Torpedoed! “So that’s how it goes…”

23:45 (August 24 1942)

When I stepped on deck the ship received an enormous bang. The large vessel sluggishly staggered a few times from left to right. ‘So that is the way it goes’, I thought and raced along all the cabins of the engine room personnel who had their cabin in the same passage and awoke them. After this I went to my own cabin, put on my uniform coat, put on my belt with my waterproof bag holding my most important papers and bowie knife and put on my lifejacket. My pocket torch, which I always needed in the engine room, was in my back pocket and was handy
Assistent engineer Adriaan Kik

Usually the damage created by one torpedo is enough to sink a freighter. SS Samtucky was lucky and made it back to port.
(Source:http://historical times.tumblr.com/)

Third mate Visser leaves the bridge to assess the damage and meets Captain Wijker who hurries to the bridge. The engines are still working but the ships is already developing a list to starboard. It’s quickly assessed that the hole is enormous and the ship is taking in a lot of water. The damage is too great to resume sailing. Third mate Visser pushes a special purpose button which signals the engine room to stop the engines. Slowly the ship loses speed and the list to starboard increases.

U-604 at 23:45

High explosion column.  In sound gear 2-3 seconds before detonation a metallic impact heard.  Torpedo failure possible, because a target length of 150 to 120 meters was set in the device. Steamer loses speed immediately and heels to starboard.  No Radio Message use, no defensive measures.  Enemy course before the shot estimated 70°.  Speed matched at 16 knots.
KTB U604, KtLt Holtring

It looks like that two of the three fired torpedo’s hit the Abbekerk but that one of them did not detonate. A very lucky situation.

Abbekerk at 23:50

 It was then that I realized that the engines were still going and I thought: ‘I need to be down below in the engine room.’ It appeared that the engine room was not hit! The torpedo had exploded in the middle of the sugar in front of the engine room in hold No 3, which had dampened the blast but had put a large hole in the hull.
Just as I opened the door to the engine room and looked down they stopped the engines. I was already a few steps down the stairs when all the people of my watch raced to the top.
Assistent engineer Adriaan Kik

I was asleep in the crew quarters aft when the torpedo hit. Got up, grabbed my lifejacket and kitbag and ran along the ship to my battlestation at the bridge. When I passed the lifeboats I threw my kitbag in one of them. Just as I reached my gun on the bridgewing I heard captain Wijker order to abandon ship.
Gunner Walter MacNab

Abbekerk 23:56

Because lifeboats often were destroyed or damaged by the torpedoblast, freighters carried self launching rafts made of wood and empty drums.

There was a quick reaction when the signal ‘Make ready for the lifeboats’ came. On the boat deck we found that the two boats on the starboard side had been thrown out of their davits by the explosion and were useless. Everybody had to get aboard the two boats on the portside which relatively speaking went well.
Those responsible for the launching of the life rafts had done this and were now with us. Just as the order came to man and lower the boats a torpedo burst into the engine room and exploded violently with an enormous bang.
Assistent engineer Adriaan Kik

U-604 at 23:56

Coup de grace.  Hit under smokestack, after 53.6 seconds.  Steamer settles over the starboard bow, later over the port bow, heavily down by the bow.
KTB U-604 KtLt Holtring

Abbekerk 23:58

A large pillar of flames tore away the glass canopy which allowed daylight into the engine room and threw it sky high. It was lucky that the torpedo hit the ship on the same side as the first one. Otherwise we together with the boats would have been blasted away. The lowering of the boats was done perfectly; the oars were put into the rowlocks and then it was row, row as fast as we could to get away from the ship.
Assistent engineer Adriaan Kik

The impact from the second torpedo, not smothered in sugar, is much heavier than the first and a shock wave rumbles through the ship. Walter MacNab, Sidney McConville and several others are blasted overboard and hit the water barely conscious. The largest part of the crew is able to safely get into the two remaining lifeboats or reach one of the 8 rafts that were cut loose earlier. Captain Wijker jumps from the side of the bridge and is picked up by a lifeboat. Doing that he breaks a couple of ribs.

I went to the lifeboats were I was putting in provisions when there was another big bang also on the starboard side. Some of us looked up and saw the funnel shaking so much we thought it was going to come down and crush us. So we jumped overboard into the pitch black water. After a while swimming I saw a lifeboat that picked me up. The officer saw I was so cold that he took of a sweater and gave it to me.
Steward Bernard Finn

Abbekerk sinking. (Part of sketch by Piet Saman of all VNS losses)

To watch your ship, on which you had so many experiences, sink is no fun. Slowly our ship disappeared under the water. Sitting in our insignificant little lifeboat it seemed to us the ship was a giant. It was now groaning under the force of all the loose materials and machines that were sliding with considerable noise towards the lowest point on the decks. Moaning the colossus slid under the water with the nose down at an angle of 60 degrees. Later we heard another explosion and the creaking and crumbling of the hull that could not stand the enormous pressure at depth.
Then it was quiet, very, very quiet. Suddenly no more humming of the ships engines or the hard droning of the exhaust system or the rushing of the water passing the ship’s hull.

All was very, very quiet. The world was now very unreal.
Assistent engineer Adriaan Kik