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Originally planning to escape to
Knowing their
only chance of survival was to make it to the Allies Down Under, the
Crijnssen's 45 crew members frantically brainstormed ways to make the
retreat undetected.
The winning
idea?
Turn the ship
into an island.
You can almost hear
crazy-idea guy anticipating his shipmates' reluctance: Now guys, just
hear me out. But lucky for him, the Abraham Crijnessen was
strapped for time, resources and alternative means of escape,
automatically making the island idea the best idea. Now it was time to
put the plan into action.
The crew went ashore to
nearby islands and cut down as many trees as they could lug back onto
the deck.
Now, a camouflaged ship
in deep trouble is better than a completely exposed ship.
Because of this,
the crew figured the best means of convincing the Axis powers that they
were an island was to truly be an island: by not moving at all during
daylight hours.
While the sun was up
they would anchor the ship near other islands, then cover as much ocean
as they could once night fell praying the Japanese wouldn't notice a
disappearing and reappearing island amongst the nearly 18,000
existing islands in
The Crijnssen managed to go
undetected by Japanese planes and avoid the destroyer that sank the
other Dutch warships, surviving the eight-day journey to
Sometimes in life, the
guy with the so-crazy-it-just-might-work ideas hits one out of the park
and saves the day.
This is what happened in
1942 aboard the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, the last Dutch warship standing
after the Battle
of the Java Sea. |
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