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Commissioned in 1935, the ship was the 7th to be named after the famous Dutch admiral Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter in Dutch naval history.
During World War II the ship saw repeated action in the Dutch East Indies in fruitless attempts to ward off the Japanese invasion. During the Battle of the Java Sea, 1942, it was the flagship of the Dutch commander Karel Doorman, who went down with the ship when it was sunk by Japanese Long Lance torpedoes.