By Late February 1942, Allied forces in the Dutch East Indies were on the brink of collapse.
Japanese troops had taken vast swathes of land and dozens of islands in a matter of a few weeks,
while the Imperial Japanese navy tightened the net around the Dutch colonial capital
on Java. But the Allies had new naval commanders,
who were determined to defend the island, or go down trying.
With the fall of Bali to Japanese troops by February 20th 1942, the capital of the Dutch
East Indies was isolated on the island of Java. The Japanese navy now wanted to move quickly to
subdue the island before reinforcements could be brought in from elsewhere by the Allies.
The first Japanese invasion convoy bound for Java left Indochina on February 18th,
followed the next day by a second convoy, from the island of Jolo. Together they comprised more
than a hundred transports, carrying two infantry divisions and the headquarters of the 16th army.
In addition to the close escorts of these convoys, Japan deployed a huge naval force
to oversee and protect the invasion. Covering forces were deployed north and south of Java,
to prevent Allied reinforcements from coming in or those in Java making a getaway.
- On the Allied side, naval strength
was much more limited. Allied ships had been operating under a unified Allied command known as
‘ABDACOM’ since January, and had suffered a steady attrition of ships in battles with the Japanese.
The latest casualties were the dutch cruiser Tromp and destroyers Stewart and Piet Hein, which
were damaged and sunk respectively while trying to hinder the enemy landings on Bali.
The Allied naval force was under the overall command of Vice Admiral Conrad Helfrich,
who had been keen to get on the offensive against Japan for some time. His plans had been frustrated
both by the need to escort allied convoys and fuel shortages which were starting to have an impact.
This meant that when an American flying boat spotted the Eastern Japanese invasion convoy
approaching on February 25th, a large proportion of Helfrich’s force was miles to the west,
at Tandjong Priok. He hurriedly ordered ships to move to Soerabaja, forming the combined striking
force under Rear Admiral Karel Doorman. The combined force was built around the heavy
cruisers Houston and Exeter. They’d be supported by the light cruisers Perth, Java and Doorman’s
flagship De Ruyter. There was also a good number of destroyers, with three Dutch, 4 American and
three British. It was a decent sized force, but an eclectic mix of ships – the cruisers all varied in
age, specification and of course nationality. On February 26th Vice Admiral Helfrich received
a report on the position of the eastern enemy force and ordered Doorman to attack it that night.
Doorman gathered his captains together for a conference, outlining the basics of a plan
to travel around Madura island and engage the Japanese, and the positions that each ship should
take in the battle line. What was missing from the discussion though, were details of how the
ships would communicate and react in tactical situations. These were particularly tricky,
because as a multinational force the ships under Doorman’s command had done next to no training
with each other, and had no familiarity with how each other fought battles at sea. There was also
a sizeable language barrier between Doorman and the English-speaking officers under his command.
Nevertheless, the combined striking force left port at 6pm on February 26th, completing a patrol
overnight that did not find any sight of the Japanese convoy. Doorman brought his ships back
to Soerabaja to refuel, but at 1425, just as he was taking his ships into port, a message arrived
reporting the enemy fleet just 40 miles to the north west. The Allied force immediately reversed
course and steamed to meet their opponents. -
The Japanese convoy in question was approaching rapidly. By 10am that morning, February 27th,
it had passed Baewan island having suffered no interruptions on its journey south.
The escorting vessels were under the command of Rear Admiral Takeo Takagi,
who had two Myoko-class heavy cruisers supported by destroyer squadrons under Rear Admirals Shoji
Nishimura and Raizo Tanaka for a total of two light cruisers and 14 destroyers.
At 11am, Rear Admiral Takagi got the first bit of intelligence that there
may be an Allied force standing between him and Java. He launched a floatplane
from one of his heavy cruisers to get a visual, and by 1235 he had reports
filtering back about the position and course of the combined striking force.
With Doorman’s ships initially heading away from him, Takagi continued to bring the convoy south to
press on with the landing. But when Doorman turned north after 2pm, Takagi ordered the invasion ships
to turn west, out of harms way. The Rear Admiral then increased speed, and prepared to fight.
A couple of hours later, at 4.10 the British destroyer Electra had the first sight of the
enemy. Looming over the horizon was the light cruiser Jintsu, followed soon after by a view of
two Japanese heavy cruisers. The Japanese fleet spotted Doorman’s force almost simultaneously,
and at 4.15 Nachi and Haguro opened fire with their 8-inch guns at a range of 28,000 yards.
Two minutes later, without waiting for orders, Exeter returned fire, followed shortly after
by Houston. The fire from both sides at this long range was ineffective, but the Japanese
cruisers had more large 8-inch guns in total, so it was only a matter of time until they got lucky.
To do any real damage, the Allied ships were going to need to get closer,
to bring the guns of the light cruisers into play. This was easier said than done though,
as Doorman was hamstrung by the slow speed of the destroyer Kortenaer, which had engine trouble and
could only make 26 knots. Even worse, all of the American destroyers behind this ship were
also limited to this speed, as they had orders not to pass the Dutch ships in front of them.
At 4.35 Rear Admiral Takagi launched the first of several torpedo attacks and kept up the barrage of
gunfire on the Allied force. By 4.52 39 torpedoes had been launched, from as far away as Jintsu,
22,000 yards distant. Only one found its mark though, striking the destroyer Kortenaer at 5.13
and causing it to sink within a few minutes. Matters got even worse for the Allies when
at 5.08 a shell from Haguro hit Exeter and blew up in one of the ships boiler rooms.
Almost 40 sailors were killed instantly, with superheated steam venting from ruptured boilers.
The heavy cruisers speed was reduced to 11 knots and power to its main armament cut off
temporarily. Heavily damaged, Exeter turned hard to port to pull out of the Allied line.
And then things went a bit wrong. The allied cruisers following Exeter assumed they had missed
a flag signal from Doorman onboard De Ruyter- who they couldn’t see- and so followed Exeter’s turn,
leaving De Ruyter steaming west on her own. Any kind of Allied cohesion then broke down,
as Doorman was forced to swing around to try and regain control of his fleet. A smokescreen
was laid by the destroyers to desperately try and hide the disordered cruisers from Japanese eyes.
The Allied ships emerged from the smoke shortly after 5.45,
with its formation reformed apart from Exeter, who was detached to return to port.
Before the British cruiser could escape, Takagi ordered a second massed torpedo attack,
focused on trying to sink the damaged Exeter. Between 5.50 and 6.04, 98 torpedoes were fired
from across the Japanese fleet. Not a single one of them hit an Allied target.
To add injury to insult, the Japanese destroyer squadrons that had closed the
distance to fire their torpedoes soon found themselves under fire from British destroyers
emerging from the smokescreen. Electra traded fire with the whole of Destroyer Squadron 2,
before hitting and damaging the destroyer Asagumo. Asagumo was temporarily stopped in the water as a
result , but close by Minegumo continued to rain fire on Electra, eventually sinking her at 6.16.
After two hours of fighting, Rear Admiral Doorman had got nowhere near the Japanese convoy and
had lost two ships. Still determined to press an attack that evening, he swung around to the south,
intending to break contact with the Japanese until night fell,
and then try and reach the convoy under the cover of darkness.
Takagi assumed Doorman was returning to port to lick his wounds, and so was caught off guard when
the Allied force turned to the northeast at 6.31. The Japanese admiral was quickly informed of this
by another floatplane, and was largely able to reform his squadron by seven minutes past seven.
Complicating this process were the cruisers Nachi and Haguro, which
were both stationary while they recovered their floatplanes, and so were slow to regain speed.
In the mean time Rear Admiral Tanaka’s destroyers had ended up in the firing line,
taking fire from Houston and Perth, and launching an unsuccessful volley of torpedoes in return.
Doorman shifted again to the East, trying to work his way around to the south of the Japanese force
so he could attack the convoy. An hour later, the Allied force was steaming westwards,
though it was doing so without the four American destroyers under Commander Thomas Binford.
Binford unilaterally detached his ships from Doorman’s fleet at 9pm , citing low fuel and a
shortage of torpedoes; though it is also possible he was wary about following the Dutch admiral
into an unwinnable fight. At 9.25 the destroyer Jupiter struck
a mine and sank, leaving Doorman with just the four cruisers under his control, and the damaged
destroyer Encounter limping along behind. A new Japanese floatplane arrived overhead,
this time from the light cruiser Naka, dropping flares to mark the position of the Allied fleet.
Doorman’s ships were outnumbered, low on ammunition and the enemy knew exactly where
they were. But still he was determined to press home an attack on the convoy come what may.
At two minutes past eleven, a lookout on the Japanese cruiser Nachi spotted Allied
ships in the darkness, about sixteen thousand yards to the south east.
Rear Admiral Takagi quickly swung his force around to steam north, ordering torpedoes to
be loaded as Allied shells began to splash nearby at 11.10. Japanese guns thundered in return eleven
minutes later, and shortly afterwards the final torpedo salvo of the day was launched.
Fourteen minutes later, a torpedo from Nachi impacted Java’s aft magazine, causing a tremendous
explosion that consumed the ship and sank it within two minutes. Of 528 crew, 19 survived.
Rear Admiral Doorman, believing the torpedo threat had now passed, turned De Ruyter to starboard,
unwittingly steaming directly into the path of four torpedoes that had been fired by the Haguro.
There was a huge explosion, followed by fire,
and the loss of electrical power. De Ruyter’s demise would take longer but have the same result,
slipping below the waves at two thirty in the morning. 344 crew went down with her,
including Rear Admiral Doorman, who refused to leave his ship.
The cruisers Perth and Houston quickly turned away,
making for the port of Tandjong Priok to regroup.
The Allied striking force was shattered, and the way was clear for the Japanese invasion of Java.
Over the next few days, the remaining Allied ships at Java would try to escape. Some were successful,
like the dash of Commander Binford’s destroyers through the Bali strait on the night of March 1st.
Others did not get so lucky. To the west of Java both Perth and Houston were sunk in the Sunda
strait on the same night. The following morning the damaged Exeter and two destroyers tried
desperately to escape, in an ultimately fatal westward dash along the entire length of Java.
All around Java any remaining Allied ships were hunted down and defeated, as the final Allied
position in the east indies collapsed. In just a couple of months, Japan had swept through the
region, while the Allied powers had been unable to halt or even really delay their opponents.
Allied ships had been unable to sink anything larger than a minesweeper, and had taken grievous
losses themselves. Most of the Allied ships that were still afloat in March 1942 were those that
had been pulled out earlier for prior damage or had miraculously been able to slip away.
Japan was now unquestionably the master of south east asia,
and it would take a very long time to change that.