WORLD IN ACTION THE FIGHTING DUTCH

Holland today a country occupied by the armed forces of nazi germany / the barbed wire of concentration camps governed by nazi decrees watched by the gestapo a sullen mournful country but over the night air between Holland and England last the signals of a different columns invisible to the nurses but menacing their hold on the country the Holland of the fighting underground tonight the RAF will raid a railroad yard to which the Nazis are to route a troop train bound for the coast in that raid peter van Dongen an ordinary death citizen will play his part in those minutes of anxious waiting Peter Pan dungan thinks of the Holland that was the new holland that he hopes will be he recalls the symbols which to the whole world typify Harlan windmills tulips wooden shoes the old Lowell and country of peaceful farms and fields fragrant with assault tang of the sea win the fishing villages and brown sailed votes the old buildings whose distinctive roof lines have reappeared in all parts of the world the historic column of the great artist their mayor and Rembrandt but Peter Pan Duncan recalls also a less familiar holland the new holland with its great ocean liners and industrial cities where modern design is the mainspring of the life of the working man apply to his homes his roads his transportation this is a Holland connected with the full corners of the earth not only by ocean liner but by airliner Peter Funt onion remembers that his country in more than 100 years of peace for the European neighbors at faced war of a different time across their low-lying coastal fields that that's fought with scientific cunning against the encroachments of the traditional enemy the sea where one stashed the dark waves of the North Sea now ripple the golden waves of weeks but this little country with its eight million inhabitants was the head of a distant southern Empire of 67 million people the Netherlands East Indies stretched over a vast area rich in oil thin rubber and other prized natural products Peter Pan tongan remembers that his country had developed the resources of the Indies under a rule based rather on stewardship that an ownership it remembers to the enormous numbers of native peoples in the Indies in Java there are eight hundred inhabitants to the square mile in Canada only three here the Dutch revived ancient crafts Institute at scientific training under an educational system which preserve the native customs and arts they introduced the Indonesians to the best aspects of Western civilization in the shadow of javanese temples sprang up busy thriving cities halfway around the world lie the Dutch West Indies Dutch Guiana or pseudonym on the mainland of South America and islands of the Caribbean in these colonies to a Netherlands administration safeguarded the welfare of the native peoples and throughout the empire the country remained as a perpetual symbol of goodwill and peace September 1939 the peaceful people of Holland read the dreaded headlines war until the last minute the government adopting a position of armed neutrality refused to allow even military discussion with the French and British staffs thus hoping that the German puree would spend itself elsewhere but in the darkness of early morning may tempt 1940 a century of ducks peace came to a brutal end the Dutch conditioned by centuries of looking out across the horizons of their flat field resorted to their classic defense they opened the dikes and flooded whole sections of their rich country in the path of the onrushing German but against this horizontal defense the Germans through a vertical attack their parachute battalion both of the water barrier and descending from above slashed across the Dutch armies from the West outmaneuver and outnumbered that that army was forced and even as the Dutch signed the papers of submission the Germans committed one of the most unwarranted acts of military profanity in history they bombed the city of Rotterdam who's smoking ruin but with the center of government firmly established in England no time was lost in continuing the fight in the Indies the small army was reinforced with men and equipment the Indonesians and the Dutch working in a unitary born of many years of living together under a common rule there was much to fight with much to fight for the products of the Indies were urgently needed T rice and sago food staples of immense value we need exclusive product of the Indies rubber tin of which the islands were among the heaviest producers in the world and on all these riches Germany's exes partner Japan have been casting an envious and probing I to the Indies came Japanese diplomats to negotiate trade treaties unsuccessful missions which served as a front to mask war plans already completed down to the last detail over spy radio transmitters went innocent messages where they're good and Bob euless and hibiscus in bloom later translated Dutch cruisers and destroyers anchored at Batavia that was the day before Pearl Harbor before even the United States the Netherlands government declared war in Japan who operating with a duck the Indonesians continued to improve the limited defenses of the islands working in industries new to them with skill and patience navy and army aeroplanes man by dutchman Indonesians struck a japanese shipping of the China Seas as the Japanese moved swiftly south to capture Malaya and against vastly superior odds the Royal Dutch navy steamed out from indy sports are what proved to be a gallon but suicidal attempt to stop the Japanese the sport Singapore the Japanese profiting by their lightning advance were soon in a position to bomb Sumatra and Java but the small Dutch Air Force depleted by its work in allied waters was no longer able to defend the islands effectively in the early months of 1942 the Japanese landed and drove back the well-equipped but small Indies army in a series of savage attacks large-scale resistance collapse of the scattered Indies army withdrew to carry on their tenacious fight than the jungles and mountains where some are still fighting even with a the conquerors was left the scorched earth of wrecked machinery smoking plantations and flaming oil wells in this hour of defeat the Netherlands government in exile met to plan how best the Dutch Kingdom could keep on fighting who Canada were sent remnants of the netherlands army from all over the world the train in the latest assault tactics and later to take their place in the armies standing ready for the attack on Hitler's Europe in the United States the royal netherlands air force trained dutch pilots for bomber and fighter squadrons destined for the South Pacific grunts weaving a new global pattern in the life of their empire Indonesian soldiers were sent ten thousand miles westward across the world to Dutch Guiana and for a soul now of high economic consequence and the defenses of the western hemisphere the vast website deposits of pet Fionna were vital to the enormous aluminum industry of Canada in the United States and hence to North American Air Staff productive Dutch Guiana an economic liability from the beginning of its history now became an asset over 500 miles away along the northern coast of South America as a great oil refineries of Curacao and aruba the largest in the Western world there is processed the hightest aviation fuel urgently needed by the United Nations to replace the oil of the East Indies now within japan's puppet empire today from the diet in Tokyo the honeyed words of Japanese friendship and goodwill pour out over the clouded countries of the Eastern world countries where all too long the Western empires had insufficiently realized their responsibilities of government and two peoples long resentful of the partially fulfilled promises of the West the Japanese make alluring offers of wealth and security and toast the independence they have cynically granted to their Eastern partner today the Western powers taste the necessity of a political program molded to the wishes of the people of their former empires and already Queen Wilhelmina has declared the Netherlands readiness to work together in a Commonwealth of purpose with the peoples of the Indies and for the armed might of Japan the Netherlands opposed a renewed resistance here to the United Nations mandatory in the vast Pacific Theatre of war Dutch an American airmen are smashing a Japanese invasion patients with increasing ferocity as the reconquest of the Indies gets underway towards the outlying islands are pushing the landing barges of the Allied armies slashing at the Japanese octopus from the south as a Steiner from the west and the United States on the north the tides of battle has turned tonight in lonely danger Peter from Duncan flashes to the skies the Welcome of the fighting death tomorrow with a men of other fighting nations he will play a vital part in building a new world Commonwealth of free and equal men you