashore or waiting to depart for the southern states. Another 30 crew and passengers, mostly military personnel, were lost when an American Liberator bomber was shot down shortly after taking off. Precisely how many people died in the raid, and who they were, will never be known.

Correspondence, coins and trinkets that were recovered from the wreckage of the sunken flying boats can be seen in the Broome museum. Dozens of people lost their lives during the attack on Broome on 3 March 1942. Many of the Dutch women and children were trapped in flying boats in the harbour. Others were incinerated, drowned or taken by sharks as they attempted to swim ashore. The Dutch bodies recovered were first buried in the Broome War Cemetery but were later removed and reburied in a special area in the Karrakatta cemetery in Perth. Many were not identified and they lie in unmarked graves.

Although it felt a bit uneasy (for me as photographer) to take photos, I have done so and I believe it is actually good to make (more) people aware of this.


For more photos have a look here

On a bit lighter note:
After the ceremony Neerlandia had opened their clubhouse for coffee and lunch. We enjoyed that so much that we actually decided to keep our membership of Neerlandia going (we had just send an email the week before to cancel ours!!)

Then at the Easter weekend we had (Dutch) friends over who are living in Sydney. They have family in Perth and stayed a few days at our place as well. They have a weblog of their own, feel free to have a look there to see how they liked their stay (please note, their website is published in Dutch!)