Netherlands:
Coastal defence ship HNLMS
De Zeven Provinciën in 1910. She suffered a high-profile mutiny on 5 February 1933, which had far-reaching implications for politics in the Netherlands
HNLMS
De Zeven Provinciën was a coastal defence ship in service from 1910 until 1942. It was a small cruiser-sized warship that sacrificed speed and range for armour and armament.
While off the northwest tip of Sumatra, mutiny broke out on 5 February 1933. Part of the mixed Dutch and Indonesian crew seized control of the ship, keeping it in operation and sailing it southwards along the Sumatran coast. After six days during which the mutineers remained defiant, the Dutch Defence Minister Laurentius Nicolaas Deckers authorized an attack by military aircraft.
On 10 February 1933 a task group of five Dornier 'Wal' flying boats (D-7, D-8, D-11, D-18 and D-35) and three Fokker 'T' bombers was launched.
At 9:18 AM a 50 kg bomb from D-11 struck the ship, killing 23 mutineers, whereupon the others immediately surrendered. In the fierce controversy which broke out immediately afterwards, it was asserted that this outcome was not deliberate, and that the only intention was to intimidate the mutineers. Incidentally, this was an early demonstration of the vulnerability of surface ships to aerial bombardment, of which this ship itself was to be a victim 10 years later. However, at the time naval experts in the Netherlands and elsewhere paid little attention to this aspect, the whole event being mainly discussed in terms of the putting down of a mutiny.
The cause and motivation of the mutiny was the focus of considerable debate, both in the Dutch public opinion and political system at the time, and among historians up to the present.
Dutch researchers such as Loe de Jong believe that an active communist cell had been among the sailors—which was asserted in a highly inflammatory manner by nationalist right-wingers at the time, while in later periods Dutch and Indonesian communists were happy enough to be credited with what became a heroic myth in left-wing circles.
However, J. C. H. Blom asserts that the mutiny was essentially spontaneous and unplanned, resulting from protest at pay cuts and bad working conditions, as well as generally poor morale in the Dutch Royal Navy at the time.
