Five Brothers and a War

Postscript: Leendert “Leen” van Pelt (1920-1976)

Leen was sent to Sampit, on the multi-national island of Borneo shortly after he married Rita, on November 29, 1946. Borneo is comprised of three nations—Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. These three nations are unique. Malaysia and Indonesia are spread over different land masses—thousands of islands in the case of Indonesia, including the large one shared with Papua New Guinea, just above Australia’s northern coast. Brunei is a tiny area located in the middle of Borneo’s central northern coast. All of these areas were overrun by the Japanese during World War II. Indonesia, being a Dutch colony for hundreds of years, was not able to be defended by Holland, due to the obvious situation with Nazi Germany having taken over Holland. The Pacific theater of World War II continued after V.E. Day, with many armaments and armies diverted from Europe to the Pacific. In early August 1945, with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese were forced to surrender. The surrender proclamation was on August 15, and the formal signing of the instrument of surrender took place on the American battleship USS Missouri on September 2. Key to this story is that the Indonesians, with their leader Sukarno at the helm, declared independence from Holland on August 17, two days after the Japanese surrendered. Holland was barely in a position to wage war, but nonetheless did so. That war lasted until December 27, 1949. Bertus spent three years fighting for Holland in Indonesia. Thus, Leen, Rita and Bertus went from war-torn Holland almost directly into war-torn Indonesia, with a short respite in between. Leen and Rita became the parents of Johanna Frederika, “Joke”, in Sampit, Borneo, Indonesia shortly after the war’s conclusion in 1950. Rita traveled home to give birth to their second, Henriette, in 1952. Their third daughter, Marianne Louise was born in 1953, also in Den Haag.

van Pelt

Five Brothers and a War

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