First, apologies for the long delay in getting a new post onto this site – this was due to both other commitments and a shortage of suitable, or, at least, sufficiently substantial, material.

However, I was recently browsing the excellent Dutch maritime collections website, Maritiem Digitaal, looking primarily for suitable material for my new non-fiction book, Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Royal Navy. Having done so, I then entered a number of Welsh search terms, and came across some excellent links. During the Second World War, for example, units of the exiled Dutch Navy were based in both Holyhead and Milford Haven, and I referred to these sojourns in Britannia’s Dragon. A search of Maritiem Digitaal under the names of both those ports, as well as for related ones (such as ‘Pembroke’), turns up some fascinating supplementary information.

‘Holyhead’, for example, produces photographs of the Dutch warships Hydrograaf and Medusa alongside Pelham Quay in 1943,  as well as a number of images, such as this one, of Dutch Marines training in the Anglesey countryside. There are also a number of photos, including this one, of the funeral at Holyhead in 1941 of M J R Matthias of HNLMS Noordsvarder, of the Stanley Sailors’ Hospital, and of the memorial in St Cybi’s church donated by the Protestant churches of the Netherlands, giving thanks for the area’s hospitality to the Dutch forces during the war. Perhaps we’ll forgive the captions that refer to ‘Holyhead, Engeland’!

A search for ‘Milford’ brings up photos of the Dutch armed trawler Vikingbank in the Haven in 1942, the communications vessel Traversa, and the captain and crew of the minesweeping trawler Gerberdina Johanna in the Haven in 1941. Changing the search to ‘Pembroke’ brings up quite a number of photos of the Dutch forces celebrating Queen Wilhelmina’s birthday at the Pembroke Dock flying boat base in August 1940, such as this one and this one, as well as other photos of her son-in-law, Prince Bernhard, visiting the base.

It’s worth trying several other Welsh search terms, too. Entering ‘Swansea’ brings up, among other things, a passport stamped both there and at Holyhead for Lubbert Kramer, boatswain of the tug Amsterdam, which escaped from the Den Helder naval base in May 1940; and two photos of the SS Texelstroom, sunk by a German mine in 1915 when en route from Amsterdam to Swansea (despite being neutral in that war). A search for ‘Cardiff’ reveals several photos, including this one, of Dutch Marines disembarking from HNLMS Poolster in Cardiff docks in 1967, in order to take part in joint exercises with the Royal Marines, as well as a large number of photos of the exercises themselves. Most surprising, perhaps, are a couple of fascinating oil paintings of Dutch naval personnel in Pwllheli during the period 1943-5.

All in all, yet more proof that one can find important material for Wales’ naval and maritime history in all sorts of unlikely places!