Service Record
As with the Buffel, her record is not very impressive. In 1886 the Schorpioen was hit in the stern quarter by a paddle steam tugboat in the harbor of Den Helder and sank in two hours. Fortunately, she could be raised and repaired. In 1906 she completed her role as an operational warship and was transformed into a lodging or accommodation ship.
At the beginning of World War II, she fell into German hands, was towed to Germany, and served there as a lodging - and storage ship. After the war, in 1947 she was found in Hamburg (Germany) and towed back to Den Helder; again to become a lodging ship, first in Amsterdam and later in Den Helder where she became the barracks for the Dutch WRNS. In 1982, after decommissioning, she was bought by a private foundation that was established to transform her into a floating museum in Middelburg, in the southern part of the country. Seven years later, after a complete renovation, she opened her doors to visitors, as a museum.
In 1995, the Royal Netherlands Navy purchased her back and put her under the supervision of the Dutch Navy Museum in Den Helder where she is now the third, and largest, vessel on display. In May 2000, after a renovation period of eighteen months to restore her to her former glory, the ship was opened to visitors.
Read more about this topic: HNLMS Schorpioen
Famous quotes containing the words service record, service and/or record:
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new importance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist begins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more worthily.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)