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Adriaan Viruly. Photo by Anefo.

Top 10 Cool Facts about A. Viruly

The name Viruly appears frequently in Dutch aviation history, alongside names like Smirnoff, Geysendorffer, and Parmentier. Whereas the former are inextricably linked with other well-known names like Pelikaan, Panderjager, and Uiver, Adriaan Viruly has achieved greater fame with the typewriter than the control stick.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that he is famous because of the combination of the two. The books he wrote during the first half of his “career” as an author were mostly inspired by major and minor aviation events. Adrian Viruly managed to involve the many tens of thousands who bought his books in the experiences on the Dutch East Indies route in the 1930s, when flying was still an elitist, because priceless, adventure. During WWII, his flights to Lisbon and North America provided him with plenty of material for writing.

1. Adrian Viruly expressed his creativity through poetry

Poetry books. Photo by Nick Fewings.

The first edition of his poetry collection was published in 1979. Viruly had his first sonnet published in a national weekly when he was fourteen, and he appears to be returning to his roots at the end of his life. He also mentions in the collection that he was inspired by Martin Veltman’s travel sonnets, the husband of his stepdaughter Petra Laseur.

As is often the case with Viruly, the collection was reprinted, modified, and supplemented under the title Reissonets II. Three of the original edition’s thirty-five poems were not rerecorded, while twenty-eight new poems were posted.

2. He did flying as a career

Man flying helicopter. Photo by MRN.

Viruly joined KLM as a pilot. His first flight was to the Dutch East Indies at the time. During WWII, he did not want to remain in the occupied Netherlands. Already on the eve of the German attack on the Netherlands in the 1940s, he and his colleagues JanHondong and Willem Van Veenandaak attempted to duvet a KLM plane to England, but KLM director Albert Plesman forbade them.

In 1941, he met his Swedish aviator friend Count Carl Gustav Von Rosen. He got him a visa, so he could visit England and Sweden as well. He flew to exile on behalf of the Dutch government, including when the KLM flight from Bristol to Lisbon in neutral Portugal was scheduled.

3. Viruly wrote several books

Stack of poetry books. Photo by Chris Lawton.

Many of his experiences were chronicled in a number of popular books, including We Flew to the Indies and Alles OK?….Turning. He demonstrated greater literary ambition in some of his books, particularly his Travel Sonnets. He also translated into Dutch the novels Vol de nuit (Night Flight) and Pilote de guerre (War Aviator) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a French aviator/writer with whom he was friends. Viruly  adapted George Bernard Shaw’s play Village Wooing into a Dutch version called Dorpsvrijage.

4. He was involved in a plane crash

Debris of a crashed plane. Photo by Leslie Cross.

He was the captain of the Lockheed Super Constellation Triton when the plane crashed near Shannon Airport during KLM Flight 633, killing 28 people. The Aviation Council investigated the incident and determined that the damage had been reopened. The captain had not responded quickly enough. Viruly received no disciplinary action.

True, he had not acted with due care, but “in light of the suffering that this accident has already caused him, as well as the fact that a long and meritorious career has also been concluded with it, the Council considers it justified to take disciplinary measures within its competence, not to use,” the Council said. Viruly retired early, having accumulated 19,000 flight hours. He has always maintained that he was not to blame because there was simply insufficient time to react. He was resentful of the treatment he had received from KLM.

5. Adrian Viruly was polygamous

Adrian Viruly married three times. Olaf Viruly, his son from his first marriage, became known as a pianisy. He married for the third time in 1955 to the actress Mary Dresselhuys, with whom he had been living since 1950 after publishing a book about her in 1948.

She introduced him to the world of artists, which matched his interests in literature and drama. The couple Viruly-Dresselhuys was known as the duo Kunst and Vliegwerk among the actors. In 1969, they collaborated on a theater program under that title. She wrote a book about him called Jons after his death.

6. Adriane Viruly had a deep passion for literature

His interest in literature began in secondary school, and he shared it with two Westkapelle contemporaries, Jacques van Elascker and Jan Campert. ‘Kloos was our God back then,’ he later recalled (Cannegleter,561). Adrian, who was young and athletic, was also drawn to theosophy and the activities of the practical idealist Association, a youth movement founded in 1918 under the impression of war violence by the lawyer and theosophist JJ van der Lieu, with whom he worked closely and became friends.

7. Following WWII, Viruly rose to the rank of Commodore

Arrival of A. Viruly at Schiphol. Photo by Joop van Bilsen.

He continued his career at KLM after the war, eventually rising to the rank of Commodore and becoming Chief Pilot General. Viruly made significant contributions to the national airline’s reconstruction. For example, in April 1946, he launched the service in Curaçao.

Two years later, he was called in for a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in the Middle East, where he flew numerous flights with a KLM Dakota for Swedish UN mediator Count Folke, Bernadotte av Wisberg.

8. Adrian Viruly was the chief of flight service on the Bristol-Lisbon route

A. Viruly. Photo by Joop van Bilsen. Wikimedia

He made it to the United Kingdom via Sweden in 1941. Here, he became a pilot for the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), flying from Prestwick in Scotland to Montreal in Canada. Viruly began flying on the ‘life line’ between Bristol and Lisbon in January 1944, which was maintained by a KLM detachment on charter for BOAC. On this route, he was the chief of flight service.

9. In various writings, Viruly expressed his pacifist views without taking sides

He advocated for an international legal order and the establishment of a global police force. Viruly’s reserve officership was called into question as a result of his openly expressed sympathy for pacifism. In April 1936, he decided to resign, prompting thousands of expressions of sympathy. His motivation was that he did not want to kill people for the sake of national interests, the relativity of which he had discovered while flying.

10. He dropped out of his political economy studies to serve in the military

Viruly jumped at the chance to work for the Dutch army’s fledgling military flight service, the Lutchtvaart Afdeeling (LVA) in Soesterberg. Here, he first pursued training as a reserve officer-observer, and then, after a brief break, training as a military pilot, as part of which he obtained the Federation Aeronautical Internationale certificate as well as the major military certificate. Viruly’s military career did not last long after completing the requirements for this second certification.