Orders, Decorations and Medals

Dutch East Indies Wartime Gift of Tea to Occupied Holland, small cotton bag containing approximately two thirds of an ounce of tea, with attached label bearing message in Dutch, ‘Holland will rise again. Greetings from the Free Netherlands Indies. Keep a good heart’, good condition and a rare survival £50-100

During March and April 1941, about 4,000 pounds of tea, a gift from the Dutch of Batavia, was dropped by British bombers over Holland in small cotton bags. The reaction of the Dutch people to the gift, as reported by their Naval Attaché in London, was - ‘Why not bombs?’ The Free French, however, were more impressed, and asked for coffee to be dropped over France! Ten crates, suitably sub-divided, were accordingly distributed by various Operational Training Unit crews.