Hans Anton Maurenbrecher

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Hans Anton Maurenbrecher (1949)

Hans Anton Maurenbrecher (born October 3, 1910 in Magelang , Java , † July 1966 on the Great Barrier Reef ) was a Royal Dutch Lieutenant General in the Air Force and a single-handed sailor .

Life

Maurenbrecher came from an old soldier family, the Dutch branch of the Düsseldorf postmaster family Maurenbrecher . His father was a lieutenant colonel, his grandfather a lieutenant and his great-grandfather a colonel in the Royal Dutch Indian Army (KNIL). He attended the military academy in Breda , which he left in 1932 as a second lieutenant in the artillery at KNIL. From the 1920s, the KNIL built up their own air force that in 1939 under the name Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlands Leger Indian as (ML-KNIL) branch of service became independent. Maurenbrecher worked there, among other things, in the rank of captain as a test and transfer pilot for the Brewster Buffalo , a fighter aircraft from which the ML-KNIL acquired 72 machines in the USA after the surrender of the Netherlands in 1939 and thus supported the defense of Singapore , among other things . After the colony was overrun by the armed forces of Japan in March 1942 , the remaining Dutch air force personnel in Australia continued to fight on the side of the Allies and were equipped with mainly American aircraft. Maurenbrecher was initially a flight inspector for the flight training of the Koninklijken Luchtmacht (KLu) in Jackson / USA. In 1943 he took part in the war against Japan from Australia as a fighter pilot on Curtiss P-40 fighter aircraft. After the war he was first in the rank of major in command of the 120th (NEI) Squadron in Medan , then the 121st (NEI) Squadron on North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft, 1946 to 1949 Commander of the Luchtvaart Commandos Sumatra , according to the Indonesia's independence from the Dutch military mission in Jakarta , then commander of the Dutch tactical air force. Most recently he held the rank of lieutenant general and director of air force equipment. In this role he introduced the Starfighter in the Netherlands. In 1963 he retired.

Maurenbrecher was not averse to adventure outside of fighter aviation either. During his time in the Dutch East Indies he used to hunt big game . After retiring, he initially considered circumnavigating the world by plane. But then he decided to go sailing. At the shipyard “Mulder en Rijke” in Lemmer , he bought a nine-meter ship of the “Oranjebloesem” type , which he named “Takebora” after the opening words of a fisherman's song that he heard in his youth on Soembava . On July 14, 1964, he ran west in IJmuiden on a sailing tour to Australia and back. In 1965 he ran again to Australia for the first Dutch one-handed circumnavigation of the world , from there to sail along the north coast of Australia and Madagascar to South Africa and then return to the Netherlands. On May 28, 1966, Maurenbrecher left Cairns harbor with his yacht to sail for Thursday Island . He has been believed to have been lost on the Great Barrier Reef since July 1966 . 

plant

  • Hans Anton Maurenbrecher: Het journaal van de Takebora , Woerden / Laren 1996 (posthumous), ISBN 90-6564-252-8

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerard J. Casius, “Brewster Buffaloes for the Militaire Luchtvaart KNIL” , Mars et Historica, Vol. 37 online version part 1 , online version part 2
  2. ↑ De Telegraaf v. August 21, 1965
  3. ↑ Excerpt from: "Ocean Pioneers" (Fig.) , ISBN 978-90-71500-09-1
personal data
SURNAME Maurenbrecher, Hans Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch Lieutenant General in the Air Force and single-handed sailor
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Magelang , Java
DATE OF DEATH July 1966
Place of death Great Barrier Reef