HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen (1936)

• HMAS Abraham Crijnssen

The Hr. Ms. Abraham Crijnssen was a mine countermeasures boat of Jan van Amstel class of the Dutch Royal Navy, which is mainly characterized it was announced that it managed to escape during World War II disguised as a tropical island of the Japanese Navy.

The Crijnssen after Abraham, a Dutch conquerors of the 17th century, named warship was the third of eight mine countermeasure boats of Jan van Amstel class and was built in Schiedam, the Netherlands.

The Abraham Crijnssen was stationed in the Dutch East Indies, when the colony was attacked in 1941 by Japan. After the destruction of the Allied fleet at the Battle of the Java Sea she was ordered to settle in Australia. The crew camouflaged this deck so dense with undergrowth that the warship was hardly distinguishable from one of the countless small, overgrown with jungle islands of the region. Thus disguised succeeded the Dutch, undetected to break through the Japanese lines.

On 26 August 1942, the Abraham Crijnssen the Australian Navy was handed out and there until May 5, 1943, the name HMAS Abraham Crijnssen. After the war, it was first used for demining in the Indonesian archipelago and was then again until its closure in 1961 in Dutch services. Since 1997, the ship in the Navy Museum in Den Helder can be visited.