Gus Winckel

✶November 3, 1912

†August 17, 2013

1 candle burning, 5 lit in all

About their life

Willem Frederick August "Gus" Winckel was a Dutch military officer and pilot who flew for the Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force (ML-KNIL) in World War II. During the attack on Broome, Western Australia, on 3 March 1942, Winckel managed to land his plane full of refugees safely on the Broome airstrip just before the Japanese attack. He then dismounted the plane's machine gun and shot down one of the Japanese fighters, the only Allied "kill" during the attack.

Dutch World War II hero

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Biography from the article Gus Winckel on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.