Hendrik Johan de Haas was born in Batavia (now Jakarta) on 28 November 1904, the son of Jozef Hendrik de Haas and Johanna Frederika Susanna Jostein. He married Hendrina Maria van der Meer Mohr. The couple had two children: Robert Johan (born 28 December 1932, died 15 November 1937) and Gustaaf Eduard (born 3 October 1935), who later married Wilhelmina Hofman in Amsterdam in 1962.
De Haas served as an adjudant-onderofficier (warrant officer) in the infantry arm of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL). Following the capitulation of Dutch forces on Java in March 1942, he escaped by disguising himself as an Indonesian. He made several unsuccessful attempts to join Dutch units continuing guerrilla resistance, and later organised a secret mail service between prisoners of war and their families on behalf of a clandestine Dutch organisation on Java.
On 27 September 1942, he departed for Australia in an unseaworthy vessel, arriving on 31 December 1942 with intelligence of great value to the Allied war effort. In February 1943, he was appointed as an instructor with the rank of adjudant-onderofficier and served in the Melbourne Detachment from October that year.
From Camp Columbia to GOLDFISH I
In August 1944 De Haas was posted to Camp Columbia in Brisbane and made available to the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS), which was establishing its headquarters at the camp. On 12 September 1944 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the KNIL infantry.
His stay at Camp Columbia was relatively brief. De Haas was selected for GOLDFISH I, a clandestine NEFIS operation intended to gather intelligence from Japanese-occupied territory. He undertook the mission with Indonesian Sergeant Soeprapto.
The operation took De Haas back into the archipelago from which he had escaped less than two years earlier. Travelling by sea and local craft, he gathered information concerning Japanese forces and conditions in the islands and succeeded in passing intelligence back to the Allies.
Eventually De Haas reached East Java. In January 1945 he was betrayed at Panaroekan and arrested by the Japanese Kempeitai.
Despite severe interrogation and torture, he did not reveal the information sought by his captors. He remained a prisoner until the final days of the war.
On 25 August 1945, ten days after Japan announced its surrender, Hendrik Johan de Haas was executed at Djember (now Jember), East Java. Dutch military casualty records identify him as a member of NEFIS/GOLDFISH I and give 25 August 1945 as his date of death.
De Haas’s story demonstrates the direct connection between Camp Columbia and the clandestine intelligence war being conducted inside the Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies. Personnel working through NEFIS headquarters at Wacol could ultimately be sent thousands of kilometres north into operations in which capture carried an extreme risk of torture and execution.
Awards
For his exceptional courage and leadership, Hendrik Johan de Haas was awarded the Oorlogsherinneringskruis with clasps for “Oost-Azië – Zuid-Pacific 1942–1945” and “Krijg te Land 1940–1945”, and received multiple Royal Decrees recognising his service:
- 5 August 1943 – Honourable Mention on the Bronze Cross (Royal Decree No. 7)
- 3 June 1950 – Posthumously awarded the Bronze Lion (Royal Decree No. 18)
- 30 January 1951 – Posthumously awarded the Bronze Lion for a second time (Royal Decree No. 22)
Hendrik Johan de Haas’s service is remembered as an example of the dangerous and highly skilled intelligence operations carried out by NEFIS operatives from Australia during the Second World War.
See also: Oorlogsgraven Stichting
Sources and further reading
Here I would retain your existing sources, but add/ensure these are included:
- Oorlogsgravenstichting / Dutch military casualty records — Hendrik Johan de Haas, NEFIS/GOLDFISH I, died Djember, 25 August 1945.
- Nationaal Archief, NEFIS archive 2.10.62 — records concerning NEFIS and its clandestine operations.
- Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie (NIMH) — military records relating to KNIL and NEFIS personnel.
- DACC Research Portal – Dutch and Indonesian Intelligence and Special Operations from Australia during WWII — detailed research on GOLDFISH, NEFIS operations and the Dutch and Indonesian personnel involved.