The story of a Dutch freighter during the Second World War
13 January 1942 During the night speed is reduced to 9 knots because the mines that could have been laid by a Japanese submarine. De warships set out paravanes as protection. Also several Dutch minesweepers are busy clearing the route...
17 January 1942 Abbekerks crew find themselves in a nerve wrecking position. The engine room staff do not follow the normal routine of repairs in the engine room: the engines must be ready at anytime. Assistant engineer Adriaan Kik has...
22 January 1942 And so we just floated around a bit. Every day the bombardments were getting heavier and the smoke of the fires ashore now continued to billow up all day. And all those planes continued to fly exactly...
30 January 1942 Abbekerk has been anchored for almost three weeks and nothing much has happened on board for the last 2 weeks. Still bombers fly over the ship every day and more and more smoke is erupting from the...
6 February 1942 Abbekerk has been anchored for four days at the Oosthaven, Lampoon Bay in the south of Sumatra. The tranquility after the chaos of Singapore is surreal. We anchored between a couple of islands in the bay. Here it...
Adriaan W Kik, who's memoirs are the inspiration and base of this website
Peter
