I only managed to gather few pictures of Abbekerks short carreer. Especially during the war few pictures were made and since the ship was the sailors home – Holland was occupied – most of their belongings went down with the ship in august 1942. In my fathers picture album are pictures of Abbekerks voyages before the war and of his voyages during the war on SS Maaskerk. Its a little miracle that the prewar pictures exist since my fathers home in Middelburg was bombed and burned down in the first days of the war.
I divided the pictures in a small gallery for every voyage of Abbekerk plus extra gallery’s for Maaskerk and Adriaan Kik’s own picture album. You can also choose a gallery in the left sidebar.
(I’m still working on the caption and sources of the pictures.)
- First voyage (feb 1939 – jun 1939) Abbekerks maiden voyage
- Second voyage (july 1939 – jan 1940) Abbekerks last voyage in peacetime
- Third voyage (feb 1940 – july 1940) painted grey and sailing for the allies
- Fourth voyage (aug 1940 – april 1941) sunk during the Battle of Brittain, refloated and repaired
- Fifth voyage (may 1941 – okt 1941) around the world but little info on this voyage and no pictures yet
- Sixth and final voyage (nov 1941 – aug 1942) The longest and last voyage: the fall of SIngapore and the Dutch East Indeas, escape from Tjilatjap and finally torpedoed half a year later in the Atlantic
- The Tjilatjap Evacuation (Feb 1942). Seperate page with pictures of the escape from the Dutch East Indies with 1700 evacuees on board.
- Maaskerk voyages
- Scrapbook of P Saman, 3de engineer on Maaskerk
- pages of Adriaan Kik’s picture album most of the single pictures are also in the voyage gallery’s
- Postcards and folders
- Interior of MS Abbekerk
Two remarks on the pictures after some research on the http://www.maritiemdigitaal.nl/ website of the dutch maritime museums:
The one from the book with the officer overseeing the demolition of cars: this was taken in Oosthaven (Sumatra) a week earlier.
(Situation was quite simular and Abbekerk was there at that time too)
The folders are now confirmed from before the war since I found a folder/timetable from 1938 with the same pictures.