The Pittsburgh Press (February 19, 1944)
Holland-America to renew service
New York (UP) –
The Holland-America Line plans to resume its North Pacific Coast service as soon as practicable after the war, Peter van der Toorn, managing director of the line, revealed in a recent interview.
Mr. Van den Toorn declared that his line plans to reinstate a greatly improved West Coast-to-Europe fruit schedule after the war and pointed out that Holland-America had been a pioneer in this trade.
He said:
The California fruit trade with Britain and the continent was pioneered by our company nearly a quarter of a century ago. This fact may not be generally appreciated on this coast, but the Pacific Coast growers certainly remember that the first experimental shipment of fruit in refrigerators was made on the Holland-America freighter Eemdyk, which sailed from San Pedro Harbor on March 3, 1921.
Mr. Van den Toorn believes that the citrus growers of the West Coast will welcome an accelerated service no less than the hungry populations of Europe, and he said he felt confident that all obstacles will be overcome so that steamship companies of all the Allied nations, which maintained regular services before the war, will recover their proper share of the traffic.