Explorer
pp. 51-53 · Read in the full issue
DEATH OF J. P. K. VAN EECHOUD
In Netherlands Ng.
Administrator and Explorer Who Turned Writer
• A few months ago, when the Dutch were celebrating the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the first police post on the Wissel J.akes, Netherlands New Guinea, “PlM’s” Hollandia correspondent wrote that the man who opened the post, and who had subsequently become a novelist in Holland, was revisiting the Territory for the occasion.
He was Mr. J. P. K. van Eechoud.
While still on his visit to the Terri tory, Mr. van Eechoud died —on September 7, in the hospital at Ifdr, a mountain resort in the Cyclops Mountains, over-l ooking Lake Sentani and the country which he helped open up 20 years before.
He had an interesting career, and something about him is given here by Mr. G. A. V. Stanley, of Port Moresby, who was visiting Hollandia at the time, and who translated the information from a local news sheet.
Jan Pieter Karel Van
EECHOUD, who was born on August 10, 1904, at Horst, in Limburg, Holland, was a man of many parts. In 1927 he was an officer of the reserve, and trained as an aviator at Soesterberg. In an autobiographical note, in one of his several books written about New Guinea, he describes himself as an indifferent pilot who one day made good landings and the next day “pranged”.
Early in life he was drawn to wards the tropics, and in 1931 he became Commissioner of Police at Soekaboemi, in Java.
He first went to New Guinea in 1936, as Commissioner of Police at Manokwari (then the capital), and forever after the western half of the great island held him in its grip. During the next 15 years, Van Eechoud established himself firmly as an explorer and traveller in New Guinea, becoming one of the most noted in that field.
New Type Exploration
He established a new system of exploration, by sending out small expeditions and special police expeditions what, in Australian New Guinea are called patrols— which he led himself, and which accomplished as much as (if not more than) some of the more elaborate, great expeditions which visited the island.
His versatility showed up strongly on such patrols. He was greatly interested in ethnography, and he
made a detailed study of the natives of the lower-Mamberamo River, in the neighbourhood of the Pionier-bivak (situated on the great river about 100 miles, airline, from the coast) where the river emerges from its gorge, cuts through the Van Rees Mountains, and flows across the coastal plain to emerge, via a series of distributaries, near Cape D’Urville.
Expert in Many Fields
He was also a good topographer, and produced many excellent sketch maps covering his patrols. Earlier expeditions took along with them someone capable of making astronomical observations, often an officer of the Royal Netherlands
Navy, but with Van Eechoud this was unnecessary.
In the field of radio he was capable of servicing his own equip ment, and always he was his own operator ... All these accomplish ments, which on other expeditions required the services of individual experts, Van Eechould combined in his own person.
In 1938 he established a Govern ment Post on the Wissel Lakes, the first to be placed in the Central Ranges of Netherlands New Guinea.
For this he was honoured by HM the Queen of the Netherlands, who created him a Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau.
At the outbreak of the War with Japan at the end of 1941, Van
Eechoud was recalled as a Reserve Officer. Like Dr. J. V. de Bruyn (about whom the book “Jungle Pimpernel”, was written) who was in charge of the inland post at Enarotali, Van Eechoud determined to remain in New Guinea as long as possible.
He was at that time stationed at Bernhard-kamp (on the Idenburgh River, about 100 miles, airline, south-west of Hollandia). Some of his police deserting him, he in formed Dr. de Bruyn, by radio, that his situation was untenable, and that he would move overland to the Wissel Lakes post, an overland journey of about 210 miles, airline, much of it at over 12,000 feet above sea-level.
In the Rouffaer River his party was attacked by natives, and Van Eechoud was wounded in the shoulder by an arrow, which he extracted himself. In mid- September he was evacuated to Australia by aircraft, as his wound urgently needed medical attention, but first he returned to his post at Bernhard-kamp.
Back to the Territory
In Australia Van Eechoud could not sit still. After being Com mandant of a camp for evacuees from the Indies, he joined NEFIS (the Netherlands Forces Informa tion Service). But his heart was still in New Guinea, and during this period he made many reconnaissance flights over the Netherland’s part of the island in company with a celebrated pilot (Hagers), who was later killed.
After a time as an Intelligence Officer attached to the American 6th Army at Finschhafen, in February, 1944, Van Eechoud led an Intelligence Party into Netherlands New Guinea landing by Catalina at Bernhard-kamp, and thence moving noreastwards towards Hollandia in time for the simultaneous attacks by the Americans at Hollandia and Aitape on April 22, 1944.
Shortly after this episode Van Eechoud raised a battalion of Papuans (as our Dutch friends call the natives), the first native military organisation in the history of NG (but nevertheless junior to the Papuans (as our Dutch friends call Port Moresby early 1941).
In mid-July, 1946, Van Eechoud become SONICA (Senior Officer in the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration). Later he was named Resident of New Guinea, the second to hold that appoint ment. the first being Mr. Lulofs, pre-War, After the transfer of sovereignty from the Republiek Indonesia Seriket to the United States of Indonesia, Van Eechoud became Director of Inland Affairs and Justice at Hollandia In December, 1950, Van Eechoud
returned to the Netherlands, but he could not forget New Guinea He turned himself into an author, and three books have been published from his pen.
Explorer Turned Author
These are; “Vergeten Aarde” (“The Forgotten Land”); “M efc Kapmes en Kompas” (“With Bush-knife and Compass”), which is an autobiographical account of his life in New Guinea; and “Woudloper Gods” (“God’s Bush man”) in which he narrates the story of Rev. Father Kammerer, MSC, in the Central Ranges of Netherlands New Guinea.
Eight years later, Van Eechoud finally sleeps in the land which he had loved so well.