Timor, Saratoga, and blockade-runner hunts

Willem Jan Kruys received the United States Legion of Merit for a mission involving Timor. Dutch-crewed destroyers also supported Operation Pamphlet and operated with the American carrier Saratoga while learning how British and American methods could work together. Their service complicates national shorthand about Pacific operations, because Dutch forces often participated in British-built ships. They repeatedly served with the 7th Destroyer Flotilla on searches for German blockade runners travelling between Japan and Germany. In the account of those hunts, newly arrived units tended to make contact after the Dutch ships had already spent time searching. These operations place the destroyers within both Allied fleet cooperation and the effort to interrupt Axis sea traffic.