Carel Ruijsch van Dugteren

Carel Jacob Lodewijk Ruijsch van Dugteren (2 August 1910 - ?), nicknamed "Captain Ross", was a South African commando of Dutch extraction who helped liberate the World War II Nazi camp Westerbork in the Netherlands. He also served as aide-de-camp to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden.
Ruijsch van Dugteren was born in Amsterdam to the preacher Gregorius Pieter Abraham Ruijsch van Dugteren and his wife Jacoba Wilhelmina Niermeijer. He emigrated to South Africa, where he became a farmer in northern Transvaal Province. On 7 March 1937, he married Victorine Hermance Ploem. They had two children.
Following the outbreak of World War II and the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, he was called up for service in the Prinses Irene Brigade due to his Dutch extraction. In 1942, he took part in a commando training in the Scottish Highlands, after which a Dutch commando unit was formed, No. 2 Dutch Troop, which included Ruijsch van Dugteren with the rank of reserve second lieutenant.
During Operation Market Garden in 1944, Ruijsch van Dugteren served as aide-de-camp to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, having been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. On 5 September 1944 he, along with two corporals and two privates, were assigned to Prince Bernhard as his personal guard.
He served as a Jedburgh officer during Operation Amherst, the Allied liberation of the northern part of the Netherlands in 1945. In April 1945, a four-man Jedburgh team codenamed "Dicing" was dropped near Hooghalen in the province of Drenthe. The team included the Dutch commandos Arie Bestebreurtje and Ruijsch van Dugteren, now holding the rank of captain. Bestebreurtje sprained his ankle during the parachute drop and was unable to continue; he hid from the Germans for five days before attracting the attention of a local farmer, who hid Bestebreurtje on his farm. Ruijsch van Dugteren on the other hand was able to contact a local resistance leader and successfully executed his mission: to give instruction in weapons use to local resistance fighters and organize resistance activities against the Germans.<ref name="vanderwerff" />
On 12 April 1945, Ruijsch van Dugteren noted in his diary that he had been one of the first to enter the World War II Nazi camp Westerbork during the liberation of the camp by Allied troops that day.<ref name="vanderwerff" />

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