- Straat Soenda
Photo taken of the the first group of Dutch volunteers sailing on the KPM freighter, m.v. Straat Soenda, from Durban, South Africa to Batavia (today’s Jakarta), Indonesia. The ship took us from Durban to Java under 43 year-old Captain Josef Veldhuisen. During the war the ship and her crew distinguished themselves, and after the war the Captain was decorated with the K.v.V. (Kruis van Verdienste)
In the photo above, the author is in the arms of his nanny, and his mother is standing next to these two. His father took the photograph on May 26 1940. This family survived internment by the Japanese, along with that of the other couple. One of the volunteers is known to have died as a slave labourer in the notorious Junyo Maru torpedo incident. If he had survived that disaster he likely would have perished in the equally notorious Pakanbaroe (today’s Pakanbaru) death railway project on Sumatra. The fate of most of the others is unknown, though the ship itself survived the war as an allied supply vessel.
Straat Soenda
Straat Soenda photo taken in 1939.
The words Straat Soenda, KPM ( Koninklijke Pakket Maatschappij) and Junyo Maru, and Pakanbaroe, Death Railway are of significance from a historical perspective. In the book I included a map drawing attention to that railway line, which otherwise has all but been forgotten.
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