# HNLMS De Ruyter (1935)

HNLMS De Ruyter (Dutch: Hr.Ms. De Ruyter) was a light cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy. She was the seventh ship of the Dutch Navy to be named after Admiral Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter.
De Ruyter was originally designed as a 5,000 long tons (5,080 t) ship with a lighter armament due to the financial problems of the Great Depression and a pacifist movement in the Netherlands. Later on in the design stage, an extra gun turret was added and the armor was improved.
De Ruyter was laid down on 16 September 1933 at the Wilton-Fijenoord dockyard in Schiedam and commissioned on 3 October 1936, commanded by Captain A. C. van der Sande Lacoste. De Ruyter spent her early war career taking part in peacetime patrol and escorting duties, mostly in the waters surrounding the Dutch East Indies. When the Netherlands was invaded by Nazi Germany in May 1940, she retreated to the Dutch East Indies, where she eventually served as flagship for ABDA Force.
De Ruyter survived the air attacks at the Battle of Makassar Strait undamaged, before attempting to intercept a Japanese troop convoy at the battle of Badung Strait, but missing her shots and retreated from the battle after her escorting destroyers were either sunk or incapacitated. She saw her last action attempting to intercept another Japanese troop convoy at the battle of the Java Sea, but failed to make a single hit while being damaged herself and retreating. Later that night, Japanese cruisers caught the force in an ambush; De Ruyter was hit by a torpedo fired from the heavy cruiser Haguro, causing her to capsize and sink over three hours with the loss of the majority of her crew.
Her wreck was discovered in 2002, but later completely destroyed by illegal salvagers.

## Design

De Ruyter was designed during the Great Depression, which, in addition to being a period of economic depression, was also a period in which pacifism was widespread in the Netherlands. For these reasons, the design was officially called a flottieljeleider (flotilla leader) instead of a cruiser, and every effort was made to cut costs.
Its function was to aid the two existing cruisers of the Java class in the defence of the Dutch East Indies; the idea was that with three cruisers, there would always be two cruisers available, even if one cruiser had to be repaired.
However, due to the cost-cutting policy that went into her design, De Ruyter was not quite up to her task. Her main battery (7 × 150 mm guns) was underpowered in comparison to other light cruisers of the time (for example the British Leander class), and the class had inadequate armour as well and lacked long range anti-aircraft guns. However, her fire control system was excellent.

## Service history

Upon completion on October 3, 1936, De Ruyter would operation in various Dutch and other European waters. However, on January 12, 1937, De Ruyter departed under the command of Captain Sande Lacoste for her designed role, to protect operations in the Dutch East Indies, a series of Dutch owned Asian Islands surrounding Indonesia, where she arrived at Tandjong Priok on March 5. From then on until that October, De Ruyter, alongside several destroyers and both Java class light cruisers vigorously took part in training exercises to ready her crew for battle. For several years, De Ruyter saw a quiet career operating off Dutch East Indies waters on patrol and escorting duties. However, by May 1939, patrol duties increased significantly due to increasing tension with both the Japanese near the Dutch East Indies, and Nazi Germany near the homelands.

## WWII

On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland, which was the catalyst that officially started the Second World War. Upon the start of the war, Captain Karel Doorman was given the command of De Ruyter, but would not see combat initially due to the Netherland's neutrality in WW2. However, on May 10, 1940, Germany without a declaration of war invaded the Netherlands, and through intense combat took control of the country by the 29th. Karel Doorman was promoted to a Rear Admiral on the 16th, and once the Netherlands was taken over, rather than join the Nazis, De Ruyter along with numerous other Dutch ships escaped to the Dutch East Indies. From then on, De Ruyter took on various patrol duties due to the lack of action.
This lack of action changed on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese aircraft carriers of the Kido Butai attacked Pearl Harbor, and Japanese forces executed an invasion of the Dutch East Indies. De Ruyter and the other handful of older Dutch warships simply weren't anywhere near enough to turn back the might of the Japanese surface fleet, which tasked some of its most modern heavy cruisers and destroyers to assist in capturing the vital oil fields in the Dutch East Indies desperately needed for the war effort. Because of this, the Dutch admiralty asked for the assistance of other countries. The Americans were the first to join, followed by Australia and then New Zealand. The four countries then convinced Winston Churchill to send a number of British warships to assist in the defense of the Dutch territories. ABDA Force was thus formed, and De Ruyter served an important role as Karel Doorman's flagship for the fleet.
On December 22, De Ruyter escorted Troop Convoy BM 9B from Bombay to Singapore, then escorted Troop Convoy DM 1 on December 30, and took part in a series of smaller scale escorting duties throughout January 1942. On February 3, De Ruyter served as the flagship of an allied force of two other light cruisers, one heavy cruiser, and seven destroyers in an attempt to intercept and sink Japanese troop convoys. However, while underway the next day off the Bali Sea, the allied ABDA ships came under attack from some 60 twin engine Japanese land based bombers in a series of air attacks that became known as the battle of Makassar Strait. De Ruyter was not damaged, but the light cruiser USS Marblehead was hit by two bombs that forced her back to the US for repairs and out of the ABDA fleet permanently, while the heavy cruiser USS Houston was critically damaged by a bomb hit that disabled her number three main battery turret. As a result, De Ruyter and the rest of the task force turned back and retreated to the coast of Java, while the Japanese successfully took control of the Makassar Strait.

### Battle of the Badung Strait

On February 18, De Ruyter departed the Java coast alongside the light cruiser HNLMS Java and the destroyers USS Pope, USS John D. Ford, and HNLMS Piet Hein in another attempt to disrupt Japanese troop convoys destined to Bali Indonesia consisting of two troop transports escorted by four destroyers of the Asashio class which was spotted by allied submarines. It was on the night of the 19th that the allied ships intercepted the Japanese ships. For the first time, De Ruyter fired her 15 cm (5.9 in) guns in anger, but her gunfire proved to be ineffective as she missed her shots.
In the following exchange, the lone Japanese destroyer Asashio closed to point blank range without damage and fired eight torpedoes. One of these torpedoes hit Piet Hein, which was blown in half and sank nearly instantly. Asashio, joined by her sistership Ōshio, then turned away John D. Ford and Pope; with her escorts out of the fight, De Ruyter retreated from the battle without hitting an enemy ship even once, let alone sinking the pesky Japanese transport ships.
Another failed attempt by Allied warships to sink the pesky transport ships failed; instead, Asashio won a gunfight with the light cruiser HNLMS Tromp, followed by both Asashio and Ōshio damaging the destroyer USS Stewart so badly that she could not be repaired before Japanese capture of Soerabaia, and was scuttled in the harbor.

### Battle of the Java Sea

On February 24, De Ruyter departed as flagship for Admiral Doorman and his flag captain Eugène Lacomblé (who had previously served on board the ship as a lieutenant) for much of what was left of the ABDA fleet, consisting of three light cruisers, De Ruyter, Java and HMAS Perth, the heavy cruisers Houston and HMS Exeter, and nine destroyers, as ABDA fleet's largest effort yet to destroy Japanese troop convoys after a series of blunders and failed attempts. However, this plan immediately had its troubles as on the 26th the force was spotted by a floatplane launched from the heavy cruiser Nachi, joined by the heavy cruiser Haguro, the light cruisers Naka and Jintsū, and eleven destroyers.

#### Afternoon battle

The force made contact by 18:00 on the 27th, and fired away. De Ruyter, along with the other cruisers targeted Jintsū at 16,000 yards but failed to hit her with even a single shell. Haguro and Nachi then opened fire at 28,000 yards as they continued to close the range at maximum speed, with Haguro focusing her fire on De Ruyter. Houston, Exeter, and Perth fired on Haguro which was reported to burst into flames and sank, but Haguro had not been hit once and in turn drew the actual first blood of the engagement when she hit De Ruyter with two 20.3 cm (8 in) shells. The first hit the axillary motor room and started a small fire, killing one crewman and injuring six others, while the second over penetrated unarmored portions of the ship without exploding. Even when they didn't hit, Haguro's shells still straddled De Ruyter several times.
Around this time, seven Japanese destroyers fired their torpedoes at the Allied warships, and while no hits were scored De Ruyter and the other cruisers rapidly maneuvered to evade them, prompting Haguro to switch fire to Exeter and score a pair of hits. One was a dud, but the other exploded below the waterline and destroyed six of her eight boilers, cutting her speed to 5 knots and forcing her to withdraw from the battle. From 22,000 yards, Haguro then launched a salvo of torpedoes which some 10 minutes later hit the destroyer Kortenaer, which blew in half and sank instantly, followed by the destroyer Asagumo (possibly joined by Jintsū) winning a gunfight with the destroyer HMS Electra and sinking her.

#### Allied withdraw

With two destroyers sunk and a heavy cruiser crippled, faced by superior ships, and only a single of his ships, the Electra (which had just been sunk) making any hits on an enemy ship whatsoever (hits on both Asagumo and the destroyer Tokitsukaze that had caused little critical damage), Admiral Doorman ordered his ships to disengage from the battle and withdraw back to Surabaya. De Ruyter turned away from the action as some of Doorman's destroyers picked up survivors from Kortenaer. With the battle over for the time being, around 20:00, four American destroyers, having expended their torpedoes and most of their ammo, withdrew from the battle. To top things off, tragedy struck when at 21:25, the destroyer HMS Jupiter hit a mine that was laid by Dutch forces and sank in a friendly fire incident.

#### De Ruyter's loss at the night battle

Unknown to Admiral Doorman, Haguro's floatplane had been trailing the allied force, and the Japanese had been planning an ambush. Just before midnight, Haguro and Nachi closed to 16,000 yards undetected by De Ruyter and the other ships and prepared a stealth attack by firing torpedoes only. Nachi fired first, putting out eight torpedoes, followed by Haguro sending out four. Several minutes later, De Ruyter noticed Nachi's torpedo spread, and quickly turned to evade and was not damaged. The same could not be said for Java, which was hit by one of Nachi's torpedoes that ignited her aft main battery magazines, blowing the cruiser in two and sinking Java in under two minutes.
Unfortunately, four minutes after Java received her fatal hit, De Ruyter was hit by one of Haguro's four torpedoes, the last time she was damaged by the pesky Haguro. Haguro and Nachi then retreated from the area, depending on the source they were either undetected, or spotted but allied gunfire was ineffective. It was clear that fatal damage had been dealt; while De Ruyter didn't immediately explode and sink like Java, flooding was beginning to overwhelm damage control. Eventually, the abandon ship order was issued, and both Karel Doorman and Captain Lacomblé chose to go down with De Ruyter, even allegedly (according to some accounts) retreating to Doorman's cabin and together committing suicide for their failure to save the ship.
De Ruyter stayed afloat for some three hours, but eventually sank the next morning at about 02:30, with the loss of 367 men. She did not make a single hit during the course of the battle, and not a single Japanese ship was sunk.

## Wreck

The wreck of De Ruyter was discovered by specialist wreck divers on 1 December 2002 and declared a war grave, with the ship's two bells—one now in the Kloosterkerk in the Hague—being recovered. The wreck of HNLMS Java was also found on the same day by the same divers, which then found HNLMS Kortenaer on 12 August 2004.
In 2016, the whole wrecks of De Ruyter and Java, as well much of Kortenaer, were found to have disappeared from the seabed, although their imprints on the ocean floor remained. Over 100 ships and submarines of various countries sank during the war in the seas around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia; many are designated as war graves. There is known to be illegal scavenging of these wrecks, often using explosives; the Netherlands Defence Ministry suggested that De Ruyter, Java, and Kortenaer may have been illegally salvaged. In February 2017, a report was issued confirming the illegal salvaging of the three wrecks.
According to Indonesian journalist Aqwam Hanifan, the remains of Dutch sailors on De Ruyter and the other illegally salvaged ships were dumped in a mass grave in East Java.

## References in text

* ↑ "Technische gegevens Hr.Ms. De Ruyter". TracesOfWar.com.
* ↑ "Lichte kruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter". Jaime Karreman.
* ↑ "Hr.Ms. De Ruyter vóór 1940". Onze Vloot. Archived from the original on 2019-05-30. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
* ↑ "Hr.Ms. De Ruyter inleiding". TracesOfWar.com.
* ↑ Visser, Jan. "De Ruyter-class cruiser". Royal Netherlands Navy Warships of World War II. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
* 1 2 3 4 "HNLMS De Ruyter (1935)".
* 1 2 3 4 5 "HNMS De Ruyter of the Royal Dutch Navy - uboat.net".
* 1 2 3 4 5 "IJN HAGURO: Tabular Record of Movement".
* 1 2 3 Hara (1961) Chapter 15
* 1 2 "Report verification mission" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-04-15. Retrieved 2017-04-15.
* ↑ PacificWrecks.com. "Kevin Denlay - Shipwreck Explorer and SCUBA Diver". Pacific Wrecks. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
* ↑ Oliver Holmes and agencies (16 November 2016). "Mystery as wrecks of three Dutch WWII ships vanish from Java seabed". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
* ↑ Hoare, James (23 November 2016). "Java Sea Shipwrecks of World War 2: One of the men who found them reflects on their loss | All About History". Historyanswers.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
* ↑ Boffey, Daniel (January 22, 2018). "Bodies of second world war sailors in Java sea 'dumped in mass grave'". theguardian.com. Retrieved October 28, 2022.