SnikkelTeen

hahahaha yeah :) Do keep in mind that they on land and scavenged whatever food they could find (cocunuts...). They were in full survival mode and visiting a port would have been way to risky. Crazy times and hard to imagine.. Thanks for all the positive responses!

Now, we are all very impressed by the story of the huge guns of all those impressive battleships. But there is also a beautiful tale of a small dutch minesweeper in the second World War called "Abraham Crijnssen", which is one of the few Dutch musuem ships that is still visited today: This small ship found itself in March 1942, just after the first Battle of the Java Sea (look it up) as one of the few surviving ships in the Dutch Navy. Because of huge losses occured in the region, it received the orders of withdrawing to Australia, however it was located on a small island in Indonensia with it's consorts Hr. MS. Jan van Amstel and Hr. Ms. Eland Dubois. The latter to attempted an 'escape' in the heavily patrolled waters around Indonesia and where spotted by japanese planes. The Japanese forces launched attack and sunk both vessels (actually the Eland Dubois was reported scuttled by her crew, due to a defect in her boiler). The commander (1st Luitenant ter zee I. van Miert) then decided to launch one of the most brave missions ever, instead of abandoning or surrendering his ship, he ordered the men to camouflage the minesweeper so it resembled an island. A picture of the bridge after camouflage. Hr. Ms. Abraham Cruijnssen disguised as a tropical island. The commander chose to only sail at night and during the day ordered anchors out and sticking as close as possible to the shoreline. I don't have the actual books by hand, but the number of times they nearly got spotted by japanese ships and planes is quite impressive. Please note that after the battle of the Java Sea, the Japanese Command was hunting down each small support vessel trying to escape the area! However, the trick worked, the ship finally reached the island Soembawa on March the 9th. so they could restock on cocunuts. That evening the ship made it to the straight of Atlast and escaped over the Indian Ocean. Where it made its voyage to Australia and serve as a patrol vessel during the remainder of the war.