Alphonse Jean Henri (Fons) Wijnen (Lieze,

Visé Visé (; nl, Wezet, ; wa, Vizé) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, located on the river Meuse in the province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Argenteau, Cheratte, Lanaye, Lixhe, Richelle, ...

, (Belgium), 7 June 1912

Leende Leende is a village in the Dutch province of North Brabant. It is located in the municipality of Heeze-Leende, approximately 12 km southeast of Eindhoven. History The village was first mentioned in 1253 as Lieende. The etymology is unclear ...

, 7 March 2001) was a Dutch soldier. He was the officer in charge when the

Rawagede massacre The Rawagede massacre ( nl, Bloedbad van Rawagede, ind, Pembantaian Rawagede), was committed by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army on 9 December 1947 in the village of Rawagede (now Balongsari in Rawamerta district, Karawang Regency, West ...

took place during the

Indonesian National Revolution The Indonesian National Revolution, or the Indonesian War of Independence, was an armed conflict and diplomatic struggle between the Republic of Indonesia and the Dutch Empire and an internal social revolution during Aftermath of WWII, postw ...

in which Dutch troops killed over 400 Indonesian civilians.NRC Handelsblad
Widows sue Netherlands over Indonesia massacre

World War II

Wijnen was born as the eldest in a family of ten children. He married and had two children before World War II broke out. After the war he had two children. During the war he fled as

Engelandvaarder ''Engelandvaarder'', (literally translated as "England sailer") was the term given during the Second World War to men and women who attempted to escape from the Netherlands across over 100 miles of the North Sea to reach England and freedom. O ...

, through France and Spain to Britain.

Rawagede massacre

After the war he was sent to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

for three years and served with the

Royal Dutch East Indies Army The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army ( nl, Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger; KNIL, ) was the military force maintained by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its colony of the Dutch East Indies, in areas that are now part of Indonesia. The ...

during the

. Wijnen was involved in a massacre in Rawagede. Despite the recommendation of General Simon Spoor to prosecute Wijnen, in 1947 Dutch Attorney General. H. A. Felderhof decided not to prosecute the responsible major for war crimes.

Post Indonesian independence

Major Wijnen was promoted to colonel and appointed battalion commander to the Major General de Ruyter of Steveninck Barracks in

Oirschot Oirschot (; ''Orskot'' in the Brabantian dialect, local dialect) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is situated from the city of Eindhoven and from the city of Tilburg in the provin ...

and later as garrison commander of

Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Order of Orange-Nassau The Order of Orange-Nassau ( nl, Orde van Oranje-Nassau, links=no) is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands. The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has ...

with swords.

References

*https://web.archive.org/web/20131111203353/http://www.wynen.net/memoriam.htm *https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=183565008494882&set=p.183565008494882&type=1&theater {{DEFAULTSORT:Wijnen, Alphons Dutch people of the Indonesian National Revolution Officers of the Order of Orange-Nassau Engelandvaarders Dutch war crimes 1912 births 2001 deaths People from Visé