
Earlier this year, we published a series of articles about ships in the Second World War on our website that were seized by the Germans or that played a role in various Allied operations as England-based craft. It transpired that one reader had a model of one of these ships in their own office. Of course, we wanted to know everything about it!
The ship in question
It is a coaster called the Hilda, which managed to get away from the Netherlands in 1940 and cross over to England. As we wrote in the blog, the vessel took part in Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Allied troops from the beaches around Dunkirk, in that same year. There was an anxious moment for the crew of the Hilda on 1 June 1940 when the ship was attacked by German planes off the coast near La Panne. The ship itself did not suffer any damage, but the British destroyer HMS Keith, which was nearby, was badly damaged. The Hilda immediately took some of its crew on board and carried them to safety.


The miniature Hilda
One observant reader raised an eyebrow at this story because that very ship was sitting in his office as a model. They contacted us and, needless to say, we were immediately excited: isn’t it special that this ship, with such an illustrious history and once insured by NNPC, exists as a model and can now ‘return’ to us in this way? We agreed to borrow the miniature ship so that we could view and display it…
Spectators at Breakbulk 2024
…which is exactly what we did at our stand at Breakbulk 2024, the world’s largest project cargo and breakbulk event which was held in Ahoy Rotterdam last May. The Hilda drew quite a lot of spectators there and certainly managed to charm our visitors. Rightfully so, because despite its age (we estimate that the object was made around the war period) and the fact that it could do with a little restoration work, it is a beautiful model. Moreover, there aren’t many scale models of this type. At Breakbulk, we exhibited the Hilda under the phrase “anchored in tradition”, with the old ship providing a nice contrast to the modern look of our stand.

Craftsmanship
The photos on this page show quite a lot of details. What have we got here, actually? This model of the Hilda is clearly hand-made. The materials used are wood and plastic, and the paint is a little bit discoloured. Clearly an old ship, just like the original. But what about the model’s big sister, the real Hilda? Does she still exist?
The Hilda’s history
The coaster was built in 1939 at a shipyard in Zuid-Holland, commissioned by Gert Zoutman from Delfzijl. He remained her captain and owner until long after the Second World War. In 1965, Zoutman sold the ship to a partnership from Drenthe who renamed her the Meppel. In 1973, she ended up in British hands. A good number of years later, disaster unfortunately struck: in 1990, the vessel slipped off her anchors and was stranded off Anguilla. She turned out to be so severely damaged that she was towed out to sea and sunk. The full history of the Hilda can be read on the website of Stichting Maritiem Historische Data (Maritime Historical Data Foundation).
The only one of her kind?
The Hilda fortunately lives on as a scale model that is now on display at the NNPC offices. This is now making us wonder if there are other models anywhere of ships that we used to have in our fleet. Read the articles and if you have a model or know about any others, we would love to hear from you!
Read the series “Our fleet during World War II” as well!
- Part 1 – Operations Dynamo and Neptune
- Part 2 – Seized by the Germans
- Part 3 – Ships that were badly damaged or sunk
- Part 4 – Food aid during the Hunger Winter