Background
Winkel was born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. He was the son of January Peter Winkel, a detective with the Leeuwarden police, and Ymkje Welbedagt, a homemaker.
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Petrus Winkel
Edit ProfileEducation
Winkel attended the Hogereburgerschool in Leeuwarden.
Career
He is known for helping British military personnel escape the Dutch East Indies under Japanese occupation. In the East Indies
Winkel was conscripted into the Royal Netherlands Army in 1928 and served in Java before joining the colonial administration. A few years later he returned to the Netherlands to study indology at Utrecht University.
During his career from 1930 to 1950, Winkel held several government positions including that of assistant-resident of Nias.
He is credited with saving the lives of many Britons in 1941. British troopship Chilka, commanded by one Captain Bird sank in battle with a Japanese navy ship which thus shipwrecked the crew.
Winkel saved the crew and by giving them his boat, allowed them to escape to British India. In 1942 Winkel was deported to a civilian internment camp in the jungle of Sumatra.
He barely surivived the lack of food in the disease-ridden camp.
Personal and death
Winkel spent his last years in an elderly home in his place of birth Leeuwarden. In 2009, he celebrated his 100th birthday. Petrus Wijtse ("Wytze") Winkel died on April 21, 2012 in Leeuwarden.
Achievements
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His actions earned him the King"s Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom, a British medal awarded for "contributions to helping British military personnel to escape the enemy and escape from occupied areas, with the danger of life, or for other dangerous work for the British or Allied cause during the war", in 1949. He also received two Dutch decorations, the Cross for Order and Peace in 1949 and the Resistance Memorial Cross in 1985.
Politics
After the war he returned to his fatherland, married Detty Ronner (1918–2008) in 1955 by whom he had a daughter (b 1956).
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Born
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Died
April 21, 2012 (aged 102) -
Nationality
Dutch