Costavina “Coosje” Ayal was one of the remarkable survivors of the resistance against the Japanese occupation of Dutch New Guinea. Still only sixteen when Japanese forces occupied Manokwari in April 1942, she joined a resistance group that remained in the jungles of the Vogelkop for more than two years. Her eventual rescue brought her to Australia and into the Dutch and Netherlands East Indies wartime community centred on Brisbane and Camp Columbia.
From the Moluccas to Manokwari
Coosje Ayal was born on 15 April 1926 on Nusa Laut in the Moluccas. At the age of six she went to live with her uncle Seth Nahuwae and his wife Tina in Manokwari, Dutch New Guinea. Her uncle was a government official, and Ayal attended Dutch-language schools.
As the Japanese advance through the Netherlands East Indies approached New Guinea, preparations were made for resistance around Manokwari. Nahuwae helped establish hidden stores of weapons, ammunition and food in the jungle.
When Japanese forces entered the Manokwari area on 12 April 1942, Ayal joined a group of around sixty military personnel and civilians who withdrew into the jungle under the command of KNIL Captain J.B.H. Willemsz Geeroms.
For the sixteen-year-old Ayal, this began an extraordinary period of more than two years living with an armed resistance group in extremely difficult conditions. She wore military clothing, carried a weapon and shared the hardships of the group while also helping with food preparation and care of the sick and wounded.
Local Papuan knowledge and assistance were essential to the resistance. Papuans provided information, guidance and other support as the group attempted to evade Japanese forces and maintain resistance in the rugged interior.
The Japanese attack and Kokkelink group
By 1944 the resistance group had suffered heavily from Japanese attacks, illness, hunger and the extreme conditions of jungle life.
In April 1944 Japanese forces attacked one of the group’s camps. Captain Willemsz Geeroms and several others were captured and subsequently killed. Ayal’s aunt was also captured and killed.
Ayal escaped. She was sent through the jungle to warn another part of the resistance group of the Japanese attack. She later recalled an exhausting journey lasting several days before the warning could be passed on.
The surviving resistance fighters regrouped under Sergeant Mauritz Christiaan Kokkelink. Their numbers had been dramatically reduced, but they continued to evade the Japanese and maintain their resistance.
Contact with NEFIS and rescue to Australia
By September 1944 the Allied advance had transformed the military situation in New Guinea.
A Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS) party sent from Australia established contact with the surviving Kokkelink group through Papuan intermediaries. This was fundamentally different from the clandestine NEFIS parties inserted into Japanese-occupied territory: Ayal and the Kokkelink group had already been operating behind Japanese lines for more than two years.
Contact with the Allied forces finally made their evacuation possible. On 4 October 1944 the surviving members of the group were brought to safety and subsequently evacuated to Australia.
Their arrival connected one of the longest-running resistance stories in Dutch New Guinea directly with the Dutch and Allied wartime organisations operating from Australia.
Brisbane and Camp Columbia
In Australia, Ayal entered a very different phase of her wartime experience. She joined the Women’s Corps of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (VK-KNIL) and later attained the rank of corporal. She also undertook nursing training in Brisbane.
By this time Brisbane had become the principal centre of Dutch and Netherlands East Indies military and administrative activity in Australia. Camp Columbia at Wacol accommodated NEI government departments, military personnel and members of the Women’s Corps.
A remarkable photograph taken at Camp Wacol records Ayal together with Mauritz Kokkelink and other survivors of the New Guinea resistance group. It provides a direct visual connection between their years of resistance in the jungles of New Guinea and the Dutch wartime community in Brisbane.
Post-war
Ayal pursued nurse’s training in Brisbane, Australia, serving in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Women’s Corps, where she rose to the rank of corporal. In 1947, she married Dutch Caribbean soldier Henry Evers. Their journey together took them to Nusa Laut, the Netherlands, and the Netherlands Antilles. Returning to the Netherlands in 1964, Ayal initially worked in a packaging factory before establishing her own catering company. Notably, from 1988 onward, she received a Resistance pension.
Ayal’s unwavering commitment to honoring the National Remembrance on 15 August 1945 and her compelling accounts of the New Guinea resistance group’s evasion of Japanese occupiers made her a prominent figure. She passed away on 28 March 2015, receiving a military funeral with honors on 3 April, held at the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk in Rotterdam.
Recognition for her valor came in the form of the Cross of Merit in 1946 and the Resistance Memorial Cross in 1981. Additionally, Ayal was bestowed with the Mobilisation War Cross, the Decoration for Order and Peace, the Wound Badge, and the Veteran’s Badge. In a poignant tribute, on 17 March 2023, the Rembrandtweg in Ridderkerk was officially renamed the Coosje Ayalstraat, etching her name permanently into the annals of history.
Video Interview with her son and daughter (in Dutch)
Video interview with her granddaughters (in Dutch)
Sources
- Josine Heijnen, “Ayal, Costavina Aya (1926–2015),” Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis. Detailed biographical account of Coosje Ayal, including her childhood in Manokwari, participation in the resistance, evacuation to Australia, KNIL Women’s Corps service and post-war life.
- Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie, “Mee met het verzet. Coosje Ayal.”
- Stichting Papua Erfgoed, “New-Guinea during World War II.” For the role of the resistance group and Papuan assistance.
- For related articles and research on NEFIS, Camp Columbia, the Indonesian presence in wartime Australia, and the activities of Dutch and Netherlands Indies organisations in New Guinea, Morotai and Borneo, see the DACC Research Portal – Dutch and Indonesian Intelligence and Special Operations from Australia during WWII.