HNLMS De Ruyter (1935)

Type

Light Cruiser

Period

20th Century

Nation

Netherlands

Overview: HNLMS De Ruyter (1935) was a one-off light cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy, built to reinforce the aging Java-class cruisers defending the Dutch East Indies. She became famous as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman during the ABDA command's doomed defense of the East Indies in early 1942. Specifications: The ship displaced about 7,822 long tons, was 170.8 m long with a 15.6 m beam, and carried a main battery of 7 x 150 mm guns in centerline turrets, plus 10 x 40 mm Bofors AA guns and 8 x 12.7 mm machine guns. She carried two Fokker C-11W floatplanes launched from a single catapult, and her design, constrained by Great Depression-era budget cuts, gave her generous dimensions but comparatively thin armor (30-50 mm belt and turrets) for her displacement. Service History: Commissioned in October 1936, De Ruyter spent her early career on patrol duties before World War II brought her into repeated action against the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, including the Battle of Bali Sea and Battle of Badung Strait in early February 1942. As Doorman's flagship at the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 1942, she was struck by a single Type 93 "Long Lance" torpedo fired by the Japanese cruiser Haguro, which knocked out her electrical systems and left the crew unable to fight the resulting fires and flooding; she sank early the next morning with the loss of Doorman, her captain, and hundreds of crew. Notable Facts: Her wreck, designated a war grave off the coast of Java, was illegally salvaged for scrap metal during the 2010s, an act that destroyed most of the remaining hull structure and drew international condemnation. Contemporaries sometimes noted a superficial resemblance to the German Deutschland-class "pocket battleships" in her silhouette, though her design actually derived from the earlier Java-class cruisers. Only the ship's bell was recovered before the wreck's destruction and is now preserved in the Kloosterkerk in The Hague.