O20 (Dutch)
| Built By: | Vickers (Barrow) |
| Build Group: | Dutch O19 |
| Fate: | Scuttled by her own crew, about 25 miles east of Kota Baru, to prevent her capture by Japanese destroyers. The Commanding Officer and 6 others died, the remainder of the crew were saved by the Japanese destroyer Uranami and made prisoners of war. |
Laid down as K XX after which at some point she was renamed O20. Along with her sister ship O19 were the first boats in the world to be equipped with a submarine snorkel that allowed the submarine to run its diesel engines while submerged. She was put into a squadron that consisted of two submarines: O20 and O15, and the sloop Van Kinsbergen.
On 10 May 1940 Germany attacked the Netherlands. On 7 December 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the US into the war. The Netherlands followed suit hours later. By early December 1941, O20 had been stationed at Singapore Submarine Base and was under the command of the British Eastern Fleet.
Related Pages
Events
| 15-06-1936 | Laid down |
| 31-01-1939 | Launched |
| 28-08-1939 | Commissioned |
| 12-12-1941 | Placed under the command of the British Commander in Chief Eastern Fleet and ordered to proceed to Singapore. |
| 19-12-1941 | Scuttled by her own crew, about 25 miles east of Kota Baru, to prevent her capture by Japanese destroyers. The Commanding Officer and 6 others died, the remainder of the crew were saved by the Japanese destroyer Uranami and made prisoners of war. She had been damaged by depth charges from the Japanese destroyers Ayanami and Yugiri earlier that day. O20 then surfaced after dark but was spotted and engaged with gunfire by Uranami. |
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