War catches up with Abbekerk

15 February 1942. Singapore has fallen. This news is met with perplexity. Followed by information of Airborne troops landing at the refineries of Palembang not even 300 km north Oosthaven on Sumatra. Dark smoke emerges from behind the mountains as the oil tanks are set on fire.  Hr.Ms. Soemba and H.MAS. Burnie are tasked with the destruction of the port facilities in Oosthaven. And Abbekerk, still unloading, is instructed to destroy the barges. The crew uses this opportunity to load them with bombs and ammunition before sinking them.

HMAS Burnie was in charge of the demolition of the port facilities in Oosthaven
(source: www.awm.gov.au)

So what did we do: we moved the barges alongs side the ship under the outlet of the cooling waterpump of our engines. We started the pumps and the barges were flooded and sank.
Third Mate Jacob Visser

In the meantime all available barges, brimful with ammunition, were sunk. On the horizon we could see the smoke of the torched plantations and burning oil refineries . Again the Japs came too close for comfort. Across the whole of the Dutch East Indies there were landings and bombardments. Singapore had fallen and that was only a small part of the total operations. In all areas the Japs were superior and resistance was nil. Everywhere there was total chaos.
Only on the island of Java there were no Japs; but it was being bombed. Yet in Batavia they were thinking about us. On 17th February 1942, the message was received that we had to speed to the harbour of Tjilatjap which is on the south side of Java.
Ass. engineer Adriaan Kik

From Oosthaven retreating troops were evacuated, but their equipment had to be destroyed

Third Mate Jacob Visser recalls the challenging departure on the 17th from burning Oosthaven:

On the shore anything that could burn was set on fire and their were huge black clouds of smoke floating over the Lampoon bay. You couldn’t see a hand in front of your eyes. We could sail a certain course but then we would run aground on the other side of the bay. The gap we had to pass through was only two miles wide. So we had to improvise: we counted the revolutions of our propellors and watched the distance log. Than at one point we turned hard to starboard and made it to the open sea.
Third Mate Jacob Visser

Merchant shipping losses in the area:

15 february
Johanne Justesten (British): The cargo ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Indian Ocean by I-65 with the loss of one of her 59 crew.
Mersing (British): The steamboat was sunk at Singapore by enemy action.
Siushan (British): The coaster was sunk at Singapore by enemy action.
Sungei Pinang (British): The coaster was sunk by enemy action.
Yin Ping (British): The tug was shelled and sunk in the Bangka Strait off Muntok, Dutch East Indies by Imperial Japanese Navy vessels with the loss of 50 of the 75 people aboard.

17 february 
Sloet van der Beele (Dutch): The miscellaneous auxiliary transport under escort by HrMs Van Nes and bringing a Netherlands East Indies battalion from Billiton Island to Java was torpedoed and sunk south of Bangka Island, Dutch East Indies by Japanese aircraft with the loss of all aboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_February_1942