Last Stand in the East Indies - Battle of the Java Sea 1942 Animated

by late february 1942 allied forces in the duchy's 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 [Music] with the fall of bali the japanese troops by february 20th 1942 the capital of the duchy's 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 jollo together they comprised more than 100 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 from making a getaway on the allied side naval strength was much more limited allied ships have been operating under a unified allied command known as abdecom since january and had suffered a steady attrition of ships in battles with the japanese the latest casualties were the dutch cruiser trump and destroyers stewart and pietyne 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 sapporo conrad helfrich who had been keen to get onto the offensive against japan for some time his plans had been frustrated though both by the need to escort allied convoys and by fuel shortages which were starting to have an impact this meant that when an allied 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 tandyong priyong he hurriedly ordered ships to move to surabaya forming the combined striking force under rear admiral carrell dorman the combined force was built around the heavy cruisers houston and exeter they'd be supported by the light cruisers perth java and dorman's flagship the reuter there was also a good number of destroyers with three dutch four american and three british it was a decent size 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 dorwan to attack it that night dorman gathered his captains together for a conference outlining the basics of a plan to travel around madura island and engaged the japanese what was missing from the discussions though were details of how the ship would communicate and react in tactical situations this was particularly tricky because as a multinational force the ships under dorman'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 sizable language barrier between dorman and the english-speaking officers under his command nevertheless the combined striking force left port at 6 pm on february 26th completing a patrol overnight that did not find any sight of the japanese convoy dorman brought his ships back to surabaya to refuel but at 2 25 just as he was taking his ships into port a message arrived reporting the enemy fleet just 40 miles to the northwest the allied force immediately reversed course and steamed to meet their opponents the japanese convoy in question was approaching rapidly by 10 am that morning february 27th it had passed beijuan 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 admiral shoji nishimura and rizu tanaka for a total of two light cruisers and 14 destroyers at 11 am rear admiral takagi got the first bit of intelligence that there may be an allied force standing between him and java he launched a float plane from one of his heavy cruisers to get a visual and by 12 35 he had reports filtering back about the position and course of the combined striking force with dorman's ships initially heading away from him takahi continued to bring the convoy south to press on with the landing but when dorman turned north after 2pm takagi ordered the invasion ships to turn west out of harm's way the rear admiral then increased speed and prepared to fight a couple of hours later at 4 10 the british destroyer elektra had the first sight at the enemy looming over the horizon was the light cruiser jintsu followed very soon after by a view of two japanese heavy cruisers japanese fleet spotted dorman'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 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 have to get closer to bring the guns of the light cruisers into play this was easier said than done though as dorman was hamstrung by the slow speed of the destroyer quarter there 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 re-able 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 jinsu 22 000 yards distant only one found its mark though striking the destroyer caught in there at 513 and causing it to sink within a few minutes matas got even worse for the allies when at 508 a shell from haguro hit exeter and blew up in one of the ship's boiler rooms almost 40 sailors were killed instantly with super-heated steam venting from ruptured boilers the heavy cruiser's speed was reduced to 11 knots and power to its main armament was cut off temporarily heavily damaged exeter turned hard to pour 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 dorman on board de reuter who they couldn't see and so followed exeter's turn leaving deroyter steaming west on her own any kind of allied cohesion then broke down as dorman was forced to swing around to try and regain control of his fleet a smokescreen was laid quickly by the destroyers to desperately try and hide the disordered cruisers from japanese eyes the allied ships emerged from the smoke at 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 mass torpedo attack focused on trying to sink the damaged exeter between 5 50 and 604 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 smoke screen elektra traded fire with the whole of destroyer squadron 2 before hitting and damaging the destroyer asagumo which was forced to temporarily stop in the water alas elektra did not have much time to celebrate this as she was quickly set upon by minagumo who rained fire down eventually sinking elektra at 6 16. after two hours of fighting admiral dorman had got nowhere near the japanese convoy and had lost two ships still he was determined to press an attack that evening so 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 dorman was returning to port when he turned south so was caught off guard when the allied force suddenly turned to the northeast at 6 31. the japanese admiral was quickly informed of this by another float plane and was largely able to reform his squadron by 7 minutes past 7. complicating this process were the cruisers nachi and haguro which were both stationary while they recovered their float planes and so were slow to regain speed this meant that rear admiral tanaka's destroyers ended up in the firing line on their own taking fire from houston and perth and launching an unsuccessful volley of torpedoes in return dorman 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 dorman's fleet at 9 pm citing low fuel and a shortage of torpedoes though it is also possible he was concerned about following dorman into an unwinnable fight at 9 25 the destroyer jupiter struck a mine and sang leaving dorwan with just the four cruisers under his control and the damage destroyer encounter limping along behind a new japanese float plane arrived overhead this time from the light cruiser naka dropping flares to mark the position of the allied fleet dorman ships were outnumbered low in ammunition and the enemy knew exactly where they were but he was still determined to press home an attack on the convoy come what may at two minutes past eleven a lookout on the japanese cruisernachi spotted allied ships in the darkness about sixteen thousand yards to the southeast rear avron 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 11 minutes later and shortly afterwards the final torpedo salvo of the day was launched 14 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 just 19 survived rear admiral dorman believing the torpedo threat had now passed then turned derota to starboard unwittingly steaming directly into the path of four torpedoes that had been fired by the aguro there was a huge explosion followed by fire and the loss of electrical power deroiter's demise would take longer but have the same result with the ship slipping below the waves at 2 30 in the morning 344 crew went down with her including rear admiral dorman who refused to leave his ship [Music] with de reuter and java hit the cruisers perth and houston had quickly turned away making for the port of tanjong prioc 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 in 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 first others did not get so lucky to the west of java both perth and houston were sunk in the sunder strait on the same night and the following morning the damaged exeter and two destroyers tried desperately to escape in an ultimately fateful westford 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 have been unable to halt or even really delay their opponents allied ships have been unable to sink anything larger than a minesweeper and had taken grievous losses themselves japan was now unquestionably the master of southeast asia and it would take a very long time to change that [Music] you

Channel: Historigraph

Views: 392,199

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Keywords: battle of the java sea, historigraph, historiograph, historiography, dutch east indies

Id: Rz2ZQHirE-A

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/The_Blues__13]

yes, Japanese DDs & CAs and their massed Torpedo soup. name a more iconic duo

[u/Typical_guy11]

I'm not fan of various thinfoilhat theories but I read some time ago thing wchich puzzling me. I read this in viable book but it was only few sentences.

I read that there were some very secret talks between goverment of NEI and Japan to made separatistic peace beyond them to save from war NEI territory. Hovewer nothing such happened and Dutch citizens and soldiers were treated with extreme brutality ( garrison of Tarakan was thrown alive to be eaten by alligators etc. )

Japan declared war as I remember to the Netherlands in the middle of january 42 so more than month after 7-8 december 41 which seems very long period.