HNLMS Piet Hein (1927)
HNLMS Piet Hein (Dutch: Hr.Ms. Piet Hein) was an Admiralen-class destroyer of the Royal Netherlands Navy, named after 17th century Dutch Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein.
.jpg.webp) HNLMS Piet Hein | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Netherlands | |
| Name: | Piet Hein |
| Namesake: | Piet Pieterszoon Hein |
| Laid down: | 26 August 1925 |
| Launched: | 2 April 1927 |
| Commissioned: | 25 January 1929 |
| Fate: | Sunk in the Battle of Badung Strait, 19 February 1942 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Admiralen-class destroyer |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 98 m (321 ft 6 in) |
| Beam: | 9.53 m (31 ft 3 in) |
| Draft: | 2.97 m (9 ft 9 in) |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph) |
| Range: | 3,200 nmi (5,900 km; 3,700 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Complement: | 149 |
| Armament: |
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| Aircraft carried: | 1 × Fokker C.VII-W floatplane |
| Aviation facilities: | crane |
Design
In the mid-1920s, the Netherlands placed orders for four new destroyers to be deployed to the East Indies. They were built in Dutch shipyards to a design by the British Yarrow Shipbuilders, which was based on the destroyer HMS Ambuscade, which Yarrow had designed and built for the British Royal Navy.[2]
The ship's main gun armament was four 120 millimetres (4.7 in) guns built by the Swedish company Bofors, mounted two forward and two aft, with two 75 mm (3.0 in) anti-aircraft guns mounted amidships. Four 12.7 mm machine guns provided close-in anti-aircraft defence. The ship's torpedo armament comprised six 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes in two triple mounts, while 24 mines could also be carried. To aid search operations, the ship carried a Fokker C.VII-W floatplane on a platform over the aft torpedo tubes, which was lowered to the sea by a crane for flight operations.[1][3]
Service history
The ship was laid down on 26 August 1925, at the shipyard of Burgerhout's Scheepswerf en Machinefabriek in Rotterdam, and launched on 2 April 1927. The ship was commissioned on 25 January 1929.[4]
On 23 August 1936, Piet Hein, the cruiser Java and her sister Sumatra, and the destroyers Van Galen and Witte de With, were present at the fleet days held at Surabaya. Later that year on 13 November, both Java-class cruisers and the destroyers Evertsen, Witte de With, and Piet Hein made a fleet visit to Singapore. Before the visit they had practised in the South China Sea.[5]
On 13 October 1938, she collided with Java in the Sunda Strait. Java had to be repaired at Surabaya.[6]
World War II
She served mostly in the Netherlands East Indies, and when war broke out in 1941, she was at Surabaya. She took part in Battle of Badung Strait in the night of 18–19 February 1942, where she was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Asashio, with a loss of 64 men, including its captain J.M.L.I. Chömpff.
References
- Gardiner and Chesneau 1980, p. 389.
- Gardiner and Chesneau 1980, p. 390.
- Whitley 2000, pp. 210–211.
- Visser, Jan. "Admiralen-class destroyers". Royal Netherlands Navy Warships of World War II. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
- "Maritieme kalender 1936". Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 16 December 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
- "Maritieme kalender 1938". Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 20 January 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
Bibliography
- Smit, N.R.J. (2011). De ondergang van Hr. Ms. Piet Hein: de slag in de straat Badung 19/20 februari 1942. Maasluis: Smit. ISBN 9789090263137.
- Gardiner, Robert and Roger Chesneau. Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. London: Conway Maritime Press 1980. ISBN 0 85177 146 7.
- Whitley, M.J. Destroyers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia. London: Cassell & Co, 2000. ISBN 1 85409 521 8.
