Make that PH-AJU
Jhieminga,
How embarrassing. Wrong twice. My only excuse is it's been a while since I researched Uiver.
Here's the original PH-AJU:
I remember a very strange feeling, looking at that picture, the day I received a letter, that I bought on eBay, that had survived the crash, sitting in that very tail section in a mail bag:
It's a Christmas Airmail letter sent from Amsterdam on 19 December 1934, that was recovered from the wreck of Uiver at Rutbah Wells, after the crash in the early hours of 20 December and was then forwarded (by Imperial Airways?) and received in Batavia on 28 December (postmark on the back).
I also discovered that I had forgotten that I knew about the connection of the registration with the name. I had asked a Dutch friend for help with the address and also queried the name with him, because Uiver is not the normal Dutch word for stork, which is ooievaar.
Here is his response:
You are right about the name" Uiver ". It is the name for a stork but in a local Dutch dialect, not the proper Dutch name for a stork.
All the airplanes were named after birds and as you mentioned, had to match the last letter of their registration number, but another airplane ended with a U as well and was called " Uil" Owl and there is no other bird that starts with a U except in the local dialect where a stork is called an Uiver.