Airmail to the Dutch East Indies

The frequency of scheduled flights carrying mail was much lower in the 30s than it is today. I therefore looked through my collection at the connections between Amsterdam and the Dutch East Indies and vice versa during that period. This led me to the 500th flight to the East. The triangular 30-cent stamp was issued specifically on October 19, 1933, for Special Flights that took place regularly. The stamp was not to be used for ordinary flights.

Many collectors seek only postal items (mostly first flights), such as the 500th flight to the Dutch East Indies, which took place on November 13, 1937. And for those collectors, it is the special stamp that is imprinted.

Sometimes letters are still found in the envelopes. The contents of the letter occasionally give an impression of what people thought of the airmail service. The sender of the letter wrote: “Dear Mr. Steinweg, For my daughter in the Indies I sent a letter on the 500th aircraft and it is now a great pleasure for me to send you the envelope for your collection, of which I took note with so much interest. Mail traffic with our East is indeed fast! With polite greetings, also to your wife and daughter, respectfully yours, H. Strick van Linschoten.” The letter, dated November 30, 1937, however, was not originally in the envelope, so it must have been in another envelope together with the envelope and sent back to the Netherlands in that way. Incidentally, it was quite easy to trace the addressee on the envelope via the internet: Mrs. Anna Strick van Linschoten (born on July 15, 1910 in Rijswijk Zh and deceased on August 20, 2004 in Dalfsen) married Ir. Arnold Henri Jozef van Goch (1903-1977) by proxy in Delft on August 8, 1930. She held the title of Jonkvrouw. The couple had three children, born in 1931, 1932, and 1937.

Envelope comes to life

But back to philately. The 500th flight was carried out with the KLM aircraft Reiger, flown by pilot EE Hulsebos and co-pilot P. Noomen. On board were 477 kg of mail. The aircraft departed on November 13, 1937, and arrived in Bandung on November 19, 1937. An empty envelope and a letter that was not inside it. Yet they belong together, because with the information on the envelope and the text in the letter, it is possible to reconstruct what happened to them. In this way, a seemingly ordinary envelope gains an extra dimension; the envelope comes to life again! And that adds depth to philately, making it quite exciting.