Laurens van der Post

Sir Laurens Jan van der Post (aka Laurens van der Post) December 13, 1906 – December 16, 1996. Famous 20th century Afrikaner author of many books, farmer, war hero, political adviser to British heads of state, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer, and conservationist.

War years

In May 1940 Laurens volunteered for the British Army and upon completion of officer training in January 1941 he was sent to east Africa in the Intelligence Corp as a Captain. There he took up with General Wingate's Gideon Force which was tasked with restoring the Emperor Haile Selassie to his throne in Abyssinia. His unit led 11,000 camels through difficult mountain terrain and he was remembered for being an excellent caretaker of the animals. In March he came down with malaria and was sent to Palestine to recover. In early 1942 he was transferred to the Dutch East Indies because of his Dutch language skills. He was placed in command of "special mission 43", whose purpose was to organize an allied retreat after the Japanese invasion of Java.

Related Topics:
British Army - General Wingate - Gideon Force - Haile Selassie - Abyssinia - Camel - Malaria - Palestine - Dutch East Indies - Java

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On April 20, 1942 he was captured by the Japanese. He was first taken to Soekaboemi (Sukabumi) camp and then to Bandoeng. He played a legendary role in keeping up the morale of troops from many different nationalities. Along with other compatriots he organized a "camp university" with courses from basic literacy to degree-standard ancient history, and he also organized a camp farm to supplement nutritional needs. He could also speak some basic Japanese, which helped him greatly. Once, depressed, he wrote in his diary: "it is one of the hardest things in this prison life: the strain caused by being continually in the power of people who are only half-sane and live in a twilight of reason and humanity." He wrote about his experiences in A Bar of Shadow (1954) and The Seed and the Sower (1963). Japanese film director Nagisa Oshima based his film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1982) mainly on The Seed and the Sower.

Related Topics:
Sukabumi - Bandoeng - Nagisa Oshima - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

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While his fellow POWs left for home, Laurens remained in Java, and on September 15th, 1945 he joined Admiral William Patterson on the HMS Cumberland for the official surrender of the Japanese to the British.

Related Topics:
William Patterson - HMS Cumberland

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He then spent two years helping to mediate between Indonesian nationalists and members of the discredited Dutch colonial regime. He had gained trust with the nationalist leaders such as Mohammad Hatta and Ahmed Sukarno and warned both Mountbatten and prime minister Clement Attlee, whom he met in London in October 1945, that the country was on the verge of blowing up. He went to The Hague to repeat his warning directly to the Dutch cabinet. In November, 1946 British forces withdrew and he became military attaché to the British consulate in Batavia, but by 1947, after he had returned to England, his worse fears came to pass, Indonesia collapsed into the civil war which led to independence. Soon after in the same year, he retired from the army and was made a CBE.

Related Topics:
Mohammad Hatta - Ahmed Sukarno - Mountbatten - Clement Attlee - The Hague - Batavia - CBE

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