Meditations
from Florida
The Forties
The Twentieth Century:
Going, going... almost gone (V)
moessQn
was overrun and surrende
red on May 14, 1940, and
the queen and het govern
ment fled to London.
chocolate, cake, candy and watching
the girls. Just about all of them were
named Mac, Pat or Bill. Or so they said.
They behaved so differently from us.
They were open and naive. The Yanks
often went to Toko Oen
to have a
beer where,
sometimes
when a little
drunk, they
might throw
an empty
beer bottle
through Oen's
plate glass
window.
They loved to
ride in a dokar
and pay the driver with bills they
ripped in half to arrive at the price of
the fare!
We were aghast. But soon they were
gone and I have often wondered what
became of Mac, Pat and Bill.
We can do it!
In the U.S. meanwhile, millions of
women went to work. They worked in
factories and shipyards and anywhere
else they were needed. Many of them
were riveters, building ships and planes
and were called Rosie the Riveter. On
the new stamp, Rosie, symbol of the
American World War II woman, flexes
her muscles saying: 'We can do it!'
And could they ever! They worked in
24-hour shifts, seven days a week.
They built 296,000 planes, 87,000
The world was in an economic
depression and there were
few jobs available. Countries
like Germany, Italy and japan
were looking for ways to get
access to raw materials and
for that they had to expand
their borders.
Spitfire Fund
In the Indies we gathered aluminium
pots and pans, proceeds of which went
to the Spitfire Fund. It gave us a feeling
that we, too, were doing something to
help the war effort. Then came
December 7, 1941, when Japan bom
bed Pearl Harbour. Uncle sam went to
war. The very next day, in the Nether
lands Indies, governor-general Tjarda
van Starkenborgh Stachouwer declared
war on Japan. It took only three
months before we surrendered and we
were occupied for the next three and a
half years. Volumes full of the misery
a war and an occupation bring, have
since been written and published.
What was happening in the U.S.?
There, the country completely taken
by surprise, was not exactly ready to
wage an all-out war. Men and women
went into the armed services, more
than sixteen million of them served
and about half a million of them lost
their lives.
I can remember before Pearl Harbour
seeing the Yanks strolling on the
Kajoetangan in Malang. They were so
young, so exuberant and they loved
Japan, especially, was looking to the
Netherlands Indies for rubber, oil, tin,
lumber and other stuff that they just
did not have enough of, or didn't have
at all. Japan had already invaded Man
churia and China. On September 1,
1939, Germany marched into Poland
and waged a Blitzkrieg, a war that
struck swift as lightning. Soon all of
Europe was involved in what would
become World War II. The Netherlands
World War
Tekst: Juul Lentze
