Dutch submarines off Kuching

23–24 December 1941, Off Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo

Dutch success; a Japanese destroyer and two transports sunk

On 23 December 1941 a Japanese convoy anchored off Kuching to land troops in British Sarawak. That night the Dutch submarine K XIV slipped among the transports and torpedoed four of them, sinking two. The next day K XVI torpedoed the destroyer Sagiri some 35 miles out; her after magazine caught fire and blew up, and she sank with 121 of her 241 men, the first Japanese warship sunk by an Allied submarine. The landings went ahead, and on 25 December the Japanese submarine I-66 sank K XVI with all hands as she made for home.