Rooseboom
| History | |
|---|---|
| Owner: | Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij |
| Builder: | Rijkee & Co |
| Yard number: | 174 |
| Launched: | 1926 |
| Identification: | IMO number: 5606521 |
| Fate: | Sunk 1942 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steam ship |
| Tonnage: | 1,035 GRT |
| Length: | 70.1 m (230 ft) |
| Beam: | 11.6 m (38 ft) |
| Draft: | 3.2 m (10 ft) |
| Installed power: | Compound steam engine 67 hp (50 kW) |
| Speed: | 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
SS Rooseboom was a 1,035 ton Dutch steam ship owned by KPM (Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij or Royal Packet Navigation Co. of the Netherlands East Indies) built in 1926 by Rijkee & Co of Rotterdam.
In February 1942 British Malaya and Singapore had surrendered to the Japanese Army. Over 100,000 British and Empire military personnel had become prisoners as well as thousands of civilians. A few thousand more were escaping to the nearby Netherlands East Indies and from there to Australia, Ceylon or India in any ship that could be found. Many of these ships were lost to Japanese attacks among the islands scattered around Sumatra and Java while attempting to escape. Rooseboom under Captain Marinus Cornelis Anthonie Boon, was taking around 500 passengers (mainly British military personnel and civilians) from Padang to Colombo in Ceylon.
On 1 March 1942 at 11:35pm Rooseboom was steaming west of Sumatra when it was spotted by the Japanese submarine I-59 (which was later re designated I-159) under the command of Lieutenant Yoshimatsu and torpedoed. Rooseboom capsized and sank rapidly leaving one life boat (designed to hold 28) and 135 people in the water. Eighty people were in the lifeboat the rest clung to flotsam or floated in the sea. Two of these survivors were picked up nine days later by the Dutch freighter Palopo. Until the end of the Second World War they were assumed to be the only survivors.
The story of the survivors on the lifeboat was told by Walter Gardiner Gibson (a corporal from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) in a book in 1952; he is the only known witness of the events that would occur on the lifeboat over the next 26 days. His tale was told to the British authorities after the war but was first heard publicly in court in Edinburgh in 1949 in order to confirm that Major Angus Macdonald was dead so that his estate could be settled.
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Wikipedia