This book by Christian Prag was published only a month ago: No Ordinairy War, the eventfull career of U604

Abbekerk was torpedoed by U-604, I was surprised to read that a book was written about this U-boat. Since I know Abbekerk was the first and rather easy victim of U604, I didn’t expect more then a few pages about the event but hoped it would be an intersting read anyway. I was right on both.

Most books about Uboats handle over the big Aces in the beginning of the war or try to picture a historically correct picture of Uboat operations. U604 and her skipper Holtring were far from an ace and  saw first action in august 1942 when the tide was allready turning for the the Uboats. And although they outlived there life-expectancy at sea with over 200% procent, her story is that of  the hunderd nameless uboats that sailed the atlantic and tried to sink ships but eventually were sunk themselves. The big difference of U604 is that a major part of her crew survived her sinking and also survived the war. And so did numerous pictures.

The book  gives an interesting insight of  Uboat life, from the shipyard and crewtraining,  to the coordination of Uboats operations in the Atlantic. Its written in ’simple’ and easy-to-read English, which is a good thing for foreign readers. Prag tries to mix the Uboat facts and crew experiences with some background on the victims and the allies as well. It also really has a lot of pictures that makes the story more real and imaginable. Unfortunatly that is nessecary too because the story itself is told rather from documentary view that makes it hard to identify with the crew and what they gone through. It very much tries to be a factual story which – unless you you are a historian – is rather boring.
Since the book is for a big part bases on interviews I (but thats just my opinion) would have liked it to contain more ‘raw stories’ as they were told by the crew.

As for Abbekerk, there is indeed just two pages with not much new information except for two new facts:

• U604’s radio was broken at the time she attacked Abbekerk, and had been so for days. She could hear messages but not send her self. Allied direction finders (working much better than the Germans believed) could no have plotted U604. This is interesting since Abbekerk was rerouted a day before her sinking because of  Uboat activity. When evaluating her sinking there has been doubt if she had changed her course accordingly and so sailed right into U604’s periscoop sight. This seems now very unlikely since without transmitions, the Allies didn’t know where U604 was.
• U604 fired 4 torpedoes at Abbekerk on a calm moonlit night from close (1,5 kilometers) range. Only one hit was surprising but the crew also heard a noise that could have very well been a second torpedo hitting without exploding. One can only guess what would have happened if that second torpedo had exploded.

(This Post can also be found under Fragments)

Getting Abbekerk’s crewlist complete turned out to be a bigger challenge then i expected. It’s not complete yet, but its a start.

click here for the crewlist

Walter leaning against Abbekerk's 4" gun. This picture - taken while in the Indian Ocean - survived because it was send home as postcard in april 1942

Mr. Walter MacNab, now age 92, was DEMS gunner on Abbekerk during her last voyage. He found this website and contacted me. Walter still remembers his time on Abbekerk very well and I am very gratefullfor all the details that that fills in a lot of gaps in my fathers and Abbekerk’s story.

You can read more of his story here on the Fragments page

 One of the mysteries I never expected to solve was that of the gunners that left Abbekerk early Ferbuary 1942 in Oosthaven, Sumatra. Then I recieved an email from Peter North who found a picture of Abbekerk between the old things of his father: Lt Geoffrey North of the 35th Light Anti Aircraft Regiment.

He was in charge of the 16 gunners that were aboard Abbekerk during her second voyage in WS convoys: WS12Z and DM.01 to Singapore early 1942. The men crewed the two Bofors guns and were ordered ashore at Oosthaven, Sumatra just a week before it was overrun bij de Japanese. The men wer shipped to Java where they eventualy were captured when NEI captulated March 8 1942. Geoff spend most of the war in the infamous POW camp in Kuching, Borneo and was among the lucky men that survived the war.

Click here to read the whole of Geoff North’s story (under ‘Fragments’)

Also added two pictutures/drawing of the convoys WS.12Z and DM.01 made by Geoff in the ‘Pictures’ chapter of the main menu

In het blad “KW wij praaien U” heeft in 1995 een artikel gestaan over de Abbekerk. Abbekerk’s 3de stuurman, J. Visser, vertelt over zijn belevenissen in de oorlog.

Lees het hele verhaal onder Fragments (klik hier)/read the whole story under Fragments (Click here)

I got hold of the book: The Thames on fire” by L.M. Bates.
In handles about the functioning of the Port of London during the war. Its an interesting read and also has a paragraph about the tugs that moved Abbekerk to a safer place during the bombing:

On September 7th, 1940 the Germans started bombing London as part of the Battle of Brittain. Abbekerk was in Albert Dock at that time, in the centre of teh first bombings. She was hit by several bombs and evntually slowly sank to the bottom after a nearmiss.

When she got adrift she was towed and moured to Moena another dutch ship in the dock. This is her part of the story (in dutch for now) from J.W. Roevers book: “De Nederland in de Tweede Wereldoorlog”.

Moena was later to be torpedoed twee years later on the same day as Abbekerk.

Dit verhaal staat ook  onder Fragments (klik hier)/this story can also be read Fragments (Click here)

On September 7, 1942 the Germans began boming London in general and the London Dock in particular. Abbekerk was moered in Albert Dock at that time and was hit several times on the 7th. Also she got damged from burning warehouses and timber stocks ashore. She was abbandoned and got adrift. Later she was towed and moured to Moena, another dutch ship.
Eventually later on the 9th she got damaged again by a naermiss and slowly started sinking.

She was raised and towed to drydock the 26th of September, but it would not before april the nest year before sha was seaworthy again. From September the 7th on, London Docks were bombed for 57 days/nights in a row…

This is Master Swarts report (in ducht for now)(source: Dutch National Archive):

In my fathers belongings I found this picture. Taken before the war it is one of the few things he manage to safe when Abbekerk was torpedoed. On the rear he wrote: “Sunk by enemy action, August 24, 1942 at 23.55 in the evening”