03/11/2024
Popular misconceptions have arisen around Antilla. One is that she was secretly a U-boat tender. In fact between her arrival off Aruba in September 1939 and Germany’s invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940 the Dutch authorities repeatedly searched Antilla for weapons and found none.[3] One source even claims Antilla was a tender for Operation Neuland,even though this operation was in February and March 1942, 21 months after Antilla was scuttled.
A second misconception is that when the Dutch sought to take over the ship, Captain Schmidt negotiated a 24-hour delay.In fact the delay between the Dutch marines reaching Antilla and boarding her was less than two hours. This was achieved not by negotiation but by Schmidt refusing to lower the gangway and the marines’ captain deciding to wait for daybreak.
A third misconception is that when scuttling the ship, the crew heated her boilers so that the seawater entering through her seacocks caused a boiler explosion, and that this explosion broke the ship in half.[2][7][8] In fact between May and August 1940 Dutch divers found that the wreck was intact.[3] It was not until 1953 that it was found to have broken in half, and this was caused by storm damage.[3]
A fourth misconception is that Captain Schmidt of the Antilla spent the war in a prison camp on Bonaire and after the war bought the camp to build the Divi Flamingo Hotel. In fact the entire crew was transported to Jamaica and after the war the camp was bought by local entrepreneur Lodewijk Gerharts who built the hotel, initially named “Hotel Zeebad”.
