WesWorld

1 April: Today the scrapping of two of the old predreadnought battleships of the Dutch Navy, Utrecht and Oceaan, was started at Langedijk and IJmuiden. Both ships were stricken off the fleet list last February, and it's expected that they will be completely scrapped for August of this same year.



4 May: The expansion of the Royal Dutch Navy goes on as the Surinam, a new light cruiser of the Borneo Class, has been completed at Vlissingen. She's expected to depart in her trials with her sister-ship Celebes, soon to be finished too.


15 May: The trial cruise of the battleships "De Ruyter" and "Tromp" goes on. Last weeks both ships have completed their gunnery trials with satisfying results, according to a fleet press release. The trial cruise is expected to end in early August, date when they will enter full service into the Dutch Navy.


3 June: The Light Cruisers Surinam and Celebes , both recently completed, have left the port of Amsterdam today, followed by the 6th Destroyer flotilla, to start their inaugural trial cruise that will take them to the North Sea and the Atlantic for at least 6 months.


28 June: The Dutch Prime Minister, Lodewyk van der Berg, has started his planed trip to Belgium; a trip where he's expected to discuss mutual defense and trade agreements with our southern neighbours.

'We plan to expand the mutual understanding and friendly relations between our nations', Van der Berg said in a public conference before leaving Le Hague; 'With the great alliances formed after the ending of the Great War, the smaller nations must look for security on their own; that will be one of the topics I'll discuss with the Belgium Prime minister'.

It is expected that van der Berg will leave for Luxemburg after this trip, before returning to the Netherlands.