In the mid-1920s, the Netherlands placed orders for four new destroyers to be deployed to the East Indies. They were built in Dutch shipyards to a design by the British Yarrow Shipbuilders, which was based on the destroyer, which Yarrow had designed and built for the British Royal Navy. The ship's main gun armament was four guns built by the Swedish company Bofors, mounted two forward and two aft, with two anti-aircraft guns mounted amidships. Four 12.7 mm machine guns provided close-in anti-aircraft defence. The ship's torpedo armament comprised six torpedo tubes in two triple mounts, while 24 mines could also be carried. To aid search operations, the ship carried a Fokker C.VII-W floatplane on a platform over the aft torpedo tubes, which was lowered to the sea by a crane for flight operations.
Service history
The ship was laid down on 5 August 1925, at the Burgerhout's Scheepswerf en Machinefabriek in Rotterdam, and launched on 29 December 1926. The ship was commissioned on 12 April 1928. She and her sisterDe Ruyter left the Netherlands on 27 September 1928, for the Dutch East Indies. On 29 July 1929, Evertsen, De Ruyter, the cruiser, and the submarines and, left Surabaya, and steamed to Tanjung Priok. At Tanjung Priok the ships waited for the royal yachtMaha Chakri of the king of Siam and the destroyer Phra Ruang. After this the ships, without the submarines, visited Bangka, Belitung, Riau, Lingga Islands, Belawan, and Deli. On 28 August, they returned in Tanjung Priok. On 31 August, she participates in a fleet review at Tanjung Priok, held in honor of the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who was born that day. Other ships that participated in the review where the destroyer De Ruyter and the cruiser Java. While practicing with the cruiser, De Ruyter, and five submarines, Sumatra stranded on an uncharted reef near the island Kebatoe, on 14 May 1931. Sumatra was later pulled free by and a tugboat. On 13 November 1936, Sumatra and Java, and the destroyers Evertsen, , and, made a fleet visit to Singapore. Before the visit they had practiced in the South China Sea.
World War II
From 1940 to 1942, she served as a convoy escort, mainly in the Dutch East Indies. At the end of February 1942, in the aftermath of the Battle of the Java Sea, Evertsen, was ordered to escape from Tanjung Priok to Tjilatjap via the Sunda Strait, in company with the Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth and the Americanheavy cruiser USS Houston. Perth and Houston departed at 19:00 on 28 February, but Evertsen was delayed, leaving port two hours later. The route through the Strait had earlier been reported clear by Allied intelligence, but unfortunately a Japanese invasion fleet with its close covering force of two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and nine destroyers had started landing troops that night in Banten Bay, at the eastern end of Sunda Strait. Perth and Houston ran into this force, and in a ferocious night action that ended after midnight on 1 March, both ships were sunk. Evertsen was attempting to catch up with Houston and Perth. Her crew sighted the gunfire of the main action, and managed to evade the Japanese main force. However, Evertsen was then engaged by two Japanese destroyers in the Strait, and on fire and in a sinking condition, grounded herself on a reef near Sebuku Island. The surviving crew abandoned ship just as the aft magazine exploded and blew off the stern; they were taken prisoner by the Japanese on 9–10 March 1942.
