Cruiser HNLMS Tromp, Jantinus Mulder

Cruiser HNLMS Tromp, Jantinus Mulder

HNLMS Tromp was a light cruiser that was built in the late 1930s for service in the Dutch East Indies. She entered service just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and was trapped in the Far East after the fall of the Netherlands, where she fought against the Japanese and gained fame after they claimed five times that they had sunk her.

The Tromp's war began on 10 May 1940 when the Germans invaded the Netherlands. The occupation of the homeland left her stranded in the Far East, where she performed convoy escort duties. The real fighting began after the Japanese entry into the war in December 1941, and the Tromp was involved in the desperate attempts to defend the Dutch East Indies, narrowly avoiding disaster herself. The period between the Japanese entry into the war and the Tromp's safe arrival in Australia in February 1942 gets the most attention, and was the most dangerous in the ship's period of active service. She remained in active service to the end of the war, fighting alongside the Royal Navy and the US Navy at different times. These periods are also covered, but for most of the time were rather less dramatic than the events of December 1941-February 1942 and accordingly get less attention.

The book doesn't include model making plans, but it does give the reference number for suitable plans that are available from the Dutch Modellers Association. There are plenty of plans and diagrams in the book, but they serve more to illustrate the layout of the ship than as detailed aids for modellers. The colourful side plan showing the internal layout is particularly interesting, especially for the routes of funnels and engineering spaces. There are plenty of contemporary photographs showing various aspects of the ship and how she evolved over time. The translation is good (although with a tendency to use the present tense when describing wartime actions) and the text gives about the right amount of information about the ship's design, her weapons and her wartime career.

Chapters
The Ship
Engines
Armament
Pre-war
World War II
Australia
Colombo
End of War
Returned to Netherlands

Author: Jantinus Mulder
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 48
Publisher: Lanasta
Year: 2012


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