The
Dutch shipyard Kon. Mij. De Schelde at Vlissingen, Netherlands was the major
Dutch shipyard for building submarines before the Second World War. In the night of 20-21June 1913 was a part of her accumulator
battery cells for the O 4 still under construction accidentally destroyed. An
insurance expert of the Dutch firm D. Hudig&Co. of Rotterdam estimated the
damage to be ƒ 8.818 of which ƒ 7.768 was paid to the shipyard. But what had
happened that night. Insurance expert
A.J. Bernoski wrote in his report that as was common the cells of the
accumulator battery were stored in a wood made rack placed in the shed where
the submarine was built. On Friday afternoon around 18.00 o’clock were 45 of
the 60 cells stored in the rack. At 18.30 o’clock stopped the labourers with
working and left the shed. At that moment was everything alright. The next
morning was discovered that the rack collapsed and the cells partly broken.
Coppersmiths in the building next to the shed where the submarine was built,
heard around 05.00 o’clock a heavy smash. The expert thought that one of the
planks of the rack was not correctly fitted out with as result that the nails
through the wood were drawn. The broken ebonite cells were removed from the
shed to a special area. The precious but still usable plates were removed and
temporarily stored in wood made with lead covered reservoirs filled with distilled
water. First were new ebonite cells to be made, than the plates carefully
examined, if necessary repaired and cleaned with new clean distilled water and
finally were the plates in the new with sulphuric acid filled ebonite cells to
be placed. Of the 45 cells were 34 lost and to be replaced by new ones.
Note
1. Of the single hull type Whitehead-Hay design fitted
out with a two stroke 145hp Mann diesel engine. Building ordered on 18 December
1911, laid down with yard number 147 in a shed on the Peperdijk, south side of
the Dokhaven on 15 June 1912, launched on 5 August 1913 and sold to be broken
up in 1935.
Source
Archief Kon. Mij. De Schelde 1875-1970 toegang
214 inv.nr. 594. 
