HNLMS Kortenaer (1927)

In 1940, she and her sister Van Ghent guarded five German cargo ships. The ships were relieved by the cruiser Java on 26 April 1940.[7]

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 on 18–20 February 1942, where she ran aground on one of the channel shores after temporarily losing rudder control. It was impossible for the Dutch ship to return to the formation, and they had to wait for the next morning tide to free the ship. Kortenaer was sent to Surabaya for repairs.

Main Article: Battle of the Java Sea

She was back in action in time for the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 1942, where she played a small role, firing on the Japanese fleet but to no use.

However, Kortenaer was then cemented in history as she was on the receiving end of the longest-ranged torpedo hit in history. At a distance of 22,000 yards (20,100 m), the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro, which had just crippled the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter with gunfire, fired a spread of eight 61 cm (24 inch) Type 93 torpedoes, one of which hit Kortenaer.[8] Haguro would later sink a fellow Dutch warship, the light cruiser HNLMS De Ruyter, with another torpedo hit during the engagement.[8]

Alexander Sharp, the commanding officer, of the nearby United States Navy destroyer USS John D. Edwards, recorded that "Kortenaer, about 700 yards (640 m) bearing 80° relative, was struck on the starboard quarter by a torpedo, blew up, turned over, and sank at once leaving only a jackknifed bow and stern a few feet above the surface." The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Encounter rescued 113 men from the total of 153, including Lieutenant Commander A. Kroese, and took them to Surabaya.

The wreck of Kortenaer was discovered by specialist wreck divers in August 2004. (The wrecks of HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java had previously been discovered by the same group in December 2002.)[9] In 2016 it was discovered that the wrecks of De Ruyter and Java, and much of Kortenaer had disappeared from the seabed, although their imprints on the ocean floor remained. Over 100 ships and submarines of various countries sank during the war in the seas around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia; many are designated as war graves. There is known to be illegal scavenging of these wrecks, often using explosives; the Netherlands Defence Ministry suggested that De Ruyter, Java, and Kortenaer may have been illegally salvaged.[10] In February 2017 a report was issued confirming the salvaging of the three wrecks.[11][12]