They were two of Holland America's older passenger ships, but one of them, the VEENDAM, was important to the Company's post-World War II revival.

Until early 1946, less than a year following the end of World War II, the other sister, the VOLENDAM, remained in wartime service, under Allied control with Cunard-White Star Line management. One of her last voyages in military service was to carry displaced persons from Port Said in Egypt to Split in Yugoslavia. They were Yugoslavian fishermen and their families, from the small island of Vis and who had fled Yugoslavia in the early part of the War. After strenuous wartime service, the Volendam was a tired ship, even a shabby one. The Yugoslav women worked during the voyage – they scrubbed and cleaned the ship thoroughly. She was more spotless than ever, almost like a true Holland America Line ship, one of the Spotless Fleet.

Afterward, the 15,434-grt VOLENDAM sailed north – carrying mostly British troops from Port Said via Malta and Naples to Glasgow. At Naples, the ship collected Polish soldiers, who had been fighting for the Allies and who were being taken to Glasgow and given jobs in British coal mines. Once at Glasgow, the VOLENDAM was sent to a shipyard and given a much-needed two-month refit. But her Allied work was not yet over – she was loaned to the United Nations Refugee Association to carry Mennonites from Germany to resettlement in Argentina.

In 1945-46, Holland America Line began to restore itself, overhaul, refit, even salvage its existing ships and plan for new tonnage. By the summer of 1946, the 579-ft long VOLENDAM was officially returned to Holland America. Built in 1922 and already twenty-four years old, Company engineers examined the ship and found she was not worthy to be renovated for normal passenger service. Instead, she would be refitted for peacetime troop and migrant service. Furthermore, her machinery was worn and tired. "She had grown quite tender," according to the late Captain Cornelius van Herk, who served aboard as a young cadet. "At times, she could barely make 14 knots, which, by 1946, was quite slow by normal passenger ship standards. Sometimes, we had to work hard just to make 12, even 13 knots."

Although the VOLENDAM was considered too old to restore for regular passenger service, the post-war years had pressing needs. She was most adequate to serve as a troop transport and for migrant service. Consequently, while in Holland America colors and with a Company crew, she made a number of voyages in the late Forties out to troubled Indonesia, former Dutch colonial territory. The Volendam carried troops outward and returned with evacuees. She also carried migrants to Australia, to such ports as Fremantle, Melbourne and Sydney, with mostly Dutch settlers seeking a "new life" Down Under. Many of her emigrant-passengers had their passage fares paid under a Dutch Government resettlement scheme. Returning to Holland, the VOLENDAM would either sail empty from Australia or load Dutch soldiers and evacuees in Indonesia.

The VOLENDAM also made many trans-Atlantic voyages between 1947 and 1951. Her accommodations were for 1,682 passengers, all in a Spartan single class. She carried many migrants on her westbound crossings and then low-fare tourists and students on eastbound voyages. Many of the westbound passengers came from the farmlands of Holland. Passengers were carried in mostly 4-, 6- and 8-berth cabins as well as dormitories that slept as many as fifty. Along with the three sisters the Groote Beer class (GROOTE BEER, WATERMAN and ZUIDERKRUIS), the Volendam usually sailed between Rotterdam and New York or Halifax or Quebec City.

By the early '50s, the VOLENDAM was an aged, tired ship. She could not pass another marine inspection. The twenty-nine-year-old ship made her final Atlantic crossing in November 1951 and then was promptly sold to shipbreakers at Rotterdam. Demolition began that winter.

Ironically, in 1940, Holland America's plan was to retire the sisters VOLENDAM and VEENDAM. Slow ships, they were no longer economic. But the start of the War in Europe and then the Nazi invasion and occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940 changed all that. The Volendam, as previously mentioned went on to serve the Allies; the VEENDAM fell into enemy hands and was sent to Germany until recovered during the Allied invasion of Germany in May 1945. Many ships had been destroyed during the War years and so Holland America decided to retain the two ve's

The VEENDAM was in better condition than her sister and so she was restored to full passenger ship status. There were some great changes, however – her pre-war capacity of 1,898 was slashed to a much reduced 586, divided between first and tourist class. The original third class was eliminated entirely. She was back in service, between Rotterdam, Le Havre, Southampton and New York, in January 1947. Her passenger berths were usually fully-booked in those busy years as trans-Atlantic liner services resumed, but with far fewer ships than 1939. The VEENDAM also earned her keep by carrying cargo: the likes of cheeses, tulips and agricultural produce coming west and with grain and US manufactured goods going east.

The VEENDAM proved significant when she offered Holland America's first cruise from New York, a Christmas-New Year voyage to the Caribbean, in December 1947. It was a two-week cruise to Curacao, La Guaira and St Thomas. Although lacking air-conditioning and a full lido deck, a canvas swimming pool was erected on an aft deck for the voyage. Soon joined by the far larger and more luxurious NIEUW AMSTERDAM the VEENDAM had an added feature – the presence of a "cruise director" to organize passenger activities and entertainment.

With the arrival of the new RYNDAM and MAASDAM, the old VEENDAM was increasingly misplaced and out-of-step by the early Fifties. Scheduled to be withdrawn in 1952, demand for passenger spaces kept her around for another year, until November 1953. Her last crossing was a Rotterdam-New York voyage and then it was onto Baltimore, where she was delivered to the Bethlehem Steel Company. The old ship was demolished at that Company's plant in Baltimore harbor, at Fairfield. That same yard had been a busy shipbuilding plant during World War II, including construction of the first Liberty ship, but was made over in the post-war years for shipbreaking

Source: Maasmond Maritime.    Author Bill Miller