Royal Netherlands Navy Submarines
 

I was surprised and interested to read an article yesterday that mentioned The Netherlands operated submarines during World War Two. The focus was on one that ran aground and was assisted by the US Navy, so I am assuming the Dutch submarines may have been operating in the Pacific and may have been sourced from the US Navy. I am now curious how many saw Dutch service.

David

Secret Fleets
 

This might be of interest, the utube video is a short clip of the 'SECRET FLEETS' doco that mentions Dutch Subs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya_cib7D6Y0

Another Dutch sub film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsca-Wylp6k

In Europe, when Germany invaded the Netherlands, most of the navy’s submarines evacuated to the UK, where as I recall, their most modern piece of kit, the snuiver,¹ was soon removed by the British because they saw no use for it. The Germans, though, captured a few subs with this device and pretty quickly copied it for their own boats, calling it Schnorchel.

Just looking at a list of Dutch submarines shows that many in both Europe and Asia remained in use after the surrender of the Netherlands and the Netherlands East-Indies, respectively, and several even until after the war (the English-language equivalent doesn’t show dates in the list, making it a lot more work figuring that out).

This seems to be a fairly good look at the subject, though I haven’t watched all of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA3r7ZxuS9s


¹ Which, I just learned, was the reason for the Dutch navy to distinguish between the duikboot (lit. “dive boat”) and the onderzeeboot (lit. “undersea boat”): the former is capable of submerging but not of staying underwater for extended periods, the latter can.

Hi

Although not a specific area of my interests, I enjoy this youtubers naval videos.

Part 1 on Dutch submarines in the SWW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddNEA2bh2c

regards
Darrell