Leandros
Posts: 1740
Joined: 3/5/2015 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: wdolson The Dutch OOB was mostly pre-war equipment. In late 1940 or early 1941 they saw the handwriting on the wall and knew war with Japan was coming. They searched the world for suppliers and the British didn't have much to spare. The US was about the only game in town, so they placed some fairly large orders for American aircraft. The US aircraft industry was struggling to expand the US military as well as supply Britain, so there were some delays until the end of 1941. The first aircraft had arrived in Australia, but hadn't been delivered yet when the war broke out. Some of the equipment made it to the DEI, but some got pinched in Australia (like a bunch of B-25s). Some other aircraft were lost with ship sinkings, the Langley being the best known. I don't believe the DEI had much in the way of armaments factories. There was no need for them before the Netherlands was overrun by the Germans in 1940. Most people thought the Germans would leave the Netherlands alone like they did in WWI, so there were few contingency plans for running the colonies with the home country occupied. I suspect most of the limited industry in the DEI was oil field related and possibly some minor ship repair industry (machine shops to make some parts locally when merchant ships needed work). Some was probably converted to make things like ammunition, especially small arms ammunition when the Netherlands fell, but they had a very small base to work with. The DEI was a big resource colony with a fairly small white, Dutch administration and military controlling a very large population of natives who were poorly educated and didn't really want them there to begin with. Bill I don't Believe there were any a/c destined for Dutch use on the Langley. Otherwise, I think you are right on. They also received some PBY's before and after the war in the East started. The British tried to lay their hand on these, proclaiming to need them more than the Dutch, which the Dutch refused. In the end I believe they transferred five of them to the USN as they lacked pilots. Their Hawk 75 fighters were also diverted to the Dutch East Indies after the German invasion of the Netherlands. Fred
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