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KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT |
K I M[Ben Oostdam's |
After the Assaut came our Christmas leave, which I spent in Amstelveen. Having seen how much others enjoyed girlfriends, I decided to try my luck and asked Lony, with who I had been in love for about 3 years. This time she "gave in", on New Year's eve; walking her home after midnight into the New Year we discussed the problem of imminent separation: she was to leave for Scotland and I for New Guinea. The problem of sex was solved by placing a kiss in the air over her fair hair, we were (still) too embarrassed about such things ;o[ |
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Den Helder - Gibraltar, 1,350 NM Gibraltar - Malta, 1,150 NM Feb.19 Malta - Port Said, 800 NM Feb.22 Port Said - Aden, 1,350 NM Feb.27 Aden - Colombo, 2,100 NM Mar.05 Colombo - Singapore 1,600 NM Mar.12 Singapore - Sorong, NG * NM Mar.20* this distance was kept secret since we had to pass through Indonesian waters and they were not too happy about not having had New Guinea transferred to them...This was also the reason for not taking our Indonesian fellow cadets along on this cruise. | Heartfelt farewells (not for me, though) took place on the morning of February 12, 1952 and we sailed out at noon with a telegram from Prince Bernhard wishing us "Goede reis en behouden vaart!" No such luck, we anchored as soon as we were out at sea to effect engineroom repairs, which delayed our voyage till 8:30 on Valentine Day (Feb.14). Frans and I painted a stairway, did some ropework, took azimuths when it was not too foggy, and learned Spanish; to our surprise, two regular crew were seen scraping the stairway we had barely finished painting. |
BLO fecit 14 VII 1998: (today, France celebrating again, after beating Brazil 3-0 last Sunday!) |
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1952 Training Cruise on the "van Kinsbergen" to New Guinea, part 2 |