www.msabbekerk.nl

This was necessary in order to be able to further extend the website.

The old website http://abbekerk.wordpress.com will stay here for a while but will be no longer updated.
Due to the now biligual setup of the new site it was not possible to properly automatic redirect this site so please update your links and bookmarks to www.msabbekerk.nl

I’m sorry for the trouble, but when you visit the new site you will see it is worth it.

Peter,
Zaandam June 2001

This website started as a simple way to make my fathers story readable for friends and other interested people. Because of ongoing research and all the information I got from people visiting this site the website has grown bigger than I ever imagined.
Build as a standard WordPress.com Blog I find it become more difficult, if not impossible, to add more information in a way it can be easily found. The standard blog format of WordPress – easy to make and maintain – is simply not suited any more for what I want to do with it.

The new site is now being build on its own server, with WordPress.org software. I stick to this Bloglike site because of the experience I already have with it but with this approach I will be able to use plugins to adjust the site just the way I want. Biggest changes will be:

• Reading any article will give you a menu of other articles and links that are related with the subject or time period;
• Easy choise between Dutch and English language;
• More pictures and documents to view;
• Direct link to a map for most articles.

Peter

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)

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

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

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

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)