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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

33. Getting Back Into the Fight

The Abraham Crijnssen at the Dutch Navy Museum in Den Helder. Wikimedia

The Abraham Crijnssen was the last Allied vessel to successfully escape the disastrous defeat in the Java Sea and the Dutch East Indies, and the only ship of her class to survive the debacle. Once in Australia, she underwent a refit, which included the installation of underwater detection equipment. In September, 1942, she was commissioned into the Australian Navy as an anti-submarine escort, and served in that capacity, with a mixed Dutch and Australian crew, for the remainder of WWII.

At the end of WWII, the Crijnssen was returned to the Royal Netherlands Navy, and patrolled the Dutch East Indies until they gained their independence. She then returned to Europe, and continued in service with the RNN until she was decommissioned in 1960. Over the next few decades, she served as a training ship, then as a storage hull, before she was finally donated to the Dutch Navy Museum in 1995. She was restored to her WWII configuration, and can be visited today at anchor in Den Helder, in Northern Holland.

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.