



Dutch East Indies Campaign, Java

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseBattle of Makassar Strait

4 Feb 1942

ww2dbaseOn 3 Feb 1942, the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command gathered a sizable task force to stop a Japanese invasion force sailing down the Makassar Strait. On the morning of 4 Feb, Japanese reconnaissance aircraft discovered this Allied fleet, and two-engine bombers were sent to attack. Without air cover, the Allied fleet suffered two damaged cruisers and was forced to turn back to Tjilitjap without making contact with the invasion fleet. Makassar fell shortly thereafter.

ww2dbaseBattle of Badung Strait

19-20 Feb 1942

ww2dbaseThe invasion of Bali was carried out by a relatively small advance force of Japanese warships covering a pair of transports. The transports successfully disgorged their troops in Sanur Roads, but were attacked during the day by Allied airpower. One of the transports was severely damaged. The Japanese withdrew the majority of their force to the north, detailing one pair of destroyers (Michishio and Arashio) to escort the cripple, and another pair (Oshio and Asashio) to bring up the rear with the undamaged Maru. Just as this latter pair was getting underway, the first of two Allied squadrons charged with breaking up the landings appeared. Composed of a Dutch and Australian light cruiser and three destroyers, it heavily out-gunned the Japanese force. However, the Japanese bravely gave battle, first driving off the light cruisers through the channel northward, and then turning to attack the Allied destroyers. A successful torpedo attack resulted in the sinking of one of the Allied destroyers, which then shortly drew off to the south.

ww2dbaseShortly afterwards, however, the second Allied squadron of four U.S. destroyers and a Dutch light cruiser came up the Strait from the south as well. Oshio and Asashio again returned to defend the damaged transport against a second superior enemy force. In short order they had attacked the U.S. destroyers so fiercely as to force them to withdraw through the Strait to the north, leaving only the Dutch light cruiser Tromp to be dealt with. This they quickly did, hitting the cruiser eleven times in the superstructure in rapid succession. She, too, fled.

ww2dbaseThe final act was played out as some of the Allied warships retreating northward ran into Michishio and Arashio. A sharp fight developed, in which Michishio was heavily damaged. However, the Allied ships continued on their way without giving a serious fight.

ww2dbaseThe final result of this rather confusing action was that two superior Allied squadrons had been manhandled almost single-handedly by a lone pair of audacious Japanese destroyers. It was a most embarrassing performance by the Allies, who were admittedly heavily fatigued, but who possessed more than enough firepower to deal handily with their Japanese adversaries. This was the first of the impressive night-fighting performances the Japanese Navy would turn in throughout the war.

ww2dbaseSpecial thanks to Kevin Denlay for his contributions to this section. ww2dbaseBattle of the Java Sea

27 Feb 1942 ww2dbaseOn 26 February, ABDA commander Admiral Karel Doorman gathered his multi-national task force and sailed from Surabaya at the east end of Java, his intention to intercept a Japanese convoy sailing towards Java from the Makassar Strait. Doorman's force consisted of every warship available to him, including two heavy cruisers HMS Exeter and USS Houston, three light cruisers Hr Ms De Ruyter (flagship), Hr Ms Java, and HMAS Perth, and nine destroyers; HMS Electra, HMS Encounter, HMS Jupiter, Hr Ms Kortenaer, Hr Ms Witte de With, USS Alden, USS John D. Edwards, USS John D. Ford and USS Paul Jones. The Japanese convoy was escorted by two heavy cruisers HIJMS’s Nachi and Haguro, two light cruisers Naka and Jintsu, and fourteen destroyers Yudachi, Samidare, Murasame, Harusame, Minegumo, Asagumo, Yukikaze, Tokitsukaze, Amatsukaze, Hatsukaze, Yamakaze, Kawakaze, Sazanami, and Ushio, all under the command of Rear Admiral Shoji Nishimura of the Japanese 3rd Fleet. ww2dbaseAfter a fruitless overnight and morning search for the Japanese convoy, Doorman’s force was returning to Surabaya when he received an electrifying report that the invasion convoy had been sighted near Bawean Island. He immediately reversed course and the two opposing forces finally met in the Java Sea to the northwest of Surabaya at a little after 4pm on the 27th. The Allied ships immediately aimed to reach the troop transports approaching from the north, but the superior Japanese firepower kept the Allied Fleet, which sported some obsolete WW1-vintage ships, at bay. In one of the more rare occasions, the Allies actually had air superiority in the region, but bad weather prevented the aircraft from operating. The Allied inability to operate as a coherent unit, which was worsened by Japanese jamming of Allied radio frequencies, sealed their doom from the start. ww2dbaseAt about 4.30pm the Japanese began launching salvos of their long range 24-inch torpedoes, but, surprisingly, despite the numbers fired there was little result. During the next three hours of battle only one allied destroyer was sunk by torpedoes from the 139 that had been fired! Japanese gunfire, also questionable at first, nevertheless scored an accurate hit on Exeter, critically wounding her in B Boiler Room; other cruisers where also hit but these were ‘duds’ which failed to explode. Moments after Exeter was hit and had sheared out of the battle line, Kortenaer was struck by a torpedo which broke her in two and sunk her quickly. As the damaged Exeter attempted to withdraw with a destroyer screen, the Japanese forces continued to exert pressure with gunfire and another torpedo salvo. Electra, in order to cover Exeter, charged through the smoke only to be quickly overwhelmed by gunfire from Jintsu and Asagumo which eventually led to an abandon ship order and her sinking soon after. Exeter, with her speed dramatically reduced but her luck holding, continued slowly to retire from the battle area towards Surabaya accompanied by the destroyer Witte de With. ww2dbaseAs light waned at dusk, Admiral Doorman tried on several occasions to double back and attack the Japanese transports, but was intercepted and driven back each time. After dark the four older American destroyers, low in fuel and out of torpedoes, retired eastward to Surabaya on their own initiative (the next evening they departed the area through the southern Surabaya channel and then the Bali Strait, eventually safely reaching Australia). Shortly after dark, as Doorman headed west along the Java coast – with the intention of turning north for another stab at the transports - the destroyer Jupiter was lost to an uncharted Dutch minefield. The allied fleet, or what was now left of it, turned north and soon passed though the area where Kortenaer had previously sunk. Survivors were seen in the water so Doorman dispatched his last destroyer, Encounter, to their rescue and ordered her to transport the survivors to Surabaya. Then, just before midnight on the 27th, as Dorman pressed on further north with only his four cruisers remaining, a spread of Long Lance torpedoes fired by the Japanese cruisers Nachi and Haguro struck both Dutch light cruisers, sinking Java almost immediately with De Ruyter sinking soon after. Admiral Doorman, aboard De Ruyter, chose to go down with his ship. Thus ended the engagement now known as the Battle of the Java Sea (or the Sea Battle off Surabaya to the Japanese). The Japanese had not lost a ship, and had fired 151 torpedoes that day for three allied ships sunk, (plus two others; one by gunfire, one by mine) making their overall torpedo kill ratio slightly more respectable. At this point the two remaining allied ships, cruisers Perth and Houston, acting on Doorman’s previous order not to stop for survivors, retired westward towards Batavia, i.e. present day Jakarta. (Unfortunately however both cruisers were themselves sunk just after midnight the next night, as was the Dutch destroyer Evertsen, as they attempted to exit the Java Sea via Sunda Strait. This engagement has since become known as the Battle of Sunda Strait.) ww2dbaseBy the time the two Dutch cruisers had been overwhelmed late in the evening of the 27th, Exeter had limped into Surabaya. Anchoring overnight she made what repairs she could throughout the 28th. Late that afternoon and with repairs still ongoing she was ordered to retire that evening to Colombo, taking Encounter and the US destroyer Pope with her as escorts, and was to use the Sunda Strait as the exit point. However, on the morning of 1 March, while crossing the Java Sea to the north of Bawean Island and still several hundred miles from Sunda Strait – and unaware of the sinking of Perth and Houston there just several hours before - the trio was intercepted by four Japanese heavy cruisers (Nachi, Haguro, Ashigara and Myoko) and their attendant destroyers. After a running gun battle lasting almost two hours both Exeter and Encounter were finally sunk. A couple of hours later, having temporally escaped the loss of her two consorts, USS Pope, the last allied warship afloat in the Java Sea, was tracked down and sunk by a combination of aerial attack and gunfire. (This overall engagement on 1 March is often referred to as the Second Battle of the Java Sea, but in later years has been more factually called the Battle off Bawean Island, which also helped differentiate it from the previous engagement on the 27th.) ww2dbaseThese three distinct and separate naval battles (Java Sea 1, Sunda Strait, Java Sea 2/Bawean Island) were the first large-scale engagements of the war between Japanese and Allied fleets, and they resulted in a decisive Japanese victory. (The Battle of the Java Sea – on the 27th - was in fact the largest naval engagement since the Battle of Jutland during WWI, some 26 years prior.) The ABDA fleet was essentially wiped out after these three sea battles, with 11 allied warships sunk and over 2,000 officers and sailors lost. Without a naval fleet to deter the Japanese invasion force, American and British forces began falling back to Australia, hence marking the practical fall of the Malay barrier. Unfortunately, the only strategic goal achieved by the decimation of the ADBA fleet was to delay the Japanese invasion of Java by just one single day; the remnants of Dutch and British troops eventually surrendering on 9 March. In just three tumultuous months Japanese forces had effectively overrun all of Asia. ww2dbaseSources for Battle of the Java Sea:



The Battle of the Java Sea / F C Van Oosten / Naval Institute Press / 1976

Battle of the Java Sea / D Thomas / Andre Deutsch Ltd / 1968

The Fleet the Gods Forgot / W G Winslow / Naval Institute Press / 1982

The Dutch Navy at War /A Kroese / Allen & Unwin Ltd /1945

HMS Electra / T J Cain & A V Sellwood / Freerick Muller Ltd / 1959

Fight It Out / O Gordon / William Kimber & Co. / 1959

Ship of Ghosts / J Hornfischer/ Bantam Books / 2006

ww2dbaseBattle of Sunda Strait

28 Feb 1942

ww2dbaseAustralian light cruiser Perth and American heavy cruiser Houston survived the Battle of the Java Sea and reached Tanjung Priok. On 28 Feb, they received orders to sail for Tjilatjap via Sunda Strait. On the night of 28 Feb, to both sides' surprise, the two Allied cruisers ran into the main Japanese invasion fleet for West Java at Bantam Bay off Batavia. At least three Japanese cruisers and accompanying destroyers engaged the two Allied cruisers, but because they were so widely dispersed that they could not converge on the Allied ships quickly. Houston and Perth immediately charged at the exposed transports guarded only by destroyer Fubuki. They were unable to sink any Japanese transports before the Japanese escort fleet closed in. Perhaps a bit trigger-happy as a result of the surprised engagement, the escort ships fired a total of 87 torpedoes against the two Allied ships, followed up by a hail of gunfire. The two Allied ships sank in short order. With torpedoes swimming in all directions, two Japanese ships, a minesweeper and a loaded troop transport, were struck and lost. Three other transports were also damaged by friendly torpedo fire.

ww2dbaseBattle of Java

1-12 Mar 1942

ww2dbaseWith the waters near Java secured after Battle of the Java Sea, the Japanese ground forces arrived at the island of Java in two groups. The Eastern Force, with its headquarters at Jolo Island in the Sulu Archipelago, included the 48th Division and the 56th Regimental Group; the Western Force, based at Cam Ranh Bay, French Indochina, included the 2nd Division and the 230th Regiment of the 38th Division. The two groups totaled about 35,000 men.

ww2dbaseThe Allied forces were headed up by Royal Netherlands East Indies Army General Hein Ter Poorten, with 25,000 Indonesian under his command; although the number was impressive, most of the men were poorly trained. The Dutch forces were divided up so that two regiments guarded the Jakarta region, and one regiment guarded each of the north central, southern, and eastern regions of the island. A garrison of 7,000 men, British, Australian, and American, under the command of British Major General H. D. W. Sitwell, was available to assist. The 3,500 British were predominantly anti-aircraft units, though one armored unit, the British 3rd Hussars, was present. The 2,500 Australians were of Blackforce of Brigadier Arthur Blackburn. The 1,000 Americans were of the 2nd Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery, a Texas National Guard unit, was attached to Blackforce.

ww2dbaseThe Japanese troops landed at three points on the Java shore on 1 Mar 1942. The victors of the Battle of the Sunda Strait delivered the Western Force, and the victors of the Battle of the Java Sea delivered the Eastern Force.

ww2dbaseOne group of the Western Force landed at Bantam Bay near Merak at 2320 on 28 Feb. Captain F. A. M. Harterink's Royal Dutch Indies Army 12th Infantry Battalion raked the beach with machine gun fire, but the overwhelming invasion force quickly wiped aside the resistance. Landing operations completed at 0200 on 1 Mar. After daybreak, the Japanese set up headquarters at Serang overseeing three detachments. The Nasu Detachment under Major General Yumio Nasu was ordered to capture Buitenzorg to cut the escape route from Batavia (where Jakarta was located) to Bandoeng, while the Fukushima and Sato Detachments, under Colonels Kyusaku Fukushima and Hanshichi Sato, respectively, attacked Batavia through Balaradja and Tangerang. On 2 Mar, the Nasu Detachment arrived at Rangkasbitung and continued to Leuwiliang, 24-kilometers west of Buitenzorg. The Australian 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion and 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion were positioned along a riverbank at Leuwiliang and put up a vigorous defense, pinning down the Japanese tanks and trucks for D Company of the 2nd Battalion of the American 131st Field Artillery to destroy. The Blackforce managed to delay Japanese advance for two days before withdrawing to Soekabumi. Meanwhile, Fukushima and Sato Detachments maneuvered their troops for Batavia, but progress was delayed by blown bridges. On 4 Mar, the main Dutch defense moved from Batavia to Buitenzorg, and the remaining pockets of resistance surrendered to the Sato Detachment by that evening. At the dawn of 6 Mar, Japanese troops attacked Buitenzorg, wiping aside the 10th Company of the Royal Dutch Indies Army 1st Infantry Regiment and the 10th Company of the Royal Dutch Indies Army 2nd Infantry Regiment, occupying the city by the end of the morning. As the Allied units fled for Bandoeng, the Nasu Detachment gave chase.

ww2dbaseMeanwhile, Shoji Detachment under Colonel Toshishige Shoji of the Western Force landed at Eretan Wetan near Soebang on the northern coast of West Java, also on 1 Mar. On that morning, 12 Dutch aircraft and 12 British aircraft attacked the beachhead, though to little effect. The town of Soebang, the Kalidjati airfield, and the road connecting Kalidjati airfield and Batavia all fell on the day of the landing. In the morning of 2 Mar, 20 Dutch tanks commanded by Captain G. J. Wulfhorst and 250 men of the Dutch 5th Infantry Battalion commanded by Major C. G. J. Teerink counterattacked near Soebang, but the attack was repulsed by the afternoon. Later that day, the Japanese 3rd Air Brigade arrived at Kalidjati airfield. As Shoji's units arrived at Lembang, only 8 kilometers from Bandoeng, he dispatched a small unit to assist the Nasu Detachment in eliminating the Dutch troops fleeing from Buitenzorg. At 1000 on 8 Mar, less than a day after Shoji's troops arrived at Lembang, Major General Jacob J. Pesman surrendered Bandoeng to Shoji at the Isola Hotel in Lembang.

ww2dbaseThe Eastern Force, consisted of the Japanese 48th Division under Major General Yuitsu Tsuchihashi landed at the village of Kragan, approximately 160 kilometers west of Surabaya. Dutch troops of the 3rd Cavalry Squadron of the 1st Cavalry Regiment resisted the landing, but were quickly defeated despite assistance from American horizontal and dive bombers and British torpedo bombers. After the beachhead was secured, the Japanese 48th Division was divided into the Imai Unit under Colonel Hifumi Imai, Abe Unit under Major General Koichi Abe, Tanaka Unit under Colonel Tohru Tanaka, and Kitamura Unit under Lieutenant Colonel Kuro Kitamura. The Tanaka Unit occupied Tjepoe and secured the oil fields there, while the Kitamura Unit occupied nearby Bodjonegoro, with the conquests completing on 2 and 3 Mar, respectively. The two units continued to move east and defeated Dutch defenders at the Ngawi Regency, Tjaroeban, Ngandjoek, Kertosono, Kediri and Djombang. At the city of Porong, near Surabaya, Dutch and American troops gave fierce resistance, but could only hold the line for so long before the numerically superior Japanese forces overwhelmed them. After destroying the city's infrastructure, they fled to the island of Madura on 8 Mar. On 9 Mar, Major General Gustav A. Ilgen surrendered eastern Java to the Japanese at Madura.

ww2dbaseA smaller group, the Sakaguchi Detachment consisted of three battalions, landed in eastern Java as well in early Mar 1942. After landing, they occupied Tjilatjap by 8 Mar to prevent the harbor being used to evacuate Allied troops to Australia. On 9 Mar, Major General Pierre A. Cox of the Dutch Central Army District surrendered at Wangon near Tjilatjap.

ww2dbaseAt 0900 on 8 Mar, Ter Poorten surrendered all of Java to the Japanese. The Dutch Governor, Jonkheer Dr. A.W.L. Tjarda Van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, along with Lieutenant General Ter Poorten and Major General Pesman, met with Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura at Kalidjati in the afternoon to finalize the surrender. At 2300, the Dutch radio station NIROM broadcasted for the last time from a temporary transmitter at Ciumbuluit, with Bert Garthoff ending his broadcast with "Wij sluiten nu. Vaarwel tot betere tijden. Leve de Koningin!" ("We are closing now. Farewell until better times. Long live the Queen!") On 10 Mar, Imamura was named the military governor of Java and Madura and remained in this role until 11 Nov 1942. On 12 Mar 1942, at Bandung, the British, Australian, and American commanders joined the Dutch government in the official surrender ceremony; Lieutenant General Masao Maruyama accepted the Allied instrument of surrender.

ww2dbaseAt the end of the land campaign at Java, the Allies suffered about 5,000 casualties, with the Dutch and Indonesian troops making up the bulk of that number.

ww2dbaseInvasion of Christmas Island

31 Mar 1942

ww2dbaseChristmas Island was a British possession 300 kilometers south of Java. It was a strategic location for the control of the northwestern approach to Australia. On 14 Mar 1942, the Imperial General Headquarters issued orders for Operation X as the concluding operation for the conquest of the Java region. The island was defended by a garrison of 32 men (most ethnically Indian) commanded by 5 British officers and non-commissioned officers, with the only heavy weapons available to them being one WW1-era 6-inch naval gun and two or three anti-aircraft guns.

ww2dbaseAlthough the Japanese knew they wielded a force that could easily wipe aside the defending garrison, a propaganda campaign was mounted to make the invasion even easier. They announced that the arrival of the Japanese in South and Southeastern Asia would be the liberation of Asian peoples from western imperialism, and many of the Indian troops believed it. On 10 Mar 1942, the Indian troops murdered their British superiors and jailed the few European inhabitants on the island.

ww2dbaseOn 31 Mar 1942, the invasion force arrived. Nishimura was the naval commander for this operation, with his flag on the light cruiser Naka. Light cruisers Nagara and Natori and destroyers Minegumo, Natsugumo, Amatsukaze, Hatsukaze, Satsuki, Minatsuki, Fumitsuki and Nagatsuki, supported by three smaller craft, made up Nishimura's fleet. The invasion force was made up by the 850 men from the 21st Special Base Force, 24th Special Base Force, and the 102nd Construction Unit. At dawn, 12 Japanese bombers destroyed the radio station on the island as a safety precaution, and at about 0800 Japanese troops landed at Flying Fish Cove without opposition. At 0949, American submarine Seawolf fired four torpedoes at Naka, but they all missed. At 0949 on 1 Apr, Seawolf launched three torpedoes at Natori, missing again. That evening, with the final two torpedoes, Seawolf managed to hit Naka on her starboard side, requiring her to be towed to Singapore by Natori for temporary repairs.

ww2dbaseChristmas Island never held an important role for the remainder of the war, despite some Japanese Army reconnaissance flights originated from the island to gather intelligence on Australia's northern and western coasts. On 3 Apr, three days after the invasion, the Japanese garrison was reduced to 20 men, and the only valuable natural resource, in the form of a large phosphate deposit, was taken back to Japan on a transport. After the war, the Indian troops who aided the Japanese were prosecuted by a military court in Singapore in 1947; five were given death sentences, though they were commuted to life imprisonment after protest from India and Pakistan.

ww2dbaseAftermath of the Campaign

ww2dbaseThe termination of the Java area battles saw the Japanese securing the vast resources of the Southwest Pacific and establishing a defensive perimeter along the arc of large islands stretching from Singapore south and east through Sumatra, Java, the northern shore of New Guinea, and Rabaul in New Britain. The Japanese Navy proved itself as equals to their western counterparts, but in retrospect Captain Mitsugo Ihara, staff officer of the Japanese 3rd Fleet, lamented that the

"[Allied] opposition [in the Java area] was so light that the Japanese forces were not put to a severe test and consequently they concluded that equipment available and the tactics used were satisfactory for future operations. It would have been better for the Japanese if they had encountered more opposition."

ww2dbaseSources: Interrogation of Japanese Officials, Nihon Kaigun, Wikipedia.

Last Major Update: Mar 2010

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