Laurens van der Post (1963) and "The Night of the New Moon" (1970). Japanese film director Nagisa Oshima based his film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1982) on the last two of these books. Following the surrender of Japan, while his fellow POWs were repatriated, van der Post chose to remain in Java, and on 15 September 1945, he joined Admiral Wilfrid Patterson on HMS "Cumberland" for the official surrender of the Japanese in Java to British forces representing the Allies. Van der Post then spent two years helping to mediate between Indonesian nationalists and members of the Dutch Colonial Government. He had gained trust
Laurens van der Post Van der Post retired from the army and was made a CBE. The events of these early post-war years in Java are examined in his memoir "The Admiral's Baby" (1996). With the war over and his business with the army concluded, van der Post returned to South Africa in late 1947 to work at the "Natal Daily News", but with the election victory of the National Party and the onset of apartheid he came back to London. He was later to publish a critique of apartheid ("The Dark Eye in Africa", 1955), basing many of his insights on his developing