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The name Willem Ruys still evokes strong emotions. According to many people, construction number 214 was the finest passenger ship ever built in the Netherlands. On 1 July, it was exactly 75 years ago that the legendary ocean giant was launched from the Royal Schelde shipyard. Ed van Lierde likes to talk about the Willem Ruys. He is the founder of the Royal Rotterdamsche Lloyd Museum and its successor, the Lloyd-Atelier. He established both of these to keep alive the memories of the glory years of this shipping company that, in the previous century, transported countless travellers by passenger ship to faraway places.
De Schelde was purveyor to Royal Rotterdamsche Lloyd and the Willem Ruys was undisputedly the flagship of both the shipping company and the shipyard. The life story of this still-beloved ship still sparks the imagination. “Yes, I think that of all the post-war passenger ships built in the Netherlands, the Willem Ruys was the most beautiful,” says Ed van Lierde. “The shape, the design, the funnels… everything about it was special. That’s why I like to call it a beauty. The Holland-America Line’s New Amsterdam comes a close second.”
“I once saw both ships moored next to each other at the quay and I thought that the Willem Ruys was the slightly prettier sister of the most certainly also beautiful Nieuw Amsterdam.” Ed knows some wonderful stories about yard number 214. “When the ship was launched in 1946, people sat on the roofs of the surrounding buildings to watch the spectacle. They were the smart ones, because the people who were watching at street level regretted it. They were engulfed by a tsunami-like wave that hit the quay. Never before had such a large ship been launched. Fortunately there were no casualties.”
The eventful life story of Willem Ruys is well known; after it entered Italian service in early 1965, the name was changed to Achille Lauro. “Well, changing the name of a ship is of course asking for trouble,” Ed ponders. And that is exactly what happened. But Ed prefers to focus on the ocean giant’s glory days: the years sailing between its home port of Rotterdam and the East. “All the people I speak to who sailed on it as crew members are without exception still in love with this ship and Royal Rotterdamsche Lloyd. Imagine starting there as a young sailor; going out into big wide world, into the unknown.”
ms Willem Ruys - Longitudinal cross section - Photo Collection Ed van Lierde.
“Of all the post-war passenger ships built in the Netherlands, the Willem Ruys was the most beautiful. The shape, the design, the funnels… everything about it was special.” Ed van Lierde
“Moreover, De Ruyses were very sociable people, there was a great atmosphere at the shipping company, and it was a structured yet pleasant company. You had a warm bed and, after arriving in a distant land thousands of kilometres away, you disembarked on shore leave, you were off on an adventure…” Ed just missed out on sailing on the Willem Ruys. In 1964, just after graduating from the Vlissingen Maritime School, he was a helmsman’s apprentice at the ‘Schelde Lloyd’. Less than a year later, the Willem Ruys was sold to the Italians.
“I did go on board once when she was berthed at the Lloyd quayside. What a mighty ship – I was very much impressed. And speaking of emotion: you should know that I was very jealous of the boys and girls who did sail on it. Still, it was a great honour to have been on board.” Ed’s Lloyd-Atelier has ten large scale models of Royal Rotterdamsche Lloyd ships, including the Willem Ruys, as well as memorabilia such as crockery, cutlery and cabin keys with the Willem Ruys logo.
ms Willem Ruys docking for the final time at Wilton Fijenoord - January 1965 - Photo Collection Ed van Lierde.
In another, new project, Ed has used a special computer program to convert unique black and white photos of the ship into colour. “We receive or buy memorabilia of the Willem Ruys and Royal Rotterdamsche Lloyd from all over the world,” he says. “For example, we bought a large ship’s bell from the SS Bengal (a sister of the Willem Ruys) in America. And an Australian donated a retractable toothbrush with the name of the shipping company on it.” You cannot separate the Willem Ruys’ heyday from the period when the call for the independence of the then Dutch East Indies was getting louder and louder.
Ed points out that in present-day Indonesia, people’s thoughts about colonial rule are more nuanced than we usually think. “The police actions were of course a war of liberation, in which terrible things happened on both sides. But you hear even high-ranking Indonesians today increasingly emphasize that it is important to also focus on the many good things that the Dutch did there. In Indonesia, former Royal Rotterdamsche Lloyd offices have been completely restored to their former glory.” In one of them, in Medan on the island of Sumatra, Ed has placed a scale model of the Willem Ruys in a special project “of which they are extremely proud”.
