The Uiver & the Hero's of Albury

The night of October 23, 1934 was one of the wildest in the memory of south eastern Australia. The rainstorms that had poured down ceaselessly for many days, bringing floods, ruin and misery were still falling down like a steady wall of water over the town of Albury.

High in the sky was an entrant of the MacRobertson International Air Race hopelessly off course in the last leg from London to Melbourne.

It was the DC2 of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines called the Uiver, piloted by Captain Parmentier and navigated by Lieutenant Moll, desperately lost in the storm over the mountainous country about Kilmore.

The plane had lost all communications and after circling for hours trying to get its bearings in the pitch-black night, was about to run out of fuel.
It was impossible to get under the torrential storm and when they tried to climb the wings began to ice up.

The pilots realized this plane was doomed to crash with passengers and crew if they would not find a landing place soon. But it was completely dark outside with battering rain on the windows diffusing their sight.

About midnight the Albury citizens heard the Uiver blindly circling over their district. Being aware of the likely situation in the plane they knew there was only one slim chance of averting disaster by somehow making contact with the plane and guiding it down from the ground.

By switching the city’s entire lighting system on and off they repeatedly signalled the letters 'A - L - B - U - R - Y' as visual morse code communicating to the pilots as clue where they were.

In the meantime the local radio station 2CO sent out an appeal for all car owners to get out of bed, swing into action and assemble at the local race course. There the cars were lined up on both sides of the track lightning up an emergency landing strip for the Uiver.

At daybreak it became clear that the Uiver had sank away into the muddy field and had to be pulled out by many voluntary men before it could take off for the final stretch to Melbourne. To keep the plane as light as possible only the captain and co-pilot were on board and the rest of the crew, passengers and mail made it to Melbourne by train.

The Uiver eventually came in first in the handicap section and second in the overall ranking.

Ever since that day there is a unique bond between the heroic town of Albury and Holland.

Post script: Sadly enough the Uiver crashed on december 20 that same year when it made an extra flight with 350 kg of christmas post destined for the Dutch colony capital Batavia. After a stopover in Cairo captain Beekman initially refused to take off due to bad weather conditions, but was threatened to be fired if he wouldn't.
The plane never made it to the next stop in Bagdad, but crashed and burned out at Rutbah Wells in the Syrian Desert killing all four crew and three passengers.

Today's and yesterdays photo is a co-production with kind courtesy of mr Gerard Blom / Uiver Memorial Albury and myself. Please visit their facebook page and leave a kind note. On my Flickr page you can see the original picture I worked from, it's nice to compare.
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Extra's: A video telling the story of the KLM DC-2, Uiver, and its involvement in the 1934 MacRobertson air race from England to Australia. It was made using flight simulation and 3d modeling programs. It took ten months to complete. It gets really interesting from 11:45 min forwards!