The Royal Australian Air Force
Association (WA Division)
Aviation Heritage Museum
Presents
"Flight into Hell"
The story of Hans Bertram and Adolph Klausmann - Pioneer Aviators
"The Atlantis 1925"
"Flight into Hell" is the story of two German aviators,
pilot, Hans Bertram and his mechanic, Adolph Klausmann
who in 1932 were flying from Cologne, Germany to Australia on a goodwill flight for the
makers of Junkers aircraft in their seaplane "Atlantis 1925".
May 14, 1932, after flying from
Europe in a series of easy hops they took off from Soerabaja in the Dutch East Indies.
Their destination is the Australian port of Darwin and their estimated time of
arrival, the early hours of Sunday. But, after a refuelling stop in Koepang, the Atlantis
is caught in a violent storm over the Timor Sea, pushed miles off course and forced to
land on the remote coastline of north west Western Australia. They have little fuel and
water and no food. At first the aviators are confident that it will only be a matter of
time before they are found. They had landed at Cape Bernier, 480km (300 miles) west of
their destination. Because their physical appearance and the method of their
arrival coincided with a local aboriginal belief, at first they were thought to
be gods and no one would approach them.
Four
days after their disappearance the Flores a
Dutch destroyer, set sail from Surabaya to carry out what proved to be a
fruitless search along their planned route across the Timor sea. The Western
Australian government also commenced a land, sea and air search of possible
landing sites, including Bathurst and Melville Islands and west from Darwin
along the coast to Wyndham
A West Australian Airways de Havilland DH50
mail plane, in Wyndham on its routine schedule, was chartered for the
search. A replacement aircraft was flown the 3,700km (2,300 miles) from Perth to
maintain the airmail services. Nick Nicholas and A McComb, a civil aviation
inspector, made an extensive search of the: area between Darwin and Wyndham but,
like the coastal shipping which had also been diverted to the area, could find
no signs of the aircraft or of the two airmen. Hope was fading on June 1 when
two aborigines handed a cigarette case bearing the initials HB together with a
handkerchief to a missionary on a passing boat. They were somewhat vague as to
the location of their find but it did indicate that Bertram and Klausmann had
landed west of Wyndham, much further west than anyone had imagined. It took time
for word of this discovery to reach Wyndham as the first message with the two
articles failed to arrive. It was not until June 13 that the second message
reached Wyndham. This evidence showed that the Germans had not been lost at sea
and the search was resumed with increased vigour. Sergeant Jack Flinders of
Wyndham Police Station immediately organized a search party under the command of
Constable Gordon Marshall. It included two Aboriginal trackers and Torn Ronan
who looked after the mules and necessities of life. Marshall and Ronan had had
extensive experience of the north‑west and were under no illusions about
the magnitude of the task they were undertaking. They estimated that it would
take two weeks just to get to the search area. At the back of their minds was
the knowledge that five men had been murdered recently around that area.