The hormones poured out of their ears

The quest of a son to his half-brother or sister

After my father died, I found between pictures of his military service two portraits of a young Indonesian woman, one of her alone and one with a baby. The sizes of these pictures really differ from other photographs from that time. They fit easily in a man's wallet. Since then, the question keeps me busy: who is this woman, who apparently was so rewarding that my father kept her pictures all these years? And who is the child? Is it his child? Do I have an unknown half-brother or sister?

Nearly three years in the same camp

My father Bob is shipped to Indonesia in November 1947 to "serve and restore order". A young, single man from the province town Leeuwarden in the prime of life, who had just completed his training. Bob was as a conscript assigned to the staff company 5-4 RI, or the 4th Regiment Gunners. He was something like quartermaster, or held an administrative post. I just do not know. His military camp was the KNIL encampment in Banjarmasin on Borneo, or Bandjermasin as it was called in those days. Nearly three years later, in late April 1950, he returned only to return to the Netherlands.

Love for dancing and fun

After returning he married my mother and they founded a family.
My father was an introvert man. He hardly talked about his service in Indonesia. He told only about one incident how he was once fired on patrol. Perhaps it was in that part of Borneo less frantic in military terms than in other areas and maybe he has led a relatively quiet life.
Banjarmasin is a big city, with all the temptations. And my father was quite a goodlooking man, a bit dandy-like behavior was not foreign to him. No libertine, but a charmer. Loved to dance and praise women. While visiting the association of former soldiers, I met an old comrade of his. He told me that my father even had a permanent shoemaker in the city, for he hated to wear those damn soldiers boots. After much questioning and pushing on my part, the guy admitted that they quite loved to charm the ladies. You can imagine: they were young, the hormones must have flowed out of their ears.

Two photos

Could it be that he has fathered a child in Banjarmasin and that he has always kept it a secret for us? It's guesswork on my part, I have no concrete evidence, except these two pictures of the young woman and the baby. And in retrospect, I think something must have been bothering him all the time. Because when you get older, and you know a child of yours is walking around overthere, may not feel all too well. And crazy enough, long before I found those pictures, I have always felt that there could have happened something there.

I looked for letters from him to the home front. He seems to have written. But I found no letter. My grandparents have preserved everything, but no letters from Indonesia. They would have admonished him upon his return: forget that child and the woman, think about your own future?
A comrade of my father told me a lot about my father, but when I came up with those pictures, he was suddenly so closed as an oyster. To the widow of a deceased friend of my father from that period, I asked if she had ever heard about my father having had a relationship. She said that her husband had never talked about it, and if he would have known something, that he would never have told her. The camaraderie was so close, they would never betray each other.

Missed opportunities

After reading your book Love in times of war I now think: there was so much to talk about with my father. What a pity that I have not known all of this before. My father is deceased more than twenty years ago and my mother some years ago. At school, we learned about the First and Second World Wars, but the military actions in Indonesia by our own people were not mentioned. What a missed opportunity!

He was a good father and I do not want to discredit him, and maybe I connect false conclusions to those pictures. Still, isn’t it strange that he kept those photos all those years? From my safe life here and now, I think he and others who fathered a child without taking notice, have not taken there responsibility. And what about our government? Their former soldiers have created bastards of their own offspring and have put both their loved ones and descendants there, as their own flesh and blood here, in a difficult position. Nobody would have wanted this, but it has happened. And nothing was done with it.

I have also been in touch with the Dutch Institute for Military History, but how well they also tried to help me, they can not do much for me, they know little of the individual men. So I'm actually a little stuck in my quest. But one thing is certain for me: might there be a half-brother or half-sister trying to find me, I'm certainly willing to get in touch. My search also gives mixed feelings. If my father would have chosen to stay with this woman and be a father to that kid, I was not born. But if I have a brother or sister, then I hope, also on behalf of my father, to find him or her. We're family.

Names of the father and his Dutch son who started the quest, are known to us. Those who recognize something in this story, please contact us via This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it