They fell in love in the Dutch East Indies before the Second World War tore their lives apart. For years, each believed the other had died, until an extraordinary encounter at an air force base in December 1947 brought them together again.
Originally published in eLocal magazine. Expanded and republished with additional historical context.
Two Strangers on a Staircase
It was late in 1947, at an air force base near Batavia, now Jakarta, in the former Netherlands East Indies. Inside an aircraft hangar, a party was underway. Dutch airmen and newly arrived female army personnel were celebrating, with music, food and drink providing a welcome distraction from the hardships of the preceding years.
Squadron Leader Gus Winckel, who had helped organise the occasion, was leaving the hangar when he passed a young woman coming up the stairs.
Something about her stopped him. She looked remarkably like someone he had once loved. Someone he believed had died during the war. But surely it could not be her.
The woman, meanwhile, had recognised something equally familiar in the officer passing her. He looked like Gus. But that was impossible. She had been told he was dead.
They looked at one another, hesitated and continued walking.
Gus later remembered thinking that the woman looked like Yvonne, but her hair was different. Besides, the Yvonne he remembered had died. Yvonne was equally bewildered. The officer resembled Gus, but the man she remembered had hair.
Neither spoke.
For years they had carried the same grief, each mourning someone who was still alive. And on that staircase, they had walked straight past one another.
This is their story.
It is a story of love, war, separation, imprisonment, survival and a reunion so extraordinary that, had it been written as fiction, it might have seemed improbable.
But it happened.
Gus and Yvonne were my mother and father.
Before the War: A Different World
To understand their story, we must return to 1938.
The Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia, was then a Dutch colonial possession stretching across thousands of tropical islands. On Java, the city of Malang was known for its comparatively cool highland climate, attractive surroundings and established European community.
Life for some Dutch colonial families could appear idyllic. There were substantial homes, household staff, gardens, social gatherings, classical music and an intricate network of schools, churches and family expectations.
But beneath this comfortable existence lay the inequalities of colonial society. European privilege rested upon a political and economic system in which Indonesians had far less authority over their own country. The world my parents remembered was both the world of their youth and a colonial society approaching the end of its existence.
For Yvonne, then just 16, life was shaped by family expectations, Catholic schooling and the conventions of a relatively sheltered upbringing. Gus was 26 and training as a military pilot.
One warm day, at a swimming pool in Malang, he noticed a young woman he had not seen before. Her name was Yvonne. He was immediately captivated.
She remembered the beginning of their romance with considerable amusement. A relationship developed, but strict chaperones accompanied their meetings. Such were the social conventions of the time. Yet their affection grew.
Neither could have imagined that the next few years would take them to opposite sides of a world war. Nor could they have known that they would spend years believing the other had died.
Two sisters, before their world changed forever. This photograph of my mother and her older sister Nina is one of the most poignant in our family collection. Taken in 1941, it captures them before the Japanese occupation and the terrible suffering that followed. They could not have imagined what lay ahead. Both survived, but the war would leave wounds that photographs could never reveal. When I look at their young faces, I see not only my mother and aunt, but two young women whose courage and resilience deserve never to be forgotten.
December 1941: The World Changes
On 7 December 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. The Second World War had already been raging in Europe and Asia, but the attack brought the United States directly into the conflict and accelerated a vast Japanese offensive across the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
Japan's forces rapidly advanced through territories controlled by European colonial powers. Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies became major battlegrounds. The Dutch colony was especially valuable because of its oil reserves and other strategic resources.
For the families living there, the speed of the Japanese advance was terrifying. A world that had appeared secure was suddenly disintegrating.
Yvonne remembered the arrival of Japanese troops vividly. She recalled large numbers of soldiers moving through the streets, including men travelling on bicycles. Fear spread through the civilian population. Families stayed inside, hoping to avoid the advancing troops, but hiding offered little protection.
Yvonne, her mother and her two sisters were eventually taken into Japanese custody and transported to a women's internment camp. Her father was sent to a separate men's camp.
Their family had been broken apart.
Gus, meanwhile, faced an entirely different ordeal. As a military pilot, he was ordered to help evacuate personnel towards Australia. He remembered desperate scenes as people tried to escape the advancing Japanese forces. Some offered gold, diamonds and other valuables in exchange for passage. But aircraft capacity was limited, and military orders determined who could be taken.
Gus later recalled the fires and destruction visible as he departed. For those left behind, the future was uncertain. For those who escaped, there was the knowledge that many others had not.
Yvonne's War: Behind the Camp Wire
The Japanese occupation brought years of suffering to civilians across the Netherlands East Indies. European civilian internees, Allied prisoners of war and many Indonesians endured deprivation, forced labour, violence and disease. Conditions varied between camps, but overcrowding, hunger and inadequate medical care became widespread problems.
For Yvonne and her family, imprisonment meant the loss of almost everything familiar. Food was scarce. Illness was a constant danger. The future was impossible to predict, and families had little reliable information about relatives outside the camps.
Yvonne later described the cruelty, malnutrition and death that surrounded them. Her recollections were not abstract historical observations. They were memories of what she and her family had experienced.
For a young woman who had once lived within the protected world of a colonial household, captivity was a devastating transformation.
She had no way of knowing whether Gus was alive.
Through the Red Cross, she made enquiries about him. On two occasions, the response indicated that he had died in action.
Imagine receiving such news while imprisoned, malnourished and separated from much of your family. There was no opportunity to visit a grave. No chance to say goodbye. Only the apparent certainty that the young pilot she had loved was gone.
She carried that grief through the remaining years of the war.
What she did not know was that Gus was alive. And that he, too, had been told she was dead.
Gus's War: Fighting Back From Australia
After the Japanese conquest of the Netherlands East Indies, surviving Dutch military personnel regrouped in Australia. Many airmen had escaped with little more than their lives. The Dutch and Australian governments began rebuilding an aviation force capable of striking Japanese positions throughout the occupied islands.
On 4 April 1942, No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron was formed in Canberra. It became a remarkable example of Dutch-Australian military cooperation.
The squadron operated American-built North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, with Dutch and Australian personnel serving together. From bases in northern Australia, its aircraft flew bombing, reconnaissance and anti-shipping operations against Japanese targets.
The missions were dangerous. Aircraft faced enemy fighters, anti-aircraft fire, mechanical failure and the hazards of long flights over open water and hostile territory.
The Australian War Memorial records that 90 Dutch and 25 Australian personnel died while serving with No. 18 Squadron during the war. These losses give some indication of the dangers faced by the men who continued fighting after their homeland had fallen.
Gus remembered the terrible attrition among aircrew. He said he never knew whether he would return from a mission, or which of his friends might not.
In my original account, I recorded his recollection of completing approximately 240 front-line sorties across two operational tours. That figure remains part of our family record and warrants comparison with his surviving military documentation.
But the human reality of those missions is clear. Every departure could be the last. Every returning aircraft meant another crew had survived. And every empty place at the mess table represented someone who would never return.
Gus made his own enquiries through the Red Cross about Yvonne. The response he received was devastating. She, too, was reported dead.
And so, while Gus continued flying against Japanese forces, he believed the young woman he had loved in Malang had perished in captivity.
He was wrong. But he would not discover that for years.
August 1945: The War Ends, but the Danger Remains
Japan announced its surrender on 15 August 1945. Across the Pacific, the news brought enormous relief. For the men and women held in Japanese camps, however, surrender did not necessarily mean immediate safety.
Communications were poor, food supplies remained inadequate, the Japanese military administration was collapsing, and the political future of the Netherlands East Indies was rapidly changing. Indonesian nationalists proclaimed independence on 17 August 1945, beginning a struggle that would eventually end Dutch colonial rule.
For European civilian internees, liberation could therefore be followed by another period of uncertainty and danger.
Yvonne remembered the announcement of Japan's surrender as one of the most emotional moments of her life. The camp authorities told the internees that they were free. After years of confinement, they could scarcely comprehend what they were hearing. The joy was overwhelming.
But one memory remained particularly vivid.
Not long afterwards, an aircraft flew low over the camp. It passed back and forth, apparently signalling to the people below. Then packages began descending beneath small parachutes.
Inside were supplies. And chocolate.
For people who had survived years of hunger, the sight must have seemed miraculous.
What made the moment extraordinary was what Yvonne discovered later. Gus had been involved in arranging aerial supply drops to camps following the Japanese surrender.
He recalled collecting surplus preserved food, medical supplies and chocolate from American bases, loading them for aerial delivery and sending them to camps whose locations he knew.
Yvonne believed that the aircraft she had watched overhead was Gus's.
Neither knew the other was alive. Yet in her recollection, the man she had mourned had flown above her and helped deliver the first small comforts of freedom.
The exact aircraft and mission remain to be independently identified, but the memory itself stayed with her for the rest of her life. Even decades later, she spoke of it with emotion.
Freedom Did Not Mean Peace
Yvonne's family survived captivity, but survival came at an enormous cost. They were weakened by hunger and illness. Her father had been held separately, and the family faced the difficult task of finding one another again.
When they eventually returned to their former home, they discovered that the building still stood but was no longer properly habitable.
Before their capture, Yvonne's mother had buried a jar containing jewellery and money beside a water well. To the family's astonishment, it remained there. The contents helped them obtain food during a period when ordinary money had limited value and essential supplies were scarce.
Yvonne remembered bartering a valuable diamond bracelet for a chicken.
It was an extraordinary price to pay for an ordinary meal. But after years of starvation, the value of food was measured differently.
Their difficulties were not over. The Indonesian struggle for independence brought further violence and instability. Yvonne recalled the family hiding in a water well for three weeks during the unrest.
Eventually, American personnel helped evacuate them to safety. For Yvonne, the journey from captivity towards an ordinary life was long and uncertain.
She had survived the Japanese occupation. But she still believed Gus was dead.
The beautiful woman behind the memories. This is one of my favourite photographs of Mum. Her beautiful blonde hair, her elegance and the confidence captured by the photographer remind me that, before she was my mother, she was a young woman with a life, a personality and dreams of her own. As children, we rarely understand the full stories of our parents. It is only as we grow older that we begin to appreciate the people they were, the sacrifices they made and the things they carried quietly throughout their lives.
The man I knew as Dad. Here is my father as a young officer, long before I knew him simply as Dad. His uniform speaks of military service, but it is his expression that draws me into the photograph. There is a quiet confidence about him, a hint of a smile, and something reassuringly familiar in his face. I look at this picture and wonder about the thoughts, ambitions and experiences of the young man who would one day become my father.
A Journey to the Netherlands
Following the war, Yvonne travelled to the Netherlands. It was a country connected to her family and citizenship, but its climate and surroundings were entirely unfamiliar. She remembered seeing snow for the first time.
Her life changed again when she entered military training. There were drills, weapons instruction, typing lessons and driving. The young woman who had once needed chaperones to meet her sweetheart had become a survivor of war and internment, learning practical skills in a radically altered world.
She continued trying to discover what had happened to Gus. Again, the information available to her indicated that he had died.
Eventually, after approximately a year and a half, she was assigned to return to the Netherlands East Indies. By late 1947, she was posted to army barracks at Cililitan, near Batavia.
She was pleased to return to the tropical warmth of the country where she had grown up.
She had no reason to imagine that, only a few kilometres away, Gus was alive.
Gus's Return to Java
Following Japan's surrender, Gus continued his military service in the Netherlands East Indies. By the time Yvonne returned, he was serving as Squadron Leader with No. 18 Squadron.
The postwar environment was complicated. Dutch military authorities were attempting to re-establish control over their former colony, while Indonesian nationalists were fighting for independence.
The war against Japan had ended, but the struggle over Indonesia's future had not.
For Gus, military responsibilities continued. For Yvonne, life was beginning again after years of imprisonment and uncertainty.
They were living and working only a short distance apart. Neither knew it.
Then Gus heard from a neighbouring army camp that a group of female military recruits would soon arrive. He thought it would be a splendid idea for No. 18 Squadron to welcome them with a party.
Preparations began. An aircraft hangar was cleaned and decorated. Food and drink were organised. Music was arranged.
And the newly arrived women were invited.
Among them was Yvonne.
The Party That Changed Everything
Gus attended in his dress uniform. Yvonne prepared for the evening with her friends.
The party was well underway when their paths crossed.
Gus was leaving the hangar. Yvonne was arriving. On opposite sides of the stairs, they saw one another.
For an instant, each recognised something familiar. But both rejected what their eyes seemed to be telling them.
Gus remembered that the woman looked like Yvonne, although her appearance had changed. Yvonne thought the officer resembled Gus, but she remembered him with more hair.
They had both been told the other had died. After so many years, the possibility that those reports were wrong seemed almost impossible to accept.
So they walked on.
That night, Yvonne could not sleep. The encounter troubled her. She kept thinking about the officer on the stairs.
What if it really had been Gus?
What if the Red Cross reports had been mistaken?
By morning, she could no longer bear the uncertainty.
She decided to find out.
"Do You Know a Gus Winckel?"
Yvonne approached the commanding officer at her army camp and asked him whether he knew a man named Gus Winckel.
The officer knew him well.
Gus was a friend, and he was serving nearby as Squadron Leader with No. 18 Squadron.
For Yvonne, the revelation was overwhelming. The man she had mourned for years was alive.
The commanding officer telephoned Gus. He told him that someone wanted to meet him, then drove Yvonne to Gus's office.
Imagine that journey.
After years of war, hunger, captivity, separation and grief, she was travelling towards a man she had believed she would never see again.
Gus had no idea who was coming.
When Yvonne entered his office, she greeted him with a reminder of their courtship in Malang.
She asked whether he remembered telling her that she was the prettiest girl in town.
It was Yvonne.
Alive.
Standing in front of him.
The war had taken years from them. It had separated them across countries and continents. It had convinced each that the other was dead.
But now, somehow, they were together again.
A Wedding Dress Made From a Parachute
The beginning of our family story. Looking at this photograph of my parents on their wedding day in 1947, I see two young people beginning a life together, with hopes and dreams that I would only come to understand many years later. They belonged to a generation that had endured the devastation of war, yet here they were, looking towards the future. Long before I came into the world, their story was already being written. And without that day, there would be no me.
They married the following day.
20 December 1947.
There was little time for elaborate wedding preparations. The world they had known before the war no longer existed.
Yet none of that mattered.
Yvonne's wedding dress was made from parachute material.
It was a wonderfully appropriate symbol. The same era of aircraft, war and survival that had kept them apart had also brought them together.
The material of a parachute, designed to carry someone safely through danger, became the fabric of a wedding dress.
In the surviving photograph, Gus stands in his military uniform beside Yvonne, who holds a bouquet of flowers. A bridesmaid stands alongside them.
They look like any newly married couple beginning their life together.
But the photograph tells only a fraction of their story.
It does not show the prison camps, the bombing missions or the Red Cross messages reporting their deaths. It does not show the starvation, the fear, the uncertainty or the years of grief.
And it cannot show what they must have felt when they realised they had been given another chance.
Yet all of that history is present in the photograph.
It is there in their survival. It is there in their smiles. And it is there in the fact that they are standing together at all.
The Wedding Reception: A moment of happiness, captured forever. I love this photograph because it captures something wonderfully spontaneous. Mum is smiling, surrounded by friends and family, while Dad stands proudly among the wedding guests. There are flowers, laughter, drinks and cigarettes, all the little details of another era. Knowing what my mother had already endured during the war makes her smile especially meaningful to me. For one brief moment, the camera captured a celebration of life, love and new beginnings.
A Love Story That Outlived the War
I first wrote this story because there are moments in family history that deserve to be preserved.
Stories told around the dinner table can become familiar over time. We hear them as children. We hear them again as adults. And sometimes we do not fully appreciate their significance until the people who lived them are no longer with us.
My parents were not simply characters in an extraordinary wartime romance. They were real people who experienced events that most of us can scarcely imagine.
My mother survived imprisonment, hunger and the apparent death of the man she loved. My father survived the dangers of wartime flying and the belief that Yvonne had been lost.
Neither allowed those experiences to erase the possibility of a future.
Their story also reminds us that history is not only about generals, governments, battles and political decisions.
It is about individuals. Families. Children. People waiting for news. People searching for loved ones. People who survive when so many others do not.
Behind every great conflict are countless private histories, many of which are never recorded.
This one was.
And I am grateful that I had the opportunity to hear it from the two people who lived it.
The Photograph That Says Everything
Gus Winckel passed away in Pukekohe, New Zealand, on 13 August 2013, shortly before his 101st birthday. Yvonne Winckel passed away in Pukekohe on 3 August 2019, aged 97.
They had lived through a century that changed the world.
But for me, one photograph captures something more important than the passing of years.
It is their wedding photograph.
Gus in uniform. Yvonne in her parachute wedding dress.
Two people who had been separated by war and told that the other was dead.
Together again.
Their story did not end on that December day in 1947. But that is where I want to leave it for now.
Because after everything they endured, the simplest fact is also the most extraordinary.
They found each other.
Mum and Dad, you will always be my heroes.
Michael John Winckel
Historical Notes and Sources
The family account: This feature is based primarily on Michael John Winckel's original eLocal article, 100 Years Young: 66 Years of Marriage, including recollections attributed to Gus and Yvonne Winckel. Their descriptions of personal experiences, Red Cross enquiries, aerial supply drops and reunion have been retained as family testimony. Some details, including individual flight missions and operational totals, remain to be independently corroborated.
Historical context: The broader military background has been expanded using historical material from the Australian War Memorial and other published research on Dutch-Australian military cooperation during the Second World War.
Photographs: Winckel family collection, except where otherwise credited. All family photographs are published in authentic black and white, without AI reconstruction.