Named after a famous captain from Rotterdam

The Hr. Ms. Eland Dubois was a Dutch minesweeper, built in Schiedam in 1936. The ship was named after captain Eland Dubois (1642-1676) of the Maze (Rotterdam) Admiralty and belonged to the Jan van Amstel class. This was a class of steel minesweepers and the ships of this class could also be employed as minelayers.

Netherlands Navy

World War II

When the second world war broke out, the Eland Dubois was stationed in the former Dutch East Indies and it belonged to the 2nd division mine sweepers in Surabaya.

The navy command in the former Dutch East Indies was preparing the evacuation of a number of ships in view of the threat of the Japanese invasion, with specific orders that the ship were not to fall into enemy hands under any circumstances. Because of this, the Eland Dubois, together with her sister ship the Jan van Amstel, left the port of Surabaya on the evening of March 6th, 1942, to attempt the crossing to Australia.

On March 7th, the ships dropped anchor near the island of Gili Radja to supplement the supplies on board. That day, the ships were spotted by a Japanese reconnaissance plane.

One of the boilers on the Eland Dubois was not funtioning and because of the desertion on Indonesian crew members at Surabaya, there were not enough men left to man both ships. Because of this, the commanders decided to destroy the Eland Dubois. This was done by placing a depth charge in the ship and subsequently letting it sink. The depth charge detonated at the designated depth.

Unfortunately, things also did not go well for the Jan van Amstel. After the scuttling and destroying of the Eland Dubois, the Jan van Amstel continued the crossing to Australia, yet on the night of the departure, the ship was spotted by the Japanese destroyer Arashio, that opened fire and kept on firing after the ship had turned over and started sinking. No help was given to the crewmen who ended up in the water. 23 of them died during this attack, amongst whom the commander of the Eland Dubois. A part of the crew was picked up by a different Japanese destroyer after having drifted around for 43 hours and they were taken as prisoners of war.

Yard: Gusto, Schiedam (the Netherlands, yard number 713)

Class: Jan van Amstel class

Propulsion: 2x Stork triple expansion engine, 2x Yarrow boilers, 2 shafts

Armament:

1 x 7,6 cm cannon
4 x 12,7 mm machine gun
40 naval mines.

The ship was laid down on March 31st 1936, it was launched on October 25th 1936 and commissioned on June 21st 1937.

Public Domain

• tracesofwar.nl.
  Mijnenvegers van de Jan van Amstelklasse.
• Marinemuseum.
  Jan van Amstel.