VH-UZM  Klemm Kl.31 a XIV                              (c/n  653)

                                   

                                        The Fathers of the Catholic Mission of the Holy Ghost at Alexishafen in New Guinea seemed
                                        to favor German light aircraft as their means of transportation before WW II.    This one was
                                        actually on loan from Father Ziegler in Switzerland.  I thought perhaps that the Maltese Cross
                                        on the tail may have been a make-over from the Swiss flag, but the Klemm was never actually
                                        registered in Switzerland.  Originally shipped to South Africa in July 1935 as ZS-AFJ, it was
                                        repatriated back to.the German civil register as D-IRUT before going out to New Guinea in
                                        1937.   It came to grief when it crashed into the sea off Madang in January 1939 although was
                                        then transferred to Father Glover at the Catholic Mission in Wau in 1940, so it may have been
                                        repaired.   Its fate in war-time New Guinea is unknown but it almost certainly was destroyed
                                        by Jap air raids on New Guinea coastal airfields in 1940/41.