Mr. Ms. Krakatau
 The capsized Krakatau in the port of Surabaya (1933).
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The Mr. Ms. Krakatau was a miner in the Dutch Navy , commissioned in the 1920s and sunk itself in 1942. The single ship , named after the volcanic island of Krakatau , was laid down in February 1923 at the shipyard of the Marine Etablissement te Soerabaja (MES) in Surabaya (then Dutch East Indies ) and launched on February 2, 1924. The commissioning took place on December 11, 1924.
Technical details
The Krakatau was a maximum of 67.25 m long and 10.51 m wide. The draft when fully loaded was 3.25 m. Two coal-fired water tube boilers and a vertically installed composite steam engine enable the ship to reach a top speed of 15.50 kn (almost 29 km / h). The armament consisted of two 7.5 cm L / 40 cannons supplied by Krupp and four 12.7 mm machine guns for air defense. The ship had a continuous deck to accommodate up to 150 sea mines , which could be thrown over the stern using two mine laying rails .
The seaworthiness of the Krakatau was comparatively poor, so the ship was considered top-heavy , especially with a full mine load, and tended to be windward . These deficiencies could not be remedied during the entire service period and limited the ship's use to the coastal waters of the Indonesian islands.
Working time
Service from 1924 to 1941
After the commissioning, the Krakatau mainly carried out maneuvering and auxiliary missions. The ship towed on 27./28. July 1930 the Dutch light cruiser Hr. Ms. Sumatra , who was severely damaged by a fire in the engine room during a speed test, to Surabaya .
On October 11, 1933 , the Krakatau capsized during a turning maneuver in the east port of Surabaya and sank with the starboard side aground. There were no casualties among the crew, but the mine-layer was temporarily decommissioned after the salvage in December 1933 and repaired in Surabaya until September 4, 1934 , since the accident could be attributed to the ship's top-heavy load . In the following years, the Krakatau completed an uneventful maneuvering and colonial service.
Use in World War II and sinking
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, Krakatau moved a defensive mine barrier near the island of Madura on December 15, 1941, together with two other mine layers . Although the Japanese declaration of war on the Netherlands did not take place until January 11, 1942, the mine -layer was assigned to the Allied ABDA forces from January 8, 1942 . During the sea battle in the Strait of Badung , the ship served as a tender for the Allied speedboats used in this battle .
After the Allied defeats in the naval battles in the Java Sea and in the Sunda Strait and the associated defeat of the ABDA naval forces, Krakatau was defeated by its own garrison on March 8, 1942, just one day later the Dutch troops in the Dutch East Indies Sunk near Batuporon and near the coast itself so as not to let the ship fall into Japanese hands.