HMNS DeRuyter
by Paul Helfrich

1/250 HMNS DeRuyter (JSC)

HMNS DeRuyter sailed into history the night of February 27, 1942, as part of the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) task force arrayed against the might of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the dark days immediately following Pearl Harbor.

Under the command of Dutch Admiral Karel Doorman, the ABDA force sought to stop the Japanese landings on Java and Sumatra. They were ultimately successful in delaying them by just one day. The DeRuyter was lost toward the end of a six-hour running battle (the Battle of the Java Sea) with Japanese cruisers and destroyers. Doorman sought to close with the Japanese, only to run headlong into a spread of Long Lance torpedoes. The ship went down with heavy loss of life. After the sinking of the DeRuyter, as well as the Dutch cruiser Java, the remnants of the ABDA force withdrew. These included the American heavy cruiser USS Houston, sunk a short time later in a heroic night attack on Japanese landing forces.

Few forces in history have fought so valiantly against overwhelming odds as the ships and men of the ABDA task force.

This is the JSC (Poland) 1/250 scale paper model of the DeRuyter. JSC also makes a DeRuyter in 1/400 as part of their "Mikroflota" series. I've been working on this model off and on for over two years.

It's a great kit. I realized late in the game that I had made an error with the placement of the foremast crossbeam - it's too high. The masts (made from wood dowels) are also too heavy for the scale. At some point, I may seek to correct that, but I'm willing to live with it for now.

One of the challenging features of this kit are the two scout planes (it actually comes with three of them); each one a miniature paper model in itself.