World War II
On May 16, 1940, he was promoted to Rear-Admiral and on June 13, 1940 on board the light cruiser HNLMS De Ruyter, he took command of the squadron of Rear-Admiral GW Stöve at Surabaya. Early 1942 he commanded the Combined Striking Force of ABDACOM, American British Dutch Australian Command. Doorman was killed in action when his ship HNLMS De Ruyter was sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea. Part of the crew was rescued, but Doorman, following old navy tradition, chose to go down with his ship. On June 5, 1942 he was posthumously made a Knight 3rd class in the Military William Order. The medal was awarded to the Rear-Admiral's eldest son on May 23, 1947 by Lieutenant-Admiral Conrad Emil Lambert Helfrich, on board HNLMS Karel Doorman, attended by Prince Bernhard.
Between 1946 and 2006 the Royal Dutch Navy named three vessels after Karel Doorman, including a former British Colossus class aircraft carrier, the largest ship the Navy ever commissioned.
Read more about this topic: Karel Doorman
Famous quotes containing the words war ii, world and/or war:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“But when did love not try to change
The world back to itself no cost,
No past, no people else at all
Only what meeting made us feel,
So new, and gentle-sharp, and strange?”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“To be deeply committed to negotiations, to be opposed to a particular war or military action, is not only considered unpatriotic, it also casts serious doubt on one’s manhood.”
—Myriam Miedzian, U.S. author. Boys Will Be Boys, ch. 2 (1991)