Johan van Leeuwen

Flag of the Netherlands (1575-present)

38th Infantry Regiment (1950-1954)

2nd Canadian Infantry Division (1944-1945)

1st Division "December 7" (1946-1949)

2nd Infantry Division (1950-1954)

- Normandy 1944

- Belgium 1944

- Netherlands 1944-1945

Indonesian National Revolution

- Java 1946-1949

Korean War

- South Korea 1951-1953

**Johan Willem van Leeuwen** (July 19, 1920 - May 8, 2013) was a Dutch officer and soldier of the Royal Netherlands Army who served in World War II, the Indonesian National Revolution, and the Korean War.

## Early life and family

Van Leeuwen was born in the small town of Staphorst in the Dutch region of Overijssel in Holland. His family was middle class, and his father was a Calvinist preacher at the local Dutch Reformed Church.

In 1938, after graduation from school, van Leeuwen decided against joining the church as recommended by his father and enrolled in the Koninklijke Military Academy in Breda. He studied for a year with the intent of becoming an infantry officer. However, his studies were interrupted in August 1939 by Nazi German militarism. The cadets at the academy were soon pressed into the army.

## Military service

### World War II

Van Leeuwen was quickly made a Lieutenant and given command of an infantry platoon in the 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards Regiment in the Royal Netherlands Army, which was based in Loosduinen in The Hague.

On May 10, 1940, the German Army commenced its invasion of western Europe. Hundreds of thousands of German troops invaded Holland, beginning the Battle of the Netherlands. Lieutenant van Leeuwen and the Dutch soldiers faced a German airborne attack in the Battle for The Hague. Deploying rapidly, the Dutch managed to stop the German advance and prevented them from attacking the city. Counterattacking, van Leeuwen led his men to recapture the vital Ypenburg Airfield, inflicting heavy casualties on the Germans. After a successful defense, van Leeuwen's company was detached from its parent organization to reinforce the Dutch central defenses on the Grebbe line. In the Battle of the Grebbeberg, van Leeuwen and his men held off the Germans for two days, launching successful counterattacks and holding their positions despite being heavily outnumbered. In the end, the Germans took the Grebbeberg hill, and the Dutch retreated. The same day, the German bombing of city of Rotterdam convinced the Dutch that further resistance was hopeless, and the government of the Netherlands capitulated on May 14, 1940.

Lieutenant van Leeuwen, however, was not willing to surrender. He joined a group of fleeing Allied soldiers who were on their way from the Low Countries to England. Later in the month, they escaped by boat across the English Channel to Britain. In England, van Leeuwen went to the newly-formed Dutch government in exile and offered his services. To his dismay, the only thing he could do was join a group of Dutch soldiers who guarded a German prisoner of war camp. However, later in the year, he was alerted to the new formation of a Free Dutch army contingent which would fight on behalf of the government in exile. Van Leeuwen quickly volunteered for service, and was accepted into the 1st Motorized Independent Infantry Company of the Royal Netherlands Motorized Infantry Brigade. The brigade, in 1941 given the honorific title Princess Irene Brigade, trained first in Britain and then in Ontario, Canada, before assuming coastal defense duties at Harwich back in England. For the next few years, the Dutch soldiers prepared for the next big operation of the war: the invasion of Normandy and the liberation of western Europe. In 1944, just before the leaving for the continent, van Leeuwen was made a captain and given command of the company.

On August 6, 1944, two months after the Normandy beach landings, the Dutch brigade landed in France. Captain van Leeuwen and his men attacked as part of the British 6th Airborne Division, driving the Germans back across the Seine River. The brigade fought at St. Come and later in the month liberated the town of Pont Audemer. By the time they had crossed the Seine in the beginning of September, the Dutch had liberated almost a dozen French villages and towns. They drove northeast against the retreating German forces, crossing over into Belgium. Assigned to the British Guards Armoured Division, the brigade engaged the Germans in heavy fighting along the Albert Canal, with Captain van Leeuwen's men driving the enemy out of Beringen and several other towns. After several days of fighting, Belgium was liberated and the brigade was ready to push into the Netherlands itself.

Operation Market Garden, an Allied ground-air offensive to liberate the Netherlands and cross the Rhine, had begun in mid-September. Van Leeuwen and his men, now on home soil, attacked and drove back the German defenders, after which they held the bridge over the Maas River at Grave. Van Leeuwen's men would guard this position for a month, generally out of the action as the operation ended unsuccessfully. In late October, the brigade resumed the offensive and attacked south, capturing Tilburg after a day's fighting. In November, they played a supporting role in Operation Infatuate as part of the Canadian 2nd Infantry Division, the offensive to capture the island of Walcheren. Once it had been secured, the brigade was sent to garrison the island. For the winter of 1944 to 1945, the Dutch soldiers remained on Walcheren, which was partially flooded due to the bombing of the dikes. They saw occasional action against isolated German forces in Noord-Beveland, but this part of the front mostly remained quiet, aside from the dangers of mines and booby traps, which remained a prominent threat on the island.

In March 1945, the Dutch brigade returned to the front in the province of Noord-Brabant. In April, Captain van Leeuwen and his men crossed the Maas River in Operation Orange and liberated the town of Hedel, driving the Germans out and repulsing several counterattacks in the brigade's last combat action of the war. On May 9, 1945, the day after Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, the brigade liberated The Hague as the first Allied unit to enter the city since it had surrendered five years previous. After ceremonies and further non-combat duties, the Princess Irene Brigade was disbanded in December.

### Indonesian National Revolution

During World War II, the Dutch East Indies had been occupied by Japan. Since the Japanese had left on August 15, 1945, Indonesian revolutionaries proclaimed an independent republic. After a complicated set of diplomatic proceedings, insurgency, and even open warfare by the revolutionaries against British and Japanese troops, the government of the Netherlands decided on military action and began assembling a force to restore Dutch rule in Indonesia. Captain van Leeuwen volunteered for service with this new group and joined up with the 1st Division "December 7", which was shipping out to the East Indies. He was assigned to his old unit: the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards Regiment, and the division sailed to Indonesia in September 1946.

By the next year, the Dutch military buildup was almost complete. Negotiations had slowed to a crawl, and a decisive military effort was clearly needed. In July 1947, the Dutch forces launched Operation Product, an offensive on the islands of Java and Sumatra to break the back of the Republican Army, or TNI, by destroying their supplies. In this so-called Police Action, Captain van Leeuwen and the rest of the 1st Division went on the offensive in Java. They pushed through feeble TNI resistance and occupied nearly all of West and East Java, with the operation concluding with a resounding success in August. Nevertheless, van Leeuwen and his men had to fight off near-constant guerrilla attacks from TNI irregulars, and combat continued until January 1948, when the Renville Agreement temporarily brokered a ceasefire. The Dutch forces were forced back behind the agreed Van Mook line for the time being.

The peace, however, would not last. The government of the Netherlands wanted to force the Indonesians into negotiations on their terms, and so another Police Action was planned. In December 1948, the Dutch began Operation Kraai. Unlike the previous action, the Dutch did not hold back and attacked the TNI wherever they could be found. Van Leeuwen led his men beyond the line into east Java, attacking and defeating the TNI in the area. They linked up with other Dutch forces at the Maguwo Airfield, which had been captured by an airborne assault earlier that day. With an ad-hoc force assembled, the Dutch attacked the Indonesian capital at Yogyakarta, capturing it by the end of the day and driving the TNI from their defensive positions. Van Leeuwen and his men prepared to fight another guerrilla war, but this would not be necessary for the time being. In January 1949, all parties agreed to a ceasefire.

The ceasefire was soon broken and hostilities continued sparking a guerrilla war throughout the country. Captain van Leeuwen fought to suppress guerrilla activities in Java until May 7, 1949, when the Roem-van Roijen Agreement permanently ended the fighting. Later in the year, Indonesia was firmly established as an independent republic. Early in 1950, van Leeuwen returned to the Netherlands.

### Korean War

After the North Korean invasion of June 25, 1950, a United Nations coalition had been formed with the intention of pushing back the Communist threat. The Netherlands, despite its own political difficulties, decided to send a force of its own to contribute. The Dutch Army formed the van Heutsz Regiment in July, and by October intended to send a battalion to Korea. Captain van Leeuwen volunteered, and was placed in charge of the Netherlands Battalion's A Company. In October, the battalion sailed for Korea.

The Dutch soldiers arrived on the peninsula in November and moved to the front lines in December, where they were placed in the US 2nd Infantry Division as a part of the 38th Infantry Regiment. Van Leeuwen's men were committed to the fight in January 1951 in the Second Battle of Wonju, where they were forced to retreat from Hill 325 but helped to recapture it and held it against a Communist Chinese attack. In the Battle of Hoengsong in February, the Dutch soldiers held the Hoengsong bridge and fought off numerous Chinese assaults to facilitate an Allied withdrawal. This battle cost the battalion many casualties, and they were placed in the rear of the UN line for a time. In May, Captain van Leeuwen and his men held off Chinese attacks at Mount Garisan before conducting a fighting withdrawal. After a reorganization, the Dutch launched a counterattack which stopped the Chinese push. The battalion went on the offensive along with the US troops, attacking in the area of Inje before being pushed back by a North Korean counterattack. Van Leeuwen led an attack which captured Hill 548 and defeated the Communists' attempts to retake it. Later, they supported an attack on Mount Daewusan, helping capture the hill after hard fighting in July. In October 1951, they took the offensive again, with van Leeuwen's men driving through enemy resistance to take and occupy the Mundeungri ridgeline, and later supporting a successful American attack on Hill 1220. This concluded Operation Touchdown, part of the larger Battle of Heartbreak Ridge.

After a resting period in the rear of the line, the Dutch soldiers returned to the front in February 1952. They attacked and captured Star Hill after driving away its Chinese defenders. The battalion was returned to its former position after this action, and would stay away from the action for over a year to reorganize, re-train, and refit. However, in July 1953, the situation became critical. With an armistice on the way, the Communist Chinese forces were ready to make one final push to seize as much ground as possible in the time that it had. Captain van Leeuwen and the rest of the battalion were ordered to dig in on Hill 340 and hold it against the offensive. Fierce fighting saw the Chinese push the Dutch soldiers off the hill, only to lose it again to a counterattack, where van Leeuwen and his men fought off all further assaults. On July 27, 1953, the Panmunjom declaration ended the fighting on the Korean peninsula.

As a part of the UN military force occupying the DMZ, Captain van Leeuwen remained in Korea with the battalion as they occupied the Kumwha and Chorwon areas. In October 1954, he returned home to the Netherlands.

### Cold War and end of service

In 1955, van Leeuwen was promoted to major and given a position in the 1st Division, which was at the time guarding the North German Plain as part of the Allied forces stationed in Germany. For eight years, van Leeuwen worked on and off between Germany and the Netherlands. It was mostly a quiet period, but Major van Leeuwen always stood ready to fight if a Soviet invasion were to come to western Europe.

On June 13, 1963, Major Johan Willem van Leeuwen retired from the Royal Netherlands Army after a period of exemplary service in three wars.

## Personal life

In 1955, Johan van Leeuwen married Marianne Heidi Berkhoff. The two had met in 1944 when Johan had personally taken part in the liberation of her village. For a period of time the two lived in Westpoort in Amsterdam, during which they had a daughter, Nathalie Estelle. In 1983 the couple moved to The Hague, where they lived in Loosduinen for the rest of their lives.

On May 8, 2013, Johan Willem van Leeuwen passed away at the age of 92. He was buried in the old *Eik en Duinen* cemetery in the city.

### Views

Van Leeuwen was a conservative Protestant, as he was a member of the Christian Historical Union until the party's dissolution in 1980. He supported independence for Indonesia, although only vocalized this after the conclusion of the conflict in which he had taken part. He recognized that the old Dutch colonial empire could never last.

Van Leeuwen was a practicing member of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Calvinist tradition.

## Equipment

During the Battle of the Netherlands, van Leeuwen used the standard-issue Dutch Männlicher M.95 straight-pull bolt-action rifle, along with its knife bayonet and the Eihandgranaat No.2 rifle grenade launcher. He carried an FN M1910/22 pistol as his sidearm, as well as the Eihandgranaat No.1 fragmentation grenade and the Hexiet Rookhandgranaat smoke grenade.

In Britain, he was rearmed with the Lee Enfield No.1 Mk.III\* and the No.4 Mk.II bayonet, which he used in the liberation campaign of western Europe along with the Mills No. 36M Mk.I fragmentation grenade. He also used these weapons during the police actions in Java.

During the Korean War, van Leeuwen was equipped with the American M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle and M1 Bayonet, as well as the Mk II fragmentation grenade.