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
Just out of interest, here's the KLM timetable for the end of 1934 for the Amsterdam-Batavia route.
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...4b/kl34b-3.jpg
Uiver was brand new on the route then, the only DC2 until the following year, and as the operation seems to require four aircraft, even though it was only once-weekly frequency, most of the operation was still by wooden-framed Fokkers. However, notable that the post office had done special stamps for the aircraft, which they were doubtless very proud of. Its loss must have been a national disaster.
Unfortunately, as somebody I knew in my childhood has said, "Daddy went to work and Daddy came home. We never knew what he did in between".
Indeed. Mr WHBM Senior worked in the bank all his career, except when he went into the RAF in WW2, volunteered for aircrew, and as "you must be good with figures" was a navigator. 25 trips on Halifaxes from Yorkshire (RAF Dishforth) to Europe
. But he never told his mother he had volunteered, said he was doing the payroll or something, and picked off his wings if going home on leave. But afterwards he was sent on to Burma on DC3s, which I'm reminded of seeing the map on the KLM page linked here of Akyab, which was one of their bases for a while. I've said elsewhere that I heard about his Burmese flying exploits sufficiently often in younger years that I could probably fly myself today from Rangoon to Mandalay without charts (supposedly quite straightforward, just 'follow the big River Irrawaddy').
I have a recording he made of a nightingale that used to sing in the woods there.
Any bombers audible in the background ?
The cello and the nightingale - BBC News
(scroll down to the 1942 bit).