Military History

When Imperial Japan invaded the Royal Dutch East Indies (what is now Indonesia) at the start of World War Two in the Pacific, Admiral Helfrich was the man charged with stopping them. Born 1886 to a native Indonesian mother in the islands that would be his home for decades, he started his naval career in 1908 as an officer. Steady appointments and service in the Far East brought him to the rank of Vice Admiral and commander of all Dutch vessels in the Pacific in October 1939. His small surface force consisted of a few light cruisers and destroyers. This surface force, under his subordinate Rear Admiral Kaarl Doorman, joined the impossible ABDA fleet on the suicide mission to try and stop the Japanese in the Java Sea. After the combined fleet was annihilated in February 1942 Helfrich was made Operational Commander of all Allied Naval Forces in the Southwest Pacific until the Allied command was dissolved.

The Admirals small fleet of submarines sank or damaged no less than 18 Japanese ships in the first ninety days of the war- including Lt AJ Bussemakers O-16 which sank three Japanese troopships in a single day. This feat brought Helfrich the nickname of "Ship-a-day Helfrich" when these much needed victories were announced and renounced in every newspaper across the Pacific.

Bearing stigma from the loss of his surface fleet, the rest of the war was uneventful for the Admiral who rode a desk in Ceylon for the next few years. At the end of the war he was made commander of all Dutch Ships afloat both in the Pacific and in Europe (there were not many) and was present for the surrender of the Japanese aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor, by far getting the last laugh.