The Dutch Navy in World War II-- Part 1

From good old Wikipedia.

And, as I said in the last post, I'd never heard of the Dutch as having a Navy during World War II.

The Dutch Navy was based in Allied countries after the fall of the Netherlands and headquartered in London.

Dutch ships escorted transports at Dunkirk and D-Day and escorted convoys.  They suffered especially heavy loses in the Dutch East Indies and the Battle of Java Sea at the hands of the Japanese.

The dutch Navy in Asia was virtually annihilated during the Japanese campaign to take the Dutch East Indies in February and March 1942.  Twenty ships were sunk, including the only two light cruisers.  Some 2500 men were killed or wounded.

The HN. MS. that went with the submarine mentioned in the previous post stands for His/Her Netherlands Majesty's Ship.

A small force of Dutch submarines sank more Japanese ships during the first weeks of the war than the entire British and U.S. navies together.  They sank so many, their commander Admiral Conrad Helfrich gained the nickname "Ship-a-Day Helfrich."

And, I Didn't Know.  --GreGen