MoSho’s Badass of the Week- The Tropical Island Disguised Ship

For this week's Badass, we decided not to go with a man or a woman, but a vessel instead. Because sometimes being badass involves surviving by any means necessary. So while this ship is badass for surviving during the war, the crew was just as badass for being able to find a way to save not only their lives but their ship as well.

The ship in question is the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, a Dutch minesweeper built in the 1930s for the Royal Netherlands Navy. The ship was based Surabaya in the Netherlands East Indies when the Japanese invaded. The situation became more ominous by the day, as the sea was now teeming with Japanese warships and the air swarmed with Japanese aircraft. Allied vessels were ordered to withdraw from the area to Australia, and only four remained. Two of the ships, HNLMS Pieter de Bitter and HNLMS Eland Dubois, were destroyed so they wouldn't end up in enemy hands and the fourth, HNLMS Jan van Amstel was sunk by a Japanese destroyer on March 8th, 1942. Twenty-three members of her crew went down with the ship. To survive, the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen needed to come up with a creative and unique idea to safely evade the Japanese forces and get to Australia. Luckily for the crew, they came up with an inventive plan. Check out the video above to see how the crew was able to save their ship along with their lives.