← Back to the front page

The Ship That Disguised Itself as an Island and Other Lesser-Known WWII Facts

Khalid Elhassan July 6, 2020 35 min

Guadalcanal - Guadalcanal campaign — Marines arriving in Guadalcanal. Encyclopedia Britannica

37. A Crazy Plan That Was Not So Crazy

The Abraham Crijnssen’s plan to camouflage itself as a tropical island was not as crazy as it seems at first glance. The Java Sea, through which the ship had to wend its way to safety, has over 18,000 islands of varying sizes, many of them mere specks with just a few trees growing on them.

Measuring only 185 feet in length, the Crijnssen was not a huge ship, but it was still big enough to pass itself off as a tiny island if properly camouflaged. So the minesweeper stopped off at the nearest island, and its 45-man crew began cutting down vegetation with a will.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.