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 world and/or war:
“It is too late—the world is too dark for any thought ahead. Others are writing my biography, and let it rest as they elect to make it. I have lived my life, well and ill, always less well than I wanted it to be but it is, as it is, and as it has been; so small a thing, to have had so much about it!”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law; where no Law, no Injustice. Force, and Fraud, are in war the two Cardinal virtues.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)