Frigate may be named after first Dutch woman to join navy

Francien de Zeeuw. Photo: ederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie via Wikimedia Commons
Francien de Zeeuw. Photo: Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie via Wikimedia Commons

A new navy frigate may be named after the first woman to join the navy in the Netherlands, the Parool reports.

Junior defence minister Barbara Visser said the GroenLinks suggestion to name one of the two new frigates after Francien de Zeeuw was ‘a good one’. De Zeeuw, who had been active in the resistance movement, joined the navy in 1944 after petitioning the then queen Wilhelmina to open up the navy to women.

All navy frigates carry the names of men, places or animals and it is time a ship is named after a woman, GroenLinks MP Tom van den Nieuwenhuizen said during the debate on the defense budget on Thursday. His motion was supported by coalition parties D66, VVD and CDA.

However, it is not the defence ministry who decides but the king, based on the advice of a dedicated ‘tradition committee’.

An earlier attempt to name a ship after De Zeeuw floundered and Van den Nieuwenhuizen remarked that if the committee was made up only of men it did not reflect the military as it is now. ‘That tradition might be in need of an upgrade,’ he said.

Denk MP Selçuk Öztürk said one of the new frigates should be named after a member of the multicultural community.  Van den Nieuwenhuizen said that his motion to nominate a woman did not exclude that possibility.

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