page_title: Gerard Bruggink
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Gerard Bruggink / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: B-339C Buffalo replica B-3107 Royal Netherlands Air Force
context_page_description: Gerardus Meinardus Bruggink was a Dutch pilot of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force. A recipient of the Military Order of William, he was one of only four Dutch pilots to dogfight the Japanese in the Battle of Java.
  Born in Tubbergen, Overijssel, Bruggink followed a Catholic seminary. He met his wife, Corien, while serving in the Dutch East Indies and they were married in January 1942. A replica B-339C Brewster Buffalo was built in July 2008 and delivered to the National Military Museum in Soesterberg, Netherlands, carrying the markings of the plane flown by Bruggink.
context_section_description: After the Dutch East Indies surrendered, Bruggink became a prisoner of war and was forced to work on the infamous Burma Railway, while his wife was interned in a camp in Java. They were reunited in December 1945, after the war.
  In 1955, Bruggink left the Dutch air force and emigrated with his family to the United States, where he worked as a flight instructor for civil aviation in Texas. In 1959 Bruggink started working for various research organizations inspecting aircraft incidents and air safety. Initially a civilian flight instructor in Texas for the US Army, Bruggink later worked for Aviation Crash Injury Research (AvCIR) in Phoenix. In 1963, Bruggink worked for USABAAR (U.S. Army Board for Aviation Accident Research) at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. In 1969 he was appointed to be Chief of Human Factors at the National Transportation Safety Board. He retired from the National Transportation Safety Board in 1982 as the Deputy Director, Office of Aviation Safety, but maintained a keen interest in aviation safety matters and published numerous air-safety-related papers,  He died in his home in Skipperville, Alabama, on 5 December 2005, after a long illness. He was 88 years old.
caption: Brewster Buffalo replica painted to resemble Bruggink's aircraft on display at the National Military Museum in Soesterberg, Netherlands
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