Dirk Stellema was born in Sneek, Friesland, in 1917. He joined the Military Aviation Service of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army—Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger, or ML-KNIL—in 1937.
Stellema served as a radio operator and navigator aboard military aircraft in the Netherlands East Indies and Australia. Although he occasionally assisted at the controls and acted as a co-pilot, he was careful to explain that he was not a qualified pilot.
The following text is a transcript of an interview with Dirk Stellema conducted by Sue Summers on the Gold Coast in July 2005. The interview appears to have been transcribed from an audio recording, but the original recording has not yet been located. Some words, names and place-names were difficult for the transcriber to understand and remain uncertain. The transcript has been retained as an important first-hand historical record.
Training and early service in Java
Stellema began flying from Bandung in 1938 aboard Glenn Martin twin-engined bombers. His duties involved radio communications and navigation during flights over the Netherlands East Indies, including operations towards Borneo.
In 1941 he attended a training school at Andir airfield in Bandung, where he was preparing for promotion to sergeant. The arrival of new Lockheed transport aircraft created an urgent need for trained crew members, however, and Stellema was transferred to transport duties as a radio operator.
His early assignments included a flight to Singapore carrying senior Dutch and British personnel. As the military situation deteriorated, the transport crews increasingly carried passengers, military personnel, wounded servicemen and essential supplies.
An unsuccessful journey to collect B-25 bombers
Stellema recalled travelling with six Lockheed aircraft from Java through Broome and Cloncurry to Brisbane. Each aircraft carried only its operating crew because the men were expected to collect newly arrived B-25 Mitchell bombers.
The B-25s had not arrived, and the crews were ordered back to Java. When the Lockheeds returned to their airfield near Surabaya, they found American B-17 Flying Fortresses burning following a Japanese attack. With fuel running dangerously low, the Dutch aircraft eventually landed between the burning aircraft, refuelled and returned to Bandung.
This episode illustrates the confusion surrounding aircraft deliveries during the final weeks before the Japanese conquest of Java. Dutch crews were sent to Australia to collect aircraft that were urgently needed but were not yet available.
Evacuation flights between Java and Borneo
Stellema subsequently participated in flights between Surabaya and Borneo. These missions transported wounded personnel and other evacuees while returning with whatever passengers or supplies could be carried.
Crews operated at night, frequently in extreme tropical weather. Stellema remembered flying through violent storms in which water entered the cockpit and the aircraft was repeatedly thrown onto its side. The crews had few navigational aids and continued because the evacuation situation allowed little choice.
His recollections complement accounts of Dutch pilot Gus Winckel, with whom Stellema reportedly flew as a wireless operator during emergency transport missions. Contemporary research describes these crews flying between Java and Borneo at night, in poor weather and under wartime blackout conditions.
Escape from Java
During one of his final flights from Java, Stellema and his companions found Bandung’s main airfield damaged and unusable. Their aircraft was concealed beside an emergency landing road while preparations were made to escape to Australia.
The captain assigned to the flight was seriously ill but was brought to the aircraft shortly before departure. After take-off, both the captain and the mechanic became too sick to remain at the controls. As radio operator and navigator, Stellema was left to help keep the aircraft on course until the captain recovered sufficiently to return to the cockpit.
Radio contact with Port Hedland and Broome could not be established. After reaching the Western Australian coast, the crew saw a Dutch flying boat on a beach. Nearby was a sheep station with a small landing ground, where the Lockheed landed.
The people gathered there included Dutch naval personnel, women and children whose flying boat had made an emergency landing before reaching Broome. According to Stellema, the sheep-station owners cared for them.
The following morning, fuel was recovered from the stranded flying boat and used to enable the Lockheed to continue to Port Hedland. The crew later returned with fuel for the flying boat. The civilians were subsequently transported onwards through Australian cities including Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.
Stellema placed the station approximately 100 kilometres north of Port Hedland on the route towards Broome. This description has not yet been conclusively matched to a named station. It should therefore not be identified as Anna Plains without additional evidence.
Transport operations in Australia and New Guinea
After reaching Australia, Stellema flew aboard American transport aircraft between Brisbane and Port Moresby. Some of the pilots involved were KLM personnel stranded in the region after the normal air connection between Europe and the Netherlands East Indies had been severed.
He also remembered Dutch Lockheed Lodestars being used to move evacuees and personnel between Western Australia and the southern and eastern Australian states.
These experiences placed Stellema within the larger Dutch and Allied transport network that developed across Australia following the fall of the Netherlands East Indies.
Service with No. 18 Squadron
Stellema later served with No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron RAAF.
Formed in Canberra in April 1942, the squadron operated American-built B-25 Mitchell bombers. Its aircrews came predominantly from the Netherlands East Indies, while the RAAF provided much of its ground organisation and operational support.
After training and maritime-patrol duties, the squadron moved to the Northern Territory. From McDonald and Batchelor airfields it conducted bombing, reconnaissance and anti-shipping missions over the eastern Netherlands East Indies.
A photograph shown during the interview depicted Stellema standing with other personnel in front of a B-25 Mitchell in 1944. He identified himself as the third man from the right and recalled that an Australian air gunner was among the group.
New Guinea supply operations
Stellema also recalled missions associated with Allied intelligence and reconnaissance activities in Netherlands New Guinea. Supplies were flown from Merauke to personnel operating behind Japanese lines.
The interview’s chronology and some of its place-names are difficult to interpret. His account should therefore be presented as a personal recollection rather than as a precise operational history. Nevertheless, it records the important part played by Dutch aircrews in supporting Allied operations in and around Netherlands New Guinea.
Leaflet flight over Java
One of Stellema’s most memorable missions was a long-distance flight over Batavia and Bandung during which multilingual leaflets were dropped near civilian internment camps.
The leaflets were intended to tell internees that the Allies had not forgotten them and that liberation would eventually come. Stellema retained copies after the war and offered English and Dutch examples to his interviewer.
The precise date and aircraft involved should still be confirmed from squadron operational records. The recollection is nevertheless important because it describes the purpose and emotional significance of these flights from a crew member’s perspective.
See also: WWII Leaflet (Propaganda) Flights from Australia to Java
Ferrying aircraft from the United States
Stellema recalled travelling to the United States as a passenger and subsequently helping to bring an aircraft back. His account provides another glimpse of the extensive ferry system required to deliver aircraft from North America to Dutch units operating from Australia.
Although he was not formally a pilot, his wartime experience meant that some captains trusted him to assist at the controls and, if necessary, help return an aircraft safely.
Life after the war
After the war, Stellema worked for KLM as a radio operator. He settled permanently in Australia in 1949, married and raised six children.
At the time of the 2005 interview, he had not become a naturalised Australian citizen. This did not diminish his connection with Australia or the contribution he and his Dutch and Indonesian colleagues made while serving alongside Australian personnel.
His account is especially valuable because it records the work of the radio operators and navigators upon whom every long-distance wartime flight depended. Pilots were generally the most publicly recognised members of an aircrew, but without communications, navigation and cooperation among the entire crew, many of these missions could not have been completed.
