Flores class sloops

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Built By:	Mij Feijenoord, Schiedam
'Flores':
Laid down:	13 January 1925
Launched:	15 August 1925
Commissioned:	25 March 1926
Fate:	Scrapped 12 November 1968
Penants:	F-66, N-1, F-803, A-877
'Soemba':
Laid down:	24 December 1924
Launched:	24 August 1925
Commissioned:	12 April 1926
Fate:	Scrapped 12 July 1985
Penants:	T-199, HX-1, A-891
General characteristics
Type:	sloops
Displacement:	1457 tons (standard) / 1793 tons (loaded)
Length:	75.6 metres
Beam:	11.5 metres
Draught:	3.6 metres
Propulsion:	4 Yarrow boilers, 2 Triple-expansion engines, 2 shafts, 2000 shp
Speed:	15 knots
Complement:	145
Armament: Original configuration:	3 x 5.9 inch No. 7 1 x 75 mm 4 x .50 Browning machine guns
Added to Flores:	1 single 40 mm "pom-pom" 4 x 20 mm Hotchkiss 8 x .303 machine guns
Added to Soemba:	6 x Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
Armour:	Bridge:50 mm deck: 25-50 mm, Ammunition hoists: 25 mm, Gunshields: 14 - 80 mm,

The Flores class sloops, HNLMS Flores and Soemba were gunboats in the Royal Netherlands Navy during the World War II. They were in several ways the most successful surface ships of the Dutch navy during the war.

They were squat ships, both commissioned in 1926, with a relatively heavy armament for their size (3 x 5.9 inch Krupp guns, the same type and calibre as for the cruisers Java and Sumatra). Their main asset was an advanced fire control system that made them very accurate in bombarding shore targets, as a similar sloop, Johan Maurits van Nassau, demonstrated in 1940 when she silenced a German battery from a distance of well over 10 miles.

The sloops Flores and Soemba were intended to provide protection for the vast Dutch East Indies. Flores was brought back to the Netherlands at the start of World War II where she patrolled home waters until the Germans invaded in 1940. Slightly damaged, she escaped to Britain and was employed as a coastal escort. Soemba was withdrawn to Colombo in March 1942, before she could be captured or destroyed by the Japanese invasion of the East Indies.

Flores and Soemba were united in the Mediterranean Sea and played an active and successful role in the landings in Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Garigliano, Gaeta and finally, at the beaches of Normandy in June 1944. The ships came under fire from shore based artillery and bombers many times but survived all attacks, although they incurred damage several times. British war correspondents referred to them as "the terrible twins".

With their guns worn out due to intensive use, the two ships were retired from active duty shortly after the war and used for artillery instruction and as floating barracks. On November 10 1948, Flores and Soemba were awarded the Koninklijke Vermelding bij Dagorder

Flores was decommissioned in 1968 and Soemba in 1986.