Word: helfrich
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When the Japanese attacked in December, prescient Admiral Helfrich flung up his arms and exclaimed: "There you have it! We could have sunk their transports." His fleet was already at sea, and 24 hours after the first Jap attacks, his submarines sank four enemy transports off Malaya. His Navy's bag in the first 54 days of war: 54 Jap ships...
When the U.S. Navy's Admiral Hart brought his Asiatic Fleet of cruisers, destroyers and submarines from the Philippines into Conrad Helfrich's home waters, Admiral Helfrich yielded the Allied naval command to his senior. Under Admiral Hart, the little Dutch Fleet joined the little U.S. Fleet. Along with others in the Dutch high command, Conrad Helfrich grimly set himself to a bitter task: to convince Washington and London that Java could be held, that the chance was worth the maximum risk of ships and planes...
...Indies got a few, then a few more Flying Fortresses and fighters, in command of the U.S. Army's Major General Lewis Hyde Brereton; no more of the heavy cruisers Conrad Helfrich desperately wanted, no more destroyers than Vice Admiral William A. Glassford Jr., the U.S. Fleet's battle commander, had brought from the Philippines. They were perhaps all that the U.S. could get there in time, but they were not enough...
...Helfrich's way of holding, until all-out aid arrived, was to attack and attack and attack, hitting the Japs before they were fairly launched into the outer Indies. This offensive strategy involved great risks and probably grave losses. But, like many an admiring U.S. naval officer, Admiral Helfrich believed that the risks would be justified, that warships were built to be risked and perhaps lost. But higher orders kept the combined Dutch and U.S. Fleets from the offensive until the Japs were firmly based in the northern Celebes and upper Borneo, were on the way down the Strait...
Java was already in the vise and the time and chance for an all-out test of Conrad Helfrich's long-planned offensive defense had gone, when he succeeded Admiral Hart in the supreme Indies naval command. His main base at Surabaya was under continuous bomber attack, first from carriers, then from captured land bases. Very soon, Vice Admiral Helfrich had on his hands a desperate job of defense, very close to home...