HNLMS ''Evertsen'' ( nl, Hr.Ms. Evertsen) was a of the

Royal Netherlands Navy The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...

. She was destroyed by ships of the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

on 1 March 1942, during the

Battle of Sunda Strait The Battle of Sunda Strait was a naval battle which occurred during World War II in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java, and Sumatra. On the night of 28 February 1 March 1942, the Australian light cruiser , American heavy cruiser , a ...

Design

In the mid-1920s, the Netherlands placed orders for four new destroyers to be deployed to the East Indies. They were built in Dutch shipyards to a design by the British

Yarrow Shipbuilders Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited (YSL), often styled as simply Yarrows, was a major shipbuilding firm based in the Scotstoun district of Glasgow on the River Clyde. It is now part of BAE Systems Surface Ships, owned by BAE Systems, which has also o ...

, which was based on the destroyer , which Yarrow had designed and built for the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

.Gardiner and Chesneau 1980, p. 390. The ship's main gun armament was four guns built by the Swedish company

Bofors AB Bofors ( , , ) is a former Swedish arms manufacturer which today is part of the British arms concern BAE Systems. The name has been associated with the iron industry and artillery manufacturing for more than 350 years. History Located in ...

, mounted two forward and two aft, with two

anti-aircraft gun Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

s mounted amidships. Four 12.7 mm machine guns provided close-in anti-aircraft defence. The ship's torpedo armament comprised six torpedo tubes in two triple mounts, while 24 mines could also be carried. To aid search operations, the ship carried a

Fokker C.VII-W The Fokker C.VII-W was a reconnaissance seaplane built in the Netherlands in the late 1920s. Sharing elements of the highly successful C.V design, the C.VII-W was a conventional, single-bay A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main w ...

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

on a platform over the aft torpedo tubes, which was lowered to the sea by a crane for flight operations.Whitley 2000, pp. 210–211.

Service history

The ship was laid down on 5 August 1925, at the ''Burgerhout's Scheepswerf en Machinefabriek'' in Rotterdam, and launched on 29 December 1926. The ship was commissioned on 12 April 1928. She and her

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

'' De Ruyter'' left the Netherlands on 27 September 1928, for the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

. On 29 July 1929, ''Evertsen'', ''De Ruyter'', the cruiser , and the submarines and , left

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...

, and steamed to

Tanjung Priok Tanjung Priok is a district of North Jakarta, Indonesia. It hosts the western part of the city's main harbor, the Port of Tanjung Priok (located in Tanjung Priok District and Koja District). The district of Tanjung Priok is bounded by Laksamana ...

. At Tanjung Priok the ships waited for the royal yacht ''Maha Chakri'' of the king of

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

and the destroyer ''

Phra Ruang Phra Ruang ( th, พระร่วง) is a legendary figure from Thai history, usually described as the founder of the first Thai kingdom who freed the people from the rule of the ancient Khmer Empire. It is also found as a title that may hav ...

''. After this the ships, without the submarines, visited Bangka,

Belitung Belitung ( Belitung Malay: ''Belitong'', formerly Billiton) is an island on the east coast of Sumatra, Indonesia in the Java Sea. It covers , and had a population of 309,097 at the 2020 Census. Administratively, it forms two regencies (Bel ...

Riau Riau is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the central eastern coast of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca. The province shares land borders with North Sumatra to the northwest, West Sumatra to the west, and Jambi to the south. Accord ...

Lingga Islands The Lingga Regency ( id, Kabupaten Lingga) is a group of islands in Indonesia, located south of Singapore, along both sides of the equator, off the eastern coast of Riau Province on Sumatra island. They are south of the populated Riau Archipela ...

Belawan Belawan ( zh, t=勿老灣, s=, poj=mài lau ôan) is a harbor in Medan, North Sumatra. Located on the northeast coast of Sumatra, Belawan is Indonesia's busiest seaport outside of Java. It constitutes the most northerly of the city of Medan's 21 ...

, and

Deli Deli may refer to: * Delicatessen, a shop selling specially prepared food, or food prepared by such a shop * Sultanate of Deli, a former sultanate in North Sumatra, Indonesia Places * Deli, Boyer-Ahmad, a village in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Pro ...

. On 28 August, they returned in Tanjung Priok. On 31 August, she participates in a fleet review at

, held in honor of the Dutch Queen

Wilhelmina of the Netherlands Wilhelmina (; Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria; 31 August 1880 – 28 November 1962) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 until her abdication in 1948. She reigned for nearly 58 years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World War ...

, who was born that day. Other ships that participated in the review where the destroyer ''De Ruyter'' and the cruiser ''Java''. While practicing with the cruiser , ''De Ruyter'', and five submarines, ''Sumatra'' stranded on an uncharted reef near the island Kebatoe, on 14 May 1931. ''Sumatra'' was later pulled free by and a tugboat. On 13 November 1936, ''Sumatra'' and ''Java'', and the destroyers ''Evertsen'', , and , made a fleet visit to

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Before the visit they had practiced in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

World War II

From 1940 to 1942, she served as a

convoy A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...

escort, mainly in the

. At the end of February 1942, in the aftermath of the

Battle of the Java Sea The Battle of the Java Sea ( id, Pertempuran Laut Jawa, ja, スラバヤ沖海戦, Surabaya oki kaisen, Surabaya open-sea battle, Javanese : ꦥꦼꦫꦁꦱꦼꦒꦫꦗꦮ, romanized: ''Perang Segara Jawa'') was a decisive naval battle o ...

, ''Evertsen'' ( ''Luitenant ter zee'' W. M. De Vries, commanding), was ordered to escape from

Tjilatjap Cilacap Regency ( jv, ꦏꦨꦸꦥꦠꦺꦤ꧀ꦕꦶꦭꦕꦥ꧀, also spelt: Chilachap, old spelling: Tjilatjap, Sundanese language, Sundanese: ) is a Regencies of Indonesia, regency () in the southwestern part of Central Java province in Indon ...

via the

Sunda Strait The Sunda Strait ( id, Selat Sunda) is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java island, Java and Sumatra. It connects the Java Sea with the Indian Ocean. Etymology The strait takes its name from the Sunda Kingdom, which ruled the weste ...

, in company with the Australian

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to thi ...

HMAS ''Perth'' and the American

heavy cruiser The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in caliber, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval Tr ...

USS ''Houston''. ''Perth'' and ''Houston'' departed at 19:00 on 28 February, but ''Evertsen'' was delayed, leaving port two hours later. The route through the Strait had earlier been reported clear by Allied intelligence, but unfortunately a Japanese invasion fleet with its close covering force of two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and nine destroyers had started landing troops that night in

Banten Bay Banten Bay also known as Bantam Bay is a bay in Banten province, near the north-west tip of Java, Indonesia. It is part of the Java Sea and has a total water surface of approximately 150 square kilometres and an average depth of seven metres. It inc ...

, at the eastern end of Sunda Strait. ''Perth'' and ''Houston'' ran into this force, and in a ferocious night action that ended after midnight on 1 March, both ships were sunk. ''Evertsen'' was attempting to catch up with ''Houston'' and ''Perth''. Her crew sighted the gunfire of the main action, and managed to evade the Japanese main force. However, ''Evertsen'' was then engaged by two Japanese destroyers ( ''Murakumo'' and ''Shirakumo'') in the Strait, and on fire and in a sinking condition, grounded herself on a reef near Sebuku Island. The surviving crew abandoned ship just as the aft magazine exploded and blew off the stern; they were taken prisoner by the Japanese on 9–10 March 1942.

References

Bibliography

* * Whitley, M.J. ''Destroyers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia''. London: Cassell & Co, 2000. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Evertsen (1926) Admiralen-class destroyers Ships built in Rotterdam 1926 ships World War II destroyers of the Netherlands World War II shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean Maritime incidents in March 1942 Naval magazine explosions