HNLMS De Ruyter (1935)

HNLMS De Ruyter (Dutch: Hr.Ms. De Ruyter) was a light cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy. She was originally designed as a 5,000 long tons (5,100 t) ship with a lighter armament due to financial problems and the pacifist movement. Later in the design stage, an extra gun turret was added and the armor was improved. She was the seventh ship of the Dutch Navy to be named after Admiral Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter.

For other ships with the same name, see HNLMS De Ruyter.
HNLMS De Ruyter
Class overview
BuildersWilton-Fijenoord, Schiedam
Operators Royal Netherlands Navy
Preceded byJava class
Succeeded byDe Zeven Provinciën class
Planned1
Completed1
Lost1
History
Netherlands
NameDe Ruyter
Laid down16 September 1933
Launched11 March 1935
Commissioned3 October 1936
FateSunk by torpedo in the Java Sea 28 February 1942
General characteristics
TypeLight cruiser
Displacement
  • 6,442 long tons (6,545 t) (standard)
  • 7,548 long tons (7,669 t) (full)
Length170.9 m (560 ft 8 in)
Beam15.7 m (51 ft 6 in)
Draft5.1 m (16 ft 9 in)
Installed power66,000 shp (49,000 kW)
Propulsion
Speed32 kn (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Range6,800 nmi (12,600 km; 7,800 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement435 max
Armament
Armor
Aircraft carried2 × Fokker C-11W floatplanes
Aviation facilities1 × catapult
NotesAll of the above are from this references:[1][2]

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. She was sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942.

Design
Superstructure and turrets visible from the forward deck

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.[3]

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.[4]

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.[5]

Service history
De Ruyter deployed in the defence of Java, 1942.

During World War II, De Ruyter saw repeated action in the Dutch East Indies in fruitless attempts to ward off the Japanese invasion. She was damaged by air attack in the Battle of Bali Sea on 4 February 1942, but not seriously. She fought in the Battle of Badung Strait on 18 February.[6]

A port side view of De Ruyter at anchor, shortly before her loss in the Battle of the Java Sea.

In the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February, De Ruyter was the flagship of the Dutch Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman, with his flag captain Eugène Lacomblé (who had previously served on board the ship as a lieutenant). Off the north coast off Java on the evening of the 27th the remains of the ABDA fleet was surprised by the Japanese heavy cruisers Nachi and Haguro. Several minutes after the Dutch cruiser Java had been torpedoed and sunk, De Ruyter was hit by a single Type 93 torpedo fired by Haguro at about 23:40 and was set on fire; the torpedo also disabled the ship's electrical systems and left the crew unable to combat the fire or the flooding.[7] The De Ruyter sank at about 02:30 the next morning with the loss of 367 men, including Admiral Doorman and Captain Lacomblé.[8]

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 the same day by the same divers. The same dive group then found HNLMS Kortenaer on 12 August 2004.[9]

In 2016 it was discovered that the wrecks of De Ruyter and Java, and much of Kortenaer had 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.[10] In February 2017 a report was issued confirming the salvaging of the three wrecks.[11][12]

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.[13]

References in text
  1. "Technische gegevens Hr.Ms. De Ruyter". TracesOfWar.com.
  2. "Lichte kruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter". Jaime Karreman.
  3. "Hr.Ms. De Ruyter vóór 1940". Onze Vloot. Archived from the original on 2019-05-30. Retrieved 2018-09-28.
  4. "Hr.Ms. De Ruyter inleiding". TracesOfWar.com.
  5. Visser, Jan. "De Ruyter-class cruiser". Royal Netherlands Navy Warships of World War II. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  6. "Lichte kruiser de Ruyter (1936)". Jaime Karreman.
  7. Cox, Jeffrey R. "A Turn Too Far: Reconstructing the End of the Battle of the Java Sea". Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  8. "Hr.Ms. De Ruyter en de Slag in de Javazee". TracesOfWar.com.
  9. PacificWrecks.com. "Kevin Denlay - Shipwreck Explorer and SCUBA Diver". Pacific Wrecks. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
  10. 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.
  11. "Report verification mission" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-04-15. Retrieved 2017-04-15.
  12. Hoare, James. "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.
  13. Boffey, Daniel (January 22, 2018). "Bodies of second world war sailors in Java sea 'dumped in mass grave'". theguardian.com. Retrieved October 28, 2022.

References
  • van Oosten, Franz Christiaan. "Her Netherlands Majesty's Ship De Ruyter." In Profile Warship, edited by Antony Preston, 73-96. Windsor: Profile Publishing, 1974. ISSN 1754-4459. OCLC 249170765.
  • Teitler, G. (1984). De strijd om de slagkruisers. Dieren: De Bataafsche Leeuw. ISBN 978-9067070287.
  • Legemaate, H.J.; Mulder, A.J.J. (1999). Hr. Ms. Kruiser 'De Ruyter' 1933-1942. Purmerend: Asia Maior. ISBN 978-9074861151.
  • Karremann, Jaime (February 27, 2017). "Lichte kruiser Hr.Ms. De Ruyter (1936))" (in Dutch). marineschepen.nl. Archived from the original on April 23, 2017. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  • Whitley, M. J. (1995). Cruisers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia. London: Cassell. ISBN 1-86019-874-0.
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