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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

34. A Hair-Raising Journey to Safety

Part of the Abraham Crijnssen’s escape route. Go 2 War 2

The Abraham Crijnssen’s flight was an agonizingly slow and terrifying ordeal. The crew spent the daylight hours at anchor, hoping and praying that their ship’s camouflage would hold up, and avert detection by the numerous Japanese ships and airplanes crisscrossing the Java Sea. Once the sun went down and the tropical night descended, the small vessel pulled anchor and resumed her journey to safety.

As the ship inched her way towards Australia, the crew prayed that the sounds of the Crijnssen’s engines would not attract the attention of nearby enemy ships or watchers. Luck was with the plucky Dutch minesweeper. After one of the more hair-raising journeys of WWII, which lasted for eight frightful days, she finally reached safety. On March 20^th, 1942, the Crijnssen arrived in Freemantle, Western Australia.

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.