My father was in the rubber business, and when I say that, that is, plantations.
He died when I was four years old, so we were forced to come back to Holland, my mother,
my sister and I.
Unfortunately, the climate in Holland at that time just was not what I needed.
I was sick all the time, so it was decided that I ought to go to a different climate,
which was Switzerland.
I was sent when I was six years old to Switzerland, and one winter there was sufficient for taking
care of all of my medical problems, so my mother decided, well, we might as well move
the family to Switzerland, which we did.
She bought a house in a little place called Château d'Aix, in the Cantons de Vaux, where
I stayed until I was 14 years old, in the Swiss school system, speaking French, of course,
and then went to Geneva for the last four years of what is sometimes called high school, the
Collège de Calvin in Geneva.
Upon graduation from that school, I went to Holland and had decided that I wanted maybe
to become a doctor.
And when I got at the university, met a young man who was also a medical student at the
university by the name of Bob van der Stok, and he talked me into trying out for the team
of ice hockey that was then being started in Amsterdam.
I started medical until my mother died, and at that time, I felt that I ought to get a
job.
And with the help of some friends, I got a job with the KPM, which was the shipping company
that traded the islands in what was then the Netherlands East Indies.
And in 1939, I got on the boat, went to Java, and started working in the shipping business
for the KPM.
And in Indonesia, there came an opportunity to do some flying.
So we bought a small little airplane with a friend, and one thing led to another.
The authorities there decided that it would be more intelligent for me to go, instead
of to be an infantryman, to go in the air force.
Of course, that was vacation stuff.
We were not professionals.
We were incorporated in that squadron of twin-engine Glenn Martin bombers, whereas a co-pilot.
But from time to time, we'd get mobilized and had to go and join this squadron flying
on certain missions that, to me, of course, didn't mean anything, because there was no
enemy at the time.
