It doesn't often happen that a worker receives instructions from his boss to steal an aircraft from his own company. However, this was the unusual assignment given to Bernhard de Waal - friend of Fokker and an employee from the earliest days when he was sent to Schwerin in Spring 1920.

De Waal introduced himself and said he had been instructed to fly the prototype of the F.II to Holland. Because export of aircraft from Germany was forbidden at that time by the Allies, it had to appear that it was being stolen. So while Platz departed for "business" in Berlin, three Fokker employees - Messrs Wichmann, Bolkow and Dungel - assisted with the departure of the F.II.

To make the whole event even more illegal, de Waal took the opportunity to smuggle out a German Gritzner sewing machine. This was at a time when sewing machines were very scarce in Holland. The take-off, made directly from the hangar, signalled the start of a bizarre flight.

On the way, engine failure twice forced de Waal to make emergency landings on German soil. On the first occasion he managed to restart the engine himself.

The second time however was rather more exciting when two policemen came by to check up on things.

In broken German, de Waal explained that he was Dutch and had become lost over German territory. Because the police were not normally faced with such situations, one of the officers departed to seek instructions from headquarters as to how to handle this problem.

Here, Fokker saw his F.II for the first time, unhappily not in the best of conditions. The aircraft was dismantled and transported by train and boat to Amsterdam. The foregoing story was confirmed in 1973 by two eyewitnesses who were located after an appeal in a Dutch local newspaper by Mr C. Wydooge, an early employee of KLM.

The eyewitnesses were able to say exactly in which field de Waal had made his final landing. They also remembered the sewing machine which de Waal had apparently intended for an old army friend in Surhuisterveen.

But why did this extraordinary theft have to be undertaken in the first place? In October 1919 the Royal Airline Corporation of the Netherlands & Colonies - known today as KLM - was formed.

Work on the F.II under its original designation of V.45, started in Schwerin in December 1918. The aircraft embodied many of the characteristic features to be seen on Fokker civil aircraft in coming years.

It had a high wing and the fuselage was constructed using the Fokker method of a fabric-covered welded tubular steel structure that had been proven during the war.

The thick wooden wing was covered with plywood. The aircraft had seating for four passengers and a crew of two. There were windows on both sides of the fuselage and thanks to the high wing the passengers could enjoy a perfect view.

Powered by a 185 hp BMW IIIa engine, the F.II reached a speed of 80 mph. A technical peculiarity was the absence of a vertical stabilizer. The rectangular fuselage effectively provided enough stability on its own. Another unusual feature was the way in which the ailerons protruded beyond the wing tips. The pilot was seated in an open cockpit, with the seat next to him being intended for the navigator or flight mechanic.
These crew members seldomly flew however, and when necessary it was possible for a fifth passenger to occupy this seat. Without doubt, travelling in the cockpit was an interesting experience if the passenger was not afraid of shivering in the cold, wind and rain. As with the pilot, protection was hardly the word.

In October 1919 the F.II made its first flight.

Fokker's test pilot Adolf Parge, a former test pilot with the German Army, quickly became familiar with the new machine and was very enthusiastic about it. During its test program, the F.II made a seven-hour flight from Berlin to St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) in Russia, with seven passengers on board. Once Parge even took off with nine passengers plus 140 gallons of petrol and 11 gallons of oil.

It was not only the DVL which carefully inspected the F.II.

A month later, following the demonstration to KLM at Schiphol, the aircraft was put through its paces at Soesterberg by the airline's pilot, W. G. R. Hinchliffe. He put his findings in a report in which he praised the performance achieved despite the aircraft's limited engine power. The F.II could take-off without payload in just 120 ft, and climb to 3,300 ft without effort. Hinchliffe found the controls so light that it was like flying a scout. He ascribed the aircraft's good qualities to its monoplane wing and excellent lift characteristics. By contrast, virtual all other civil aircraft in those days were biplanes. Hinchliffe did however find some negative points.

The engine was too small, resulting in a poor speed performance - and it overheated easily because of inadequate cooling.

In addition, he thought that the cabin windows were too small, and felt it should be possible to open them. He found it unpleasant that because of incorrect aircraft streamlining, the pilot experienced a constant draft.

Also, for such a light aircraft, Hinchliffe preferred a control stick to a steering wheel which was more appropriate to heavier machines. Finally, Hinchliffe thought it better for the pilot to sit right inside the cockpit. This probably was a personal whim as he was blind in his left eye.

In Hinchliffe's view, the advantages of the F.II more than outweighed its disavantages:

The first F.IIs were built in the Fokker factory in Schwerin from where Bernhard de Waal had stolen the prototype.

This factory was closed in 1921 when production was transferred to Holland for relocation in the village of Veere in the province of Zeeland. It was not for some years after this that production of the F.II really got underway.

Of the few F.IIs built in Schwerin, it is possible that the Deutsche Luft Reederei (DLR) was the customer for the second aircraft. Later, in 1925, Fokker concluded an agreement with Deutsche Aero Lloyd AG for licensed manufacture of the F.II in Germany.

This company built at least twenty aircraft under the management of its technical director Karl Grulich, known during the First World War as designer of the Grosz-Flugzeuge (large aircraft) of Gothaer Waggon Fabrik AG.
The licensed aircraft were known as Fokker-Grulich F.IIs or FG.IIs. Deutsche Aero Lloyd built their F.IIs at Staaken which had been the Berlin Zeppelin airport during the War. Albatros Flugzeugewerke acquired the license to build the wing.

The Fokker-Grulich F.IIs differed in a number of ways from the aircraft built by Fokker. The German aircraft were equipped with different cabin windows,