I recall reading about a Dutch ship, but I'm unable to find any detail about it.
In all the pictures I saw, I didn't see any civilian ship in the harbor, can you clarify this?
I remember reading about it before. It might have been docked at Honolulu harbor rather than in Pearl Harbor.
tuffy
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You are correct, there was a Dutch merchant ship anchored in Hawaii December 7, 1941, during the Japanese attack.
Rex Neanderthalex
I never heard that before. But I have read up on British, Dutch & American ships that were moored in or near the Indonesian Islands at the time of the combined attacks by the Japs on Pearl, Indochina, Indonesia etc. on 12/8/41 (International date line in effect but basically the same time as the Pearl attack.
From what I read the British & American destroyers played a game of cat and mouse with Japanese war ships but the Dutch tried to stay out of the fray & did not acquit themselves honorable. There was also problems getting fuel for the ships to stay in action & much of the Naval infrastructure was either destroyed or in the hands of the Japs.
Basically it was a losing battle for all 3 Navies during those first few weeks because they were vastly outnumbered & could not rely on getting resupplied at used to be friendly ports as everything was under the control or still being attacked by the Japs on land & on sea.
cymry3jones
There doesn't seem to be any mention of a Dutch ship in Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941.
However, the Japanese attacked a US military and naval base called Dutch Harbour in the Aleutian Islands, North Pacific (off Alaska) on 3rd. June 1942.
Chetak.
Several Dutch Navy ships were lost in their Pacific War operations but I see none were at Pearl Harbour then on the list of casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_sunk_by_the_Imperial_Japanese_Navy#Netherlands
Dutch private ships may have been in Honolulu Harbour rather than Pearl
Chetak