Hermanus history and powered flight – Part 1

Writer Dr Robin Lee

Hermanus, everyone agrees, is a seaside town. The names tell you that: the Old Harbour, the New Harbour, Voëlklip Beach, Harbour Road, Poole's Bay, Kwaaiwater, the Klein River and Onrus lagoons – the list goes on.

Yet for well over a hundred years, Hermanus has had a surprisingly extensive history of contact with powered flight and aircraft. It all started just 13 years after the Wright Brothers achieved the first 12 seconds of powered flight by human beings on 17 December 1903. In 1916, eighteen-year-old Henry Luyt, son of P John Luyt, the owner of The Marine and Riviera Hotels in Hermanus, left school and went off to join the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in England to fight in WWI.

He received three months training and flew sorties over the German lines for a month or so, before being shot down by anti-aircraft fire. Fortunately, his plane landed upside down on an unoccupied enemy trench in Belgium, and he survived. He released himself from the upside-down position in which he had come to rest, evaded capture and returned to his work in the RFC.

In 1919, he returned to Hermanus, where his father persuaded him not to fly again – instead, he bought Henry a sports car that Henry named The Red Devil, and drove at high speeds around the Overberg and all the way to Cape Town.

Henry remained friendly with a circle of young men who did own planes, and, for most of the 1920s, they regularly flew to Hermanus during the 'season' (December and January), landed on Grotto Beach and then took astonished holidaymakers up for what were called 'flips' over Walker Bay and inland to the mountains.

The area known as 'Die Plaat', on the western side of the Klein River mouth was regarded as the first 'airstrip' in Hermanus.

The South African Air Force was established in 1920, based at Zwartkop, with another base at Youngsfield near Cape Town. Closely involved in this development was Major-General Kenneth van der Spuy (1892 – 1991), a resident of Stellenbosch. He and his wife, famous horticulturist Una van der Spuy, were frequent visitors to The Marine Hotel in Hermanus, though he does not seem to have flown to the town or patrolled the area from the air – after all, he was on holiday.

Click below to read more. (The full article can be found on page 7)