HNLMS Kortenaer (1927)

HNLMS Kortenaer (Hr.Ms. Kortenaer) was an Admiralen-class destroyer of the Royal Netherlands Navy, named after 17th century Dutch Admiral Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer.

Service history
The ship was laid down on 24 August 1925 at the Burgerhout's Scheepswerf en Machinefabriek in Rotterdam and launched on 30 June 1927. The ship was commissioned on 3 September 1928.

On 11 June 1929 a detachment of marines was ship on the Kortenaer. The ship was send to Curaçao after Venezuelan rebels had raided Fort Amsterdam in Willemstad on 8 June.

World War II
In 1940 she and her sister HNLMS Van Ghent (1926) guarded five German cargo ships. The ships were relieved by the HNLMS Java (1921) 26 April 1940.

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 on 18 February – 20 February 1942, where she ran aground on one of the channel shores after temporarily losing rudder control. It was impossible for the Dutch ship to return to the formation, and they had to wait for the next morning tide to free the ship. Kortenaer was sent to Surabaya for repairs.

She was back in action in time for the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 1942, where she was torpedoed at 17:14 by the Japanese cruiser JAPANESE CRUISER Haguro. The commanding officer Alexander Sharp of the nearby United States Navy destroyer, USS John D. Edwards (DD-216), recorded that "Kortenaer about 700 yards bearing 80° relative was struck on the starboard quarter by a torpedo, blew up, turned over, and sank at once leaving only a jackknifed bow and stern a few feet above the surface.". The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Encounter (H10) rescued 113 men from the total of 153, including Lieutenant Commander A. Kroese and took them to Surabaya.

The wreck of Kortenaer was finally located in 2004.