Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Quite a history...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jakarta
Linus
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Jakarta came into my consciousness when a friend, Ben Guilliamse, traded this cover to me in return for some photography I did for him:
Ben's family moved from Netherlands to Curaçao when the clouds of the Second World War were forming; Ben's dad, a physician, had a friend who left Netherlands about the same time for Java.
The MacRobertson International Air Race
In October, 1934, a KLM airliner named Uiver (Old Dutch for stork), the first Douglas DC-2 to be sold outside the U.S., was entered in the MacRobertson International Air Race from London to Melbourne. The Uiver took first place in the handicap division even though it flew as a commercial airliner, stopping at cities it wasn't required to stop in (Java was a required stop) and had to make an emergency landing after midnight on the race course at Albury, NSW after it got lost got lost in a storm in Australia. Its flight showed that intercontinental passenger and cargo service by air was feasible. The Uiver's crew of four returned to Netherlands as heroes.
The Uiver being pulled out the mud at Albury:
The Uiver landing at Melbourne:
A "fast Christmas flight"
KLM planned to send the Uiver's "fast Christmas flight" from Amsterdam to Batavia in December, 1934. Special stationery was printed, and rubber stamp cachets were made. The Dutch post office built a mobile post office topped by a large wooden stork to advertise the flight; the envelopes were designed to be posted back to Netherlands by their recipients. The flight didn't go well.
The Uiver reached Cairo on the first day, and took off for Baghdad late at night. It never reached its destination. Royal Air Force searchers found the plane's wreckage the next morning, near Rutbah Wells, Iraq. It had apparently crashed and burned in a violent thunderstorm that covered a large part of the Middle East; the crew of four and three passengers were killed.
The Uiver's cargo consisted mainly of thousands of letters destined for Java. Some mail bags had been ejected from the plane and burst open. Surviving covers from those bags show clear evidence of damage from the fire, engine oil, sand, and water; some covers were so badly damaged that they couldn't be forwarded. Other covers, from less-damaged mail bags, who less damage. Some mailbags survived intact, and covers from those bags show virtually no indication that they were involved in a crash. There was never any formal air crash investigation, and KLM has never revealed the cause. Uiver crash covers come up for sale quite often in auctions, commanding prices from $25 or so for undamaged ones up to $250 for badly damaged ones. I have six or seven in my collection, showing various degrees of damage.
A sad footnote
My Uiver story has a sad footnote. Ben Guilliamse had become one of my best friends before I ever heard about the Uiver. He became a "guest editor" for my web site, writing an interesting article about a postwar flight from Curaçao to Amsterdam with his parents, Consternation on a Constellation. Ben was killed in 2004 when his Cessna 172 crashed shortly after take-off in Prince George, BC. Apparently he became disoriented in low cloud. He's the only person I've ever known who had not a single living relative. I miss him.
Bob
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I will share this registered cover from my collection, which is from Batavia, Centrum, Netherlands Indies. Where is this city today, which was still named this in 1948? I had to look it up on Google. In case you are playing a trivia game or happen to get on "Jeopardy" someday, you may need to know that this is Jakarta, Indonesia today.
Quite a history...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jakarta
Linus
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re: Batavia Centrum Registered Cover
Jakarta came into my consciousness when a friend, Ben Guilliamse, traded this cover to me in return for some photography I did for him:
Ben's family moved from Netherlands to Curaçao when the clouds of the Second World War were forming; Ben's dad, a physician, had a friend who left Netherlands about the same time for Java.
The MacRobertson International Air Race
In October, 1934, a KLM airliner named Uiver (Old Dutch for stork), the first Douglas DC-2 to be sold outside the U.S., was entered in the MacRobertson International Air Race from London to Melbourne. The Uiver took first place in the handicap division even though it flew as a commercial airliner, stopping at cities it wasn't required to stop in (Java was a required stop) and had to make an emergency landing after midnight on the race course at Albury, NSW after it got lost got lost in a storm in Australia. Its flight showed that intercontinental passenger and cargo service by air was feasible. The Uiver's crew of four returned to Netherlands as heroes.
The Uiver being pulled out the mud at Albury:
The Uiver landing at Melbourne:
A "fast Christmas flight"
KLM planned to send the Uiver's "fast Christmas flight" from Amsterdam to Batavia in December, 1934. Special stationery was printed, and rubber stamp cachets were made. The Dutch post office built a mobile post office topped by a large wooden stork to advertise the flight; the envelopes were designed to be posted back to Netherlands by their recipients. The flight didn't go well.
The Uiver reached Cairo on the first day, and took off for Baghdad late at night. It never reached its destination. Royal Air Force searchers found the plane's wreckage the next morning, near Rutbah Wells, Iraq. It had apparently crashed and burned in a violent thunderstorm that covered a large part of the Middle East; the crew of four and three passengers were killed.
The Uiver's cargo consisted mainly of thousands of letters destined for Java. Some mail bags had been ejected from the plane and burst open. Surviving covers from those bags show clear evidence of damage from the fire, engine oil, sand, and water; some covers were so badly damaged that they couldn't be forwarded. Other covers, from less-damaged mail bags, who less damage. Some mailbags survived intact, and covers from those bags show virtually no indication that they were involved in a crash. There was never any formal air crash investigation, and KLM has never revealed the cause. Uiver crash covers come up for sale quite often in auctions, commanding prices from $25 or so for undamaged ones up to $250 for badly damaged ones. I have six or seven in my collection, showing various degrees of damage.
A sad footnote
My Uiver story has a sad footnote. Ben Guilliamse had become one of my best friends before I ever heard about the Uiver. He became a "guest editor" for my web site, writing an interesting article about a postwar flight from Curaçao to Amsterdam with his parents, Consternation on a Constellation. Ben was killed in 2004 when his Cessna 172 crashed shortly after take-off in Prince George, BC. Apparently he became disoriented in low cloud. He's the only person I've ever known who had not a single living relative. I miss him.
Bob
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