Childhood, War and Peace: 1920-1950

What happens when you graduate from high school and find yourself away from your family in a strange country, at the outbreak of war? You are faced with a life for which no one is prepared and every day is fraught with new dangers.

This is the true story written to record the story of a brave, intelligent human being faced with extraordinary circumstances and surviving. As WWII engulfed his homeland it is a tale of one man's heroic attempts to rid his beloved Holland of its invaders and is fascinating reading. His amazing and death-defying exploits make most war stories (however sensational) pale by comparison.

Well-written, it flows from one harrowing incident to another, taking us with him from Java to a soon to be occupied Holland, to neutral Sweden where he swims ashore from the deck of a Dutch freighter. Sent to Britain, he receives special training and is parachuted back into Holland as an operative of the Special Forces-Netherlands with the task of organizing resistance and sabotage.

His exploits as a saboteur are amazing, sometimes hilarious yet deadly serious, such as when he sets a train in motion in Germany and watches it disappear into the distance with nobody on board. Late in the war he is taken as a prisoner into Germany, forced to work but discovers new opportunities to sabotage the enemy.

As the war in Europe ends, unable to adjust to boring peacetime jobs, he goes east to Ceylon to battle the Japanese. Finally, a lovely bride helps him adjust to normal life, a family and success in Canada, where he now lives happily in retirement. This true story beats a "who-done-it" any day. A really great "read" and an illuminating glimpse of what it was really like to be at war.