From Baarn to the Netherlands East Indies
Evert Herman van Hummel was born in Baarn, the Netherlands, on 29 January 1916. He was known variously as Evert and Herman.
Fascinated by engines from an early age, he left secondary school when he was fifteen and became an apprentice motor mechanic. He later found employment in an engineering workshop at Soesterberg airfield and completed his schooling through evening classes.
In 1938, aged twenty-two, Van Hummel travelled to Bandung in the Netherlands East Indies. He initially worked as a ground engineer before becoming a flight engineer with the Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij—KNILM, the principal civil airline of the Netherlands East Indies.
Existing documents
Personal documents belonging to Evert Herman van Hummel. DACC Evert Herman van Hummel Collection.
KNILM life before the Pacific War
Additional photographs documenting his aviation career are preserved in the Evert Herman van Hummel photograph collection.
Escape from Java aboard the Wielewaal
Japan’s advance through Southeast Asia transformed KNILM’s civil aviation operations. Aircraft and personnel were increasingly placed at the disposal of the Netherlands East Indies authorities and used to transport officials, military personnel, archives and equipment.
During February 1942, KNILM personnel worked under increasingly dangerous conditions. Aircraft maintenance and assembly sometimes took place beneath trees in residential areas to reduce the danger from Japanese air attacks. Van Hummel participated in this work.
A large evacuation took place from Andir airfield on 25 February. Because he was young and unmarried, Van Hummel was not initially selected for evacuation. Friends reportedly encouraged him to climb aboard one of the departing aircraft once its engines were running, but he did not do so.
His opportunity came unexpectedly on 6 March. Bandung was surrounded, Andir had again been bombed and Van Hummel and two colleagues had gone to a Chinese restaurant for what they regarded as a possible final meal. On their return, they encountered a car collecting personnel for a secret evacuation flight.
The aircraft was Douglas DC-3 PK-ALW, the Wielewaal. Captain Eddy Dunlop commanded the aircraft. It departed from Boeabatoe Road, an unfinished roadway being used as an improvised airstrip near Bandung, at approximately 1.00 a.m. on 7 March 1942.
Among the passengers were Lieutenant Governor-General Hubertus van Mook and senior official Charles Olke van der Plas. Japanese forces were by then operating near Lembang, less than fifteen kilometres from Bandung.
After a flight of seven hours and thirty-two minutes, the aircraft reached Port Hedland in Western Australia and subsequently continued to Perth. The full history of this aircraft and evacuation flight is told in From Wielewaal to VH-ANR: a Dutch DC-3 preserved in Queensland.
Wartime service
Following the evacuation, former KNILM aircraft and personnel were absorbed into the Allied war effort. Their aircraft were progressively transferred to American control, while former KNILM employees followed several different military and civil aviation paths.
Van Hummel initially continued flying in Australia. On one journey between Adelaide and Perth, the aircraft landed at Kalgoorlie. Van Hummel and his companions entered a hotel carrying only Netherlands East Indies currency. According to the family account, the publican refused payment and provided their drinks free because the Dutch airmen were helping to defend Australia.
Van Hummel—identified as “Eddy”—also played football in Sydney for the Metters Soccer Football Club works team. This episode is recorded in the history Clogball.
He subsequently joined Dutch naval aviation personnel associated with No. 321 (Dutch) Squadron RAF. The squadron had been re-formed in Ceylon in August 1942, principally from personnel of the Royal Netherlands Navy Air Service—the Marine Luchtvaartdienst or MLD—who had escaped from the Netherlands East Indies.
Equipped with Consolidated Catalina flying boats, Dutch crews conducted maritime patrol, convoy protection and transport operations. Flights between Ceylon, Australia and the Netherlands East Indies also carried personnel, equipment and official communications. Following Japan’s surrender, Catalinas assisted with transport and repatriation across the region.
For the wider history, see Royal Netherlands Navy flying-boat operations in Australia during WWII.
The crash of Catalina Y-62 at Biak
On 23 October 1945, Van Hummel was the flight engineer aboard Catalina Y-62 during a flight to Biak in Netherlands New Guinea. The aircraft was carrying supplies for personnel stationed there, including whisky and sherry intended for members of No. 120 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron RAAF.
The Catalina approached the waters near Mokmer on the southern coast of Biak. During its second attempt to land, the aircraft’s left wingtip float struck the water. The Catalina swung sharply to the left. When boat commander De Groot applied full power in an attempt to recover, both Pratt & Whitney engines were torn from their mountings. A propeller cut through the fuselage immediately behind the pilots.
The badly damaged aircraft came to rest on a reef and began taking in water. Despite the violence of the accident, the crew escaped serious injury. American personnel arrived in speedboats to rescue them.
Van Hummel was able to climb forward from his flight engineer’s position and assist De Groot from the cockpit. He subsequently returned to the wreck and helped recover two crates—one containing twenty-four bottles of whisky and the other twenty-four bottles of sherry.
Members of No. 120 Squadron, including Bouke Prins and fighter pilot Hoekstra, witnessed the aftermath and were waiting when the rescued crew reached shore. The accident and its unusual cargo were later recorded in Kemajoran magazine.
Contemporary account of the Catalina crash
The following pages from Kemajoran magazine provide a contemporary account of the loss of Catalina Y-62 at Biak on 23 October 1945. They describe the attempted landing, the damage to the aircraft, the rescue of its crew and the recovery of its unusual cargo. Evert Herman van Hummel was the aircraft’s flight engineer.
According to Kemajoran magazine, Catalina Y-62 approached the southern coast of Biak after an additional service to Wundi and Hollandia. The crew, commanded by De Groot and including flight engineer Evert van Hummel, had been operating Catalina supply and NICA transport flights from Rose Bay in Sydney to bases in liberated areas of New Guinea.
During the second landing attempt near Mokmer, the left wingtip float struck the water before the hull made contact. The Catalina swung sharply to the left. De Groot applied full engine power in an attempt to recover, but both Pratt & Whitney engines were torn from their mountings. One of the propellers cut through the fuselage immediately behind the pilots.
The aircraft came to rest on a reef and began taking in water. American personnel arrived in speedboats and rescued the crew, who had escaped serious injury. Two crates—one containing twenty-four bottles of whisky and the other twenty-four bottles of sherry intended for personnel at Biak—were also recovered. Members of No. 120 Squadron, including Bouke Prins and fighter pilot Hoekstra, were waiting when the survivors reached shore.
Source: Kemajoran magazine.
Long-distance wartime flying
he following two Qantas certificates document Van Hummel’s long-distance wartime flying, including a flight lasting more than twenty-four hours and his participation in the Indian Ocean “Kangaroo” service.
Return to civil aviation
After the liberation of the Netherlands East Indies, Van Hummel returned to the archipelago but subsequently travelled to Sydney to meet his newborn son. Following the breakdown of his first marriage, he returned to the Netherlands.
On 1 August 1948 he resumed his civil aviation career as a KLM flight engineer. While living in Amsterdam, he rented a room from Koos and Henny Roos, who became close friends.
Van Hummel was a crew member on KLM’s first official postwar service to Sydney in 1951, part of the restoration of the civil air connection between the Netherlands and Australia.
Further background is available in KLM’s return to Australia: the Constellation and the first postwar civilian service.
Van Hummel married Frederika “Freddy” van den Hamer on 28 August 1951. Their children were Herman, Saskia and Robert. Van Hummel also had a son, Peter, from his earlier marriage.
Australia, Schreiner Airways and Transavia
Van Hummel accepted early retirement from KLM at the age of forty-eight. In 1964 he moved to Australia with his family, hoping to work as a flight engineer for Qantas. Although initially led to believe that employment might be possible, he was unable to obtain a flying position and returned temporarily to work as a ground engineer. He subsequently held several other jobs, including a period working for David Jones.
The family later returned to the Netherlands so that Van Hummel could resume flying with Schreiner Airways. During the late 1960s, he participated in dangerous relief operations associated with the Nigerian–Biafran conflict, carrying or delivering food and medical supplies.
Concern about the risks involved led him to leave this work. From 1968 until 1971 he flew with Transavia. After moving to Epe in 1973, he was briefly involved in an attempt to establish a new airline at Maastricht Airport, but the proposed company did not become operational.
This marked the end of his long aviation career.
An exceptional flying record
Van Hummel recorded that by 1 May 1956 he had accumulated 12,725 hours and nine minutes of flying time. This included his prewar KNILM work, wartime flying and postwar KLM career.
The surviving logbook begins its detailed entries on 2 May 1956 with a flight from Karachi to Rome, followed two days later by Rome to Amsterdam. Its final pages record flights undertaken in 1970 and a cumulative total of 22,231 hours and fifty minutes.
Family life and return to Australia
Van Hummel and Freddy lived at different times in Doorn, Badhoevedorp and Epe. Their family photographs and images of their homes form an important personal complement to his aviation records.
On 31 December 1986, Evert and Freddy migrated permanently to Australia. Their son Herman Jr had moved there in 1978, followed by their daughter Saskia in March 1986. Their son Robert remained in the Netherlands.
The following photographs preserve aspects of Van Hummel’s family life in the Netherlands and Australia.
Reunited with the Wielewaal
During a visit to a friend in Caloundra in 2000, Van Hummel was taken to the Queensland Air Museum. There he encountered the restored DC-3 in which he had escaped from Java in March 1942.
The aircraft was by then registered VH-ANR but had once been PK-ALW, the Wielewaal. Nearly six decades after their wartime journey, Van Hummel and the aircraft were reunited—both survivors of extraordinary aviation careers.
A century of life
Van Hummel celebrated his hundredth birthday on 29 January 2016. A birthday cake decorated with a KLM aircraft acknowledged the aviation career that had shaped so much of his life.
He died at TriCare Mermaid Beach in Queensland on 30 April 2016, aged one hundred.
His story and collection have been preserved through the work of Mary Hummel, wife of his son Peter, and through documentation supplied by his daughter Saskia and his son Robert. Most of the surviving documents and photographs were donated to the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre, where they are available for historical research.
Related DACC articles
- Evert Herman van Hummel photograph collection
- From Wielewaal to VH-ANR: a Dutch DC-3 preserved in Queensland
- KNILM and its Australian connection
- Royal Netherlands Navy flying-boat operations from Australia, 1942–1945
- No. 120 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron RAAF
- KLM’s return to Australia: the Constellation and the first postwar civilian service
- DACC Air Force Research Portal
Sources and acknowledgements
G.J. Hagens, De KNILM vloog door.
Kemajoran magazine account of the loss of Catalina Y-62.
Evert Herman van Hummel flight logbooks, certificates, personal papers and photographs, DACC collection.
Family information supplied by Mary Hummel, Saskia van Hummel and Robert van Hummel.
