Ashtead War Memorials - WWII - Sub Lt Harry Orme Dooyewaard RNVR, HM Tug Roode Zee

Harry Orme Dooyewaard was born on 16th October 1919. He was the son of Johannes and Christiana Maud Dooyewaard, of Ashtead, and grew up mostly in Ashtead and Leatherhead. There was a brother Derrick Orme Dooyewaard, who was also in the RNVR in the Fleet Air Arm, who spent much of the war in Trinidad maintaining aircraft and after the war worked for Shell and then BP; their sister Brenda (now de Bruin) has provided much of the local information in this account.

Harry's parents settled in Leatherhead in 1927, in St Mary's Road. His father did not join local events as his work was all-consumingand he enloyed his home too much. He was the first to build a deep underground air-raid shelter in the garden of their Leatherhead home and apparently it is still there to this day.

They moved to Ashtead in 1940 as the family needed a bigger house. The family lived at The Rookery (now called Arlington?), Ashtead Park in what is now Rookery Hill, a Tudor type house third on the left after entering the gates from Park Lane. After attending Little Lindens first school in Leatherhead he went to Dorking School, believed to have been a private school at the time.

Johannes Dooyewaard was manager of a department in Shell. Christiana, his wife, did not work but was a Red Cross voluntary nurse during the war. She worked at the Blind School Emergency Hospital a few days a week.

From the painting by W Dooyewaard, 1946
source: Mrs B de Bruin who presented this portrait on loan to the Tug Museum, Netherlands

At 13 Harry went to St Lawrence College in Ramsgate, Kent, from where he matriculated, going up to Downing College, Cambridge to read Modern Languages. The Second World War had started and as Harry did not want to be drafted into the Army he volunteered to become a pilot. A bitter blow came when he was found to be colour blind. He opted to become an Ordinary Seaman in the RNVR, spending some years in the crew of HMS Cottesmore escorting shipping along the North Sea coast, avoiding mines and the constant threat of air and sea attack.

After many applications he was commissioned, training at Gosport (HMS Daedelus). He applied to become a Liaison Officer to the Royal Netherlands Navy, hoping that he might get a shore job. Instead, he was posted to the modern Dutch tug HM Roode Zee, used in the marshalling of the components of the Mulberry Harbours which were to play such a vital role in keeping the Allied invasion forces supplied in the weeks following D-Day, something which Harry did not live to see.

His father had seen a great future for Harry in the chemicals side of Shell. However, Harry was happier studying languages and had to return from France on the outbreak of war.

His mother organised a holiday for about 40 children from Holland after the war, who were among the thousands who had suffered so much from malnutrition. They were all housed by local people and entertainment was organsied for them. She died in 1984 and his father died in 1962.

Much of the above has been provided by his sister, Brenda, who now lives in Great Bookham, who responded to an article about this website in the Leatherhead Advertiser in April 2009. She adds "He was a terrible loss to our family, which I as his sister, feel to this day. I am very pleased that he is remembered on the War Memorial at St George's."