HNLMS Piet Hein (1927)

HNLMS Piet Hein
History
Netherlands
Name	Piet Hein
Namesake	Piet Pieterszoon Hein
Laid down	26 August 1925
Launched	2 April 1927
Commissioned	25 January 1929
Fate	Sunk in the Battle of Badung Strait, 19 February 1942
General characteristics
Class and type	Admiralen-class destroyer
Displacement	1,316 long tons (1,337 t) standard 1,640 long tons (1,666 t) full load
Length	98 m (321 ft 6 in)
Beam	9.53 m (31 ft 3 in)
Draft	2.97 m (9 ft 9 in)
Installed power	3 × Yarrow type boilers 31,000 hp (23 MW)
Propulsion	2 × Parsons geared turbines[1] 2 × shafts
Speed	36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Range	3,200 nmi (5,900 km; 3,700 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	149
Armament	4 × 4.7 in (120 mm) guns (4×1) 2 × 3 in (76 mm) AA guns (2×1) 4 × .50 calibre machine guns 6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2×3) 24 × mines
Aircraft carried	1 × Fokker C.VII-W floatplane
Aviation facilities	crane

HNLMS Piet Hein (Dutch: Hr.Ms. Piet Hein) was an Admiralen-class destroyer of the Royal Netherlands Navy, named after 17th century Dutch Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein.

In the mid-1920s, the Netherlands placed orders for four new destroyers to be deployed to the East Indies. They were built in Dutch shipyards to a design by the British Yarrow Shipbuilders, which was based on the destroyer HMS Ambuscade, which Yarrow had designed and built for the British Royal Navy.^[2]

The ship's main gun armament was four 120 millimetres (4.7 in) guns built by the Swedish company Bofors, mounted two forward and two aft, with two 75 mm (3.0 in) anti-aircraft guns mounted amidships. Four 12.7 mm machine guns provided close-in anti-aircraft defence. The ship's torpedo armament comprised six 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes in two triple mounts, while 24 mines could also be carried. To aid search operations, the ship carried a Fokker C.VII-W floatplane on a platform over the aft torpedo tubes, which was lowered to the sea by a crane for flight operations.^[1][3]

The ship was laid down on 26 August 1925, at the shipyard of Burgerhout's Scheepswerf en Machinefabriek in Rotterdam, and launched on 2 April 1927. The ship was commissioned on 25 January 1929.^[4]

On 23 August 1936, Piet Hein, the cruiser Java and her sister Sumatra, and the destroyers Van Galen and Witte de With, were present at the fleet days held at Surabaya. Later that year on 13 November, both Java-class cruisers and the destroyers Evertsen, Witte de With, and Piet Hein made a fleet visit to Singapore. Before the visit they had practised in the South China Sea.^[5]

On 13 October 1938, she collided with Java in the Sunda Strait. Java had to be repaired at Surabaya.^[6]

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 in the night of 18–19 February 1942, where she was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Asashio, with a loss of 64 men, including its captain J.M.L.I. Chömpff.

• Smit, N.R.J. (2011). De ondergang van Hr. Ms. Piet Hein: de slag in de straat Badung 19/20 februari 1942. Maasluis: Smit. ISBN 9789090263137.
• Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger, eds. (1980). Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
• Whitley, M.J. Destroyers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia. London: Cassell & Co, 2000. ISBN 1 85409 521 8.

8°40′S 115°20′E / 8.667°S 115.333°E / -8.667; 115.333