SILENT KEY
Book Review
ModelFan
Author: Cornelis A. Hoefnagel
Publisher: Geromy
ISBN: 978-90-828581-7-4
Published: 2020
Pages: 184 Hardcover, Dutch language only
Price: €29.00
What began as a personal quest ultimately became a genuine aviation book. Silent Key not only provides a personal account of the short life of a KLM radio telegraphist, but also offers insight into the development of aviation in the Netherlands. All the facts presented in the book come from first-hand sources. Cornelis A. Hoefnagel discovered a wealth of information, including photographs and diaries belonging to his father, in his mother's basement. The book became a beautiful tribute to his father, Cornelis Hoefnagel.
This is a special book about the period just before World War II, the May days in a Fokker T-V, and the 1953 air disaster near Frankfurt, where Hoefnagel Sr. lost his life in a KLM aircraft. It is based on the attic find of diaries and photos after the death of Kees Junior's mother. During his quest to uncover his father's life, who died young, Cornelis Hoefnagel (born in 1948) stumbled upon adventurous and historical events from aviation around the Second World War. Before the war, his father flew as a radio telegraphist on Douglas DC-2 and DC-3 aircraft on KLM's European network. Due to the threat of war, he was mobilized and assigned to the Bomber Aircraft Division (Bom.V.A.) at Schiphol, where he flew many training and patrol flights as a radio telegraphist on the Fokker T-V and Fokker G-I, and also participated in rescue missions.
During the first days of the war (May 10-14, 1940), he actively took part in air battles over Schiphol in a Fokker T-V bomber and in bombing missions on the Ockenburg airfield near The Hague and the Maas Bridge in Rotterdam.
After the war, Cornelis Hoefnagel Sr. was involved in the reconstruction of the airline and its global network, both as an active crew member and as chairman of the Association of KLM Radio Telegraphists and board member of the Federation of Commercial Pilots, Radio Telegraphists, and Flight Engineers, as well as international organizations. As a crew member from 1945 to 1947, he flew to the Dutch East Indies on Douglas DC-4 Skymaster flights. From 1947 onward, he flew on the North Atlantic routes to Montreal, New York, Havana, and Curaçao with the Lockheed Constellation. Later, he also flew long routes to New Guinea, Japan, Africa, and South America with the Lockheed Constellation and the Douglas DC-6.
The last chapter describes the crash of the KLM Douglas DC-6 PH-TPJ 'Koningin Juliana' while approaching Rhein-Main Airport near Frankfurt, in which Cornelis lost his life.
Chapters
• Your Father Is in Heaven
• Youth and Seafaring Years
• Military Service and the War Years
• Reconstruction and to the Indies
• By Skymaster to the Indies
• Transatlantic Again, But This Time by Air
• Now Approaching Offenbach
The personal quest of Junior into the life of Senior resulted in a remarkable aviation book. His time with the Aviation Division between 1938 and 1940 is particularly well-documented with photographs and prints of his logbooks as a radio telegraphist-air gunner, as well as his wartime pocketbook. This is a compelling book about (military) aviation around the Second World War, where facts, experiences, and emotions are mostly described first-hand, richly supplemented with authentic visual and documentary material. The author has compiled nearly 70 pages of annexes featuring this documentary material.
A gem of an attic discovery by someone who, fortunately, decided to bring it to the world. Not counting the war years, aviation in those times was quite dangerous. There were many accidents. The author describes sixteen journeys his father made to Indonesia; eleven of them involved engine failures or other malfunctions. Something always seemed to go wrong.
Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in Dutch aviation.
Thanks to Geromy for making the book available for reviewing
