Johannes (Joop) Gijzemijter Born 24 Feb, 1915, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Died 30 April, 1999, Brisbane, Australia. Written by his son John Gyzemyter. “What did you do during the war Daddy?” As children Dad often told us stories about his career in aviation which started on the 3rd of March 1930 as Read more…
scroll to the bottom for more information The “Pulk” (which was originally N5-131 a B-25C – the first mass-produced B-25 version) from No. 18 (NEI) Squadron – a Netherlands East Indies / RAAF composite squadron. The original “Pulk” was named after the Dutch B-25 pilot, Fred “Pulk” Pelder (this nickname Read more…
In May 1931, KLM added an experimental flight from Batavia to Melbourne to their regular Amsterdam – Batavia service providing a through service from Amsterdam to Australia. The plane was a Fokker FVIIA/3m trimotor specially named ‘Abel Tasman’ for this trip. The pilot and co-pilot were Maurits Pattist and Jan Read more…
The 18 Netherlands East Indies squadron RAAF was established on April 4 1942 They destroyed many Japanese operations on NEI, sunk 6 Japanese ships and numerous smaller boats.
Four-hundred years ago, in March 1622, the Dutch ship Leeuwin encountered the south-west coast of Western Australia—the first recorded sighting of the area by Europeans. Known to the Wadandi Noongar people as Doogalup, the Dutch named it ‘t’Leeuwin’s Landt’, or ‘Leeuwin’s Land’. In 1801, in recognition of this early Dutch Read more…
This is the ship on which the Hennik family immigrated to Australia it has a list of the people on board and the crew signed the page. Dochter Wilhelmina also has the document her dad travelled with. They arrived 17 Feb 1959 at Fremantle and were taken by train to Read more…
Joop van Doorn was posted to Java in 1937 and flew Glen Martins, Lockheed Lodestars and Mitchell B-25. Joop and pilot Yves Henri Mulder (nickname Bels as he came from Belgium – he was killed in action in 1944) ferried British Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell to Singapore for the ABDA Read more…
Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij (in English: Royal Dutch Indies Airways) was the airline of the former Dutch East Indies. It was founded on 16 July 1928 as the NILM by a group of 32 Netherlands Indies. Headquartered in Amsterdam, KNILM was not a subsidiary of the better-known KLM (Royal Dutch Read more…
The MacRobertson Trophy Air Race (also known as the London to Melbourne Air Race) took place in October 1934 as part of the Melbourne Centenary celebrations. The race was devised by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sir Harold Gengoult Smith, and the prize money of £15,000 was provided by Sir Read more…
KLM terminated its own 3 weekly Amsterdam-Sydney service in 2001 in favour of code shares with Malaysia Airlines. Apparently, the route via Singapore, although very popular, was a total loss-maker and they didn’t have traffic rights for the SIN-SYD leg. KLM has had a very long history with Australia. In Read more…