Peter van Roomen Indonesia 1947-1950.
Story by Maria van Duinhoven. "Mr. van Roomen did not know my daddy, he went to Indonesia, Dutch East Indies in 1947 in the 2nd platoon, 2nd regiment, 2nd battalion and stayed until 1950 in the eastern area of Java but he faced the same trials that my daddy did - snipers, land mines, malaria etc. as a brengun carrier driver. He shared with me some of his memories from that time, showed Brengun carrier drivers had to always be on the alert the guerrillas set many traps for them. One of their favourites was a tank trap - they would dig a large square pit in the ground, put metals beams at the bottom of it and wait for the brengun carrier to drive into it and get stuck. The funny thing was although they were called tank traps to a tank the hole was a little bump in the road but it was disabling to the brengun carrier."

Van Roomen genealogy, Tolhuis cafe

"Another often used trap was to put a barricade across the road, one large enough that it would take too long to move, making sure there was only one side that a brengun carrier could fit through to go around it and place a land mine there. Most of the time the carriers made it through safely, but not always. It also didn't take long for the brengun carrier drivers to attach a tall vertical medal post right in the center of the front bumper, it was do that or be decapitated by the wires strung between trees just at the same height as the drivers throat. Brengun carriers usually didn't carry brenguns, they carried any suitable gun they could find mostly a water-cooled Vicker's machine gun that could fire 600 rounds a minute."

WW2 occupation of Holland

"In the photo Mr. van Roomen, left, had found a gun in a downed Japanese aircraft that was not only workable but had several hundred rounds of ammunition with it. It was promptly mounted on the carrier, and his commander, sitting at the gun, was very happy about it, but The one draw back was that this time of gun needed to be cooled constantly and since a brengun carrier didn't have a cooling system on it, the gun would become too hot to use after just 5 or 6 rounds. The gun pointing to the right is a Vicker's machine gun."


Sergeant Theo Verheul; Dutch military. Peter's daughter, Michelle married Ted's son Mark. 1940-1945 the Netherlands; Nazi occupation, starvation, Canadian liberation.


Peter's obituary 2006