Jacob van Heemskerck

SHIPS WITH THE NAME JACOB VAN HEEMSKERCK

The first ship with this name was the yacht on which Abel Tasman sailed when he discovered the island which he called Van Diemensland which later became Tasmania.

During this voyage he also discovered New Zealand in December 1642, the Fiji Islands and the Friendship Islands in 1643. This Heemskerck is considered to be a merchant vessel and therefore not

included in the number of navy ships named after Admiral J. van Heemskerck.

The second Heemskerck was a schooner built in 1803 which served as flagship for admiral VerHuell and operated against Dunkirk. It was broken up in 1821.

The third Heemskerck was a heavily armed coastal defence ship launched in 1906. In 1908 she took part in operations against Venezuela. At the start of the First World War she remained in the Caribbean because of the presence of the German cruiser Karlsruhe. At the outbreak of the Second World War she served as ‘battery ship’ in the harbour of IJmuiden and was scuttled by her crew. She was raised after the war.

Six Holland-class “pantserdekschepen” (protected cruisers) were built in two groups of three ships. They succeeded the ship-rigged unprotected cruisers of the Atjeh-class also classified as “steam frigates”. Being faster but without sails they had a large endurance capable to negotiate the considerable distances in the East Indies Archipelago.

ARMOURED CRUISERS

From the late 1850s navies began to substitute their wooden ships-of-the-line by ironclad warships. However, the frigates and sloops which carried out scouting, raiding, and merchant ship protection remained unarmoured. For several decades it proved difficult to design a ship with any substantial amount of protective armour and capable of the speed and range required of a ‘cruising warship’. The first attempt to design armoured cruisers like the British HMS Shannon, proved to be unsatisfactory. Generally these ships were too slow for their cruiser role. HMS Shannon was the last Royal Navy ironclad to be built with a propeller that could be hoisted to reduce drag when she was under sail and the first ship to have an armoured deck. During the 1870s the increasing firepower of armour-piercing guns made armouring the hull of a ship more difficult as heavier armour plates were required. Even if the weight of armour dominated the design of the ship it was likely that the next generation of guns would be able to pierce it. The alternative was to leave the sides of the ship vulnerable but to armour a deck just below the waterline. Since this deck would only be struck very obliquely by shells it could be less thick than belt armour.

DUTCH EAST INDIES TILL 1890

It can be maintained with some exaggeration that until the end of the First World War the Dutch East Indies existed by grace of the Royal Netherlands Navy. The East Indies meant trade competition but they were no longer a geopolitical threat to the British interests in Asia. Great Britain had an interest in maintaining the existing colonial political relations. This to avoid that another European power would settle itself in the East Indies Archipelago. The British however were during a long time the only ones who could pose a threat to the Dutch Indies.

In 1940 it was decided to order a number of Tribal class destroyers for the Canadian navy from British yards. These ships were ordered from Vickers- Armstrongs (Tyne) in Great Britain.

The reason was that Canada did not have sufficient skilled workers to build these ships and it was virtually impossible to get sufficient professional support from Britain. Contrary to the Australian government which had ships built on their own yards. The order for the first two ships was placed at the beginning of 1940 followed for the next two by the end of that year. In June 1941 another two vessels were ordered but this time from the Halifax Shipyard. The engines were supplied by J.Inglis & Co. A final two were ordered from the same yard in 1943. The last four ships were finished after the end of WWII and therefore not see active duty in this period.

Tribal destroyer

Because the first ships were not ordered until 1940 use could be made of the hard lessons that had already been learned during wartime by the British ships as well as what should be demanded from a destroyer. ‘Improved technology could be implemented in the Canadian ships as they were built. For instance the air defence systems were too weak and this could be modified in the design.

The later hulls were strengthened during building as pounding at high speed in rough seas had weakened the earlier hulls, wich had to be stiffened during refits.

It is very rare with navies from all nationalities to have had two ships with the same name that were not named after the same person. It goes without saying that ships with the same name cannot serve with the same navy at the same time. That could lead to a lot of confusion. Normally ships are named after for instance naval heroes. After a number of years that ship is struck from the list so the name disappears. Sometimes, only many years later, but also in a continuous line a new ship is given the same name. If you look at the names given with different navies there is mostly quite a long time between two ships that carry the same name. This is also the case with the US Navy ships named Clark.

The then king Willem I decided that there would always be a ship with the name Van Speyk in the Dutch navy and this has been the case from that moment on. Sometimes a Van Speijk is struck from the list and immediately succeeded by a ship that allotted that name. More often an existing ship is rechristened.

As indicated above two ships in the US Navy carried the name Clark. These ships did not only sail in two different eras with totally different global situations but it is most particular that the ships were not named after the same person. Of course this book is about the second ship of this name but it is interesting to briefly discuss the first USS Clark.

In the 1930s, the United States Navy built two classes of flotilla leaders, the Porter class, and the Somers class. Due to the regulations of the London Naval Treaty, these 13 ships had a displacement of 1,850 tons, compared to the 1,500 tons of a “standard” destroyer. When the treaty ended with the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939, the much larger Fletcher class was constructed, making the differentiation irrelevant.

The national ensign consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars. The stars represent the fifty states of the United States of America and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence and became the first states in the Union.

The Tromp-class was a class of light cruisers of the Royal Netherlands Navy. Originally the ships could not be called “cruiser” for political reasons. They were designed as “flotilla leaders” and their intended role was to be the backbone of a squadron of modern destroyers that was planned at the same time (only one of those was completed before the war broke out). The ships were ordered in 1935; Tromp was launched in 1937, and her sister ship Jacob van Heemskerck in 1939.

7 is the lucky number…

The cruiser Tromp was in 1938 the 7th ship of the Royal Netherlands Navy to bear this name. In 1945 an Australian reporter wrote an article on board. He mentions that the crew called her: “The Lucky Ship”.

When based in Australia the ship also acquired the nickname: “The Ghost Ship”. This was the name given to her by the Aboriginals because the Japanese claimed no less than five times that HNLMS ‘Tromp’ had been sunk, whereafter the ship returned to base safe and sound. No single ship, with the exception of the British carrier HMS ‘Ark Royal’, has been claimed to be sunk so often.

Left: The national ensign, carried by all ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy. In harbour or at anchor it was customary to be worn at the staff on the quarterdeck, but at sea it used to fly from the mainmast.

Right: The jack

The commissioning pennant, worn from the day a ship commissions until she is de-commissioned.

Tromp was build at The Netherlands Shipbuilding Company in Amsterdam. (Photo NIMH)

THE SHIP

HNLMS ‘Tromp’ was the first flotilla leader of the so-called “Deckers’ Fleet Plan”, which was passed in 1931. It lasted until 17 January 1936 before the first keel plate was laid down in the yard of the NV Ned. Scheepsbouw Mij. (The Netherlands Shipbuilding Company Limited) in Amsterdam. The launching ceremony was on 24 May 1937 by H.M. Queen Wilhelmina and on 18 August 1938, HNLMS Tromp was commissioned by the commanding officer, Captain L.A.C.M. Doorman on 18 August 1938.

The documents printed below have been selected to illustrate the range of sources available and the level of information they provide. They have been grouped by subject under 6 main headings, each with subheadings. The following headings have been used:

A. General sources

B. Business records

C. The clockmaker's working life

D. Installation and maintenance of church clocks

E. Customers’ records

F. Clockmakers in court

When more than one example has been used, the individual items are arranged in date order. The documents within each section are numbered, and each item is cross-referenced to the main biographical entries using the numbers shown (e.g. Al).

A. GENERAL SOURCES

Trades directories - a selection

A1. WATCH & CLOCKMAKERS. Bedfordshire 1785

A2. WATCH & CLOCKMAKERS. Bedfordshire 1830