"Odyssey and sinking of the Ombilin" Topic

"On the 12th of December 1942, after a long and adventurous voyage, the Dutch steamship Ombilin of the Nederlandse Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (Dutch Royal Cargo Shipping Company) was sunk by the Italian submarine Enrico Tazzoli. The crew of the Dutch ship survived the sinking and, after much travel on other vessels, managed to continue to assist the Allies. The captain and first mate of the Ombilin were taken prisoner by the Italians, and they were not freed until April 1945. This story outlines a clear picture of the many dangers crew members of merchant vessels faced during the Second World War.

The order for the construction of the steamship Ombilin was delivered to the Nederlandse Dok en Scheepsbouw Maatschappij (NDSM) (Dutch Dock and Shipbuilding Company) in Amsterdam by the Nederlandse Koninklijke Pakketvaart Maatschappij (KPM). The KPM was a Dutch shipping company which was based in Amsterdam but had operational headquarters in Batavia on Java in the Dutch East Indies. The company maintained maritime connections to and from the Dutch colony. The Ombilinwas actually built to transport coal, but was also suited to transport other bulk materials and even general cargo. The vessel was added to the fleet of KPM in 1916. The Ombilin was for its time a large vessel with a water displacement of 5,658 tons, but only possessed a few Werkspoor Company triple expansion steam engines, which created about 2.200 horse power. The maximum speed of the riveted, steel coal loader, with a length of 128,1 meters, width of 16,5 meters and draught of 7,41 meters, amounted to only ten knots…"
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