Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II

493 Pages·2014·5.8 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Cox

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Rising Sun,
Falling Skies
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contents
Prologue 7
Chapter 1. On the Day Before 11
Chapter 2. Just a Little More Time 29
Chapter 3. Breakdown 53
Chapter 4. Finding Trouble 69
Chapter 5. Shooting at Venus 113
Chapter 6. Slapped Together 127
Chapter 7. Luck – The Battle of Balikpapan 151
Chapter 8. Bloody Shambles 163
Chapter 9. Can’t Catch a Break – The Battle of the Flores Sea 173
Chapter 10. A Thousand Cuts 191
Chapter 11. Too Clever by Half – The Battle of Badoeng Strait 223
Chapter 12. No Breath to Catch – Preliminaries to the Battle of the Java Sea 241
Chapter 13. Nerk Nerk Nerk – The Sinking of the Langley 265
Chapter 14. One Shell – Day Action of the Battle of the Java Sea 281
Chapter 15. A Turn Too Far – The Second Part of the Battle of the Java Sea 307
Chapter 16. A Hopeless Plan – The Escape from Java 325
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Chapter 17. Dancing in the Dark – The Battle of Soenda Strait 339
Chapter 18. Nowhere to Run – The Second Battle of the Java Sea 353
Chapter 19. To the Winds – Escape Attempts from Java 369
Chapter 20. Aftermath – Not Quite Vanquished 401
Notes 416
Bibliography 474
Index 480
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PROLOGUE
Few events have ever shaken a country, or become part of the national consciousness,
in the way that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor affected the United States. Even
today, more than seven decades after that fateful Sunday, almost every American knows
the date December 7, 1941. Everyone knows what happened on that date – the start of
World War II in the Pacific.
It is common knowledge. It is also wrong.
For World War II in the Pacific did not begin at 7:55 am local time on December 7,
1941 with the massive surprise attack on the base of the United States Pacific Fleet at
Pearl Harbor: an attack that sank virtually all the fleet’s battleships and left it, in the word
of one official message, “immobilized” and unable to help fight against the Japanese hell
that was about to descend on Southeast Asia.
By 7:55 am on December 7, World War II in the Pacific had been in progress for more
than eight hours.
The first act of the war was not nearly as spectacular as Pearl Harbor, but it was just as
dramatic. And deadly. It took place over the South China Sea, off the coast of what is now
Cambodia. There, an Australian pilot by the name of Patrick Bedell and his flight crew,
operating a British Royal Air Force Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat out of
Singapore, was intercepted by Japanese fighters. Shot down in an exploding fireball,
Bedell and his flight crew were killed, their bodies never found.
Their “crime?” They had gotten too close to the Japanese invasion fleet destined for
British Malaya, now called Malaysia.
While Pearl Harbor attracted all the headlines, for obvious reasons, the deaths of
Patrick Bedell and his crew were actually the more significant incident. For Pearl Harbor
was only the means to an end. Bedell and his crew were standing in the way of the
ultimate goal: the conquest of tin- and rubber-filled Malaya with its fortress of Singapore
and the oil-rich islands around the Java Sea – Borneo, Sumatra, and Java.
In the time immediately after Pearl Harbor, the war in the Pacific became something
of a blur, as the Japanese juggernaut quickly racked up conquest after conquest. Lost in
that blur were the efforts of Patrick Bedell and small groups of British, Australians,
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Rising Sun, Falling Skies
Americans, and Dutch, whom the attack on Pearl Harbor had left largely isolated in the
Far East, to fight the Japanese advance alone.
The back of their resistance would be broken by their defeat at the hands of the
Japanese at the Battle of the Java Sea. But by then the “Java Sea Campaign,” as the US
Navy would later call it, was largely decided. It had long since stopped being a test of arms
and had become a test of character.
These Allied troops were thrown together by circumstances; cut off from reinforcement
or in many cases retreat; operating with old, obsolete equipment and dwindling supplies;
unable to get any rest, and, perhaps the most daunting feature of this campaign, enduring
Japanese air attacks day after day after day. With few notable exceptions, their goal was
not to win – that was impossible – but to delay the Japanese. Facing a relentless and
thoroughly vicious enemy, these Americans, British, Dutch, and Australians responded
not by running or surrendering, but by defiantly holding on, trying to buy weeks, days,
hours. They were the modern “300” Spartans of Leonidas, a thin line of defenders sent
forward to delay a thoroughly alien invader until a better line of defense – and offense –
could be established.
But the knowledge that they were alone, cut off, outnumbered, outgunned, would
take its toll. The certainty that every day with the rising sun would come Japanese
bombs falling from the sky would eventually take its toll. This is evident from the titles
of some of the relatively few books written about parts of this campaign: The Fleet
the Gods Forgot; The Lonely Ships; Every Day a Nightmare; Playing for Time; Another
Six Hundred.
These were the men of the US Asiatic Fleet, the British Eastern Fleet, the Royal
Netherlands Navy’s East Indies Squadron and the Royal Australian Navy – and their
supporting units like Patrol Wing 10, the Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service, the US
Army Air Force’s 17th Pursuit Squadron (Provisional), and submarine crews from all
these fine nations.
This is their story – the story of how they ended up in the Java Sea Campaign, and of
how they fought, endured, and suffered, through those first months of the War in the
Pacific. This book is for them, to them and to their memory. It aims to preserve their
exploits, their sacrifices, and their accomplishments.
Many books have covered various parts of the Java Sea Campaign – commemorating
fleets such as the US Asiatic Fleet, Force Z, and the East Indies Squadron, individual ships
like the Houston, the Perth, and the Exeter, units such as Patrol Wing 10, the Far East Air
Force, and the Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service. But few have covered the naval
campaign in its entirety – from the hammer blows of the destruction of the Far East Air
Force and Force Z in the first days of the war, which crippled Allied resistance in the Far
East, to the attempted escape of the remnants of ABDACOM and its naval forces in the
early days of March 1942. This book will attempt to fill that void so that, hopefully,
the struggles of our servicemen in the early days of the Pacific War may be better
understood and appreciated.
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PROLOGUE
To preserve the memory of these men and their achievements, this book is written not
just for historians and scholars (both amateur and professional), but also to people new
to history, looking to explore for the first time our fascinating past and what it can teach
us. It therefore tries to simplify. The use of military acronyms is kept to a minimum, time
is presented in the civilian, 12-hour format (local unless otherwise noted), and military
terms such as “crossing the T” or “line turn” are explained in either the text or the notes.
The reader is encouraged to check out the endnotes. Not only do they form the factual
basis for this narrative, but they are also a concerted effort to acknowledge previous
histories detailing various elements of the Java Sea Campaign. Those authors and
researchers deserve credit for their efforts at preserving the memory of this overlooked
World War II campaign.
Perhaps most importantly, the reader should be aware of one critical consideration:
every word of this book, every conclusion, every praise, every criticism, is written from
the perspective of an attorney sitting safe at a desk some seven decades removed from the
events described herein, who will hopefully never be subject to the horrors experienced by
the subjects of this book, writing not because the job requires it, but out of a love of and
fascination with the Java Sea Campaign that has existed since childhood. It is in my
capacity as an attorney that I made a shocking discovery. While writing this book, I was
asked to provide legal assistance to a veteran of the Pacific War who had served in Iwo
Jima and Okinawa, and his wife. After the matter was completed, I discussed the war with
the veteran and heard some remarkable stories. I thanked him for his service in the Pacific
War, in protecting the freedom of speech that allows the publication of this book. After
that, I left.
A half hour later I received a call from his wife. She told me how meaningful my
thanks had been to him, because, as he explained it to her, he had never been thanked for
his World War II service.
To me this was both shocking and shameful.
So, in my own small way, Rising Sun, Falling Skies is an effort to say to these heroes of
the Pacific who served in the Java Sea Campaign with little in the way of appreciation
or even acknowledgment, and to all of our veterans and our current servicemembers
who are deployed around the world protecting the freedoms we enjoy, though we may
not fully appreciate them, these two words:
THANK YOU.
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CHAPTER 1
on the day before
On the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Vice Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo
stood on the spacious bridge of his fl agship, the heavy cruiser Chokai, looking out over
the South China Sea, preparing to carry out the invasion of Malaya.1 Th ough the marquee
event was to take place thousands of miles away at Pearl Harbor, Ozawa was in the real
center of the action, the real objective of the Japanese war eff ort – the conquest of Malaya
(now Malaysia) and the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia): “Strike South,” as the
Japanese sometimes referred to this massive operation, or the “Centrifugal Off ensive,” as
US military theorists would later call it.
Th is was the beginning of World War II in the Pacifi c, and Admiral Ozawa, as well as
everyone on the naval general staff in Tokyo, knew it. It has often been said that World
War II was actually a continuation or an extension of World War I. Th at may have been
true in Europe. But not in the Pacifi c. While World War I did have some eff ect in East
Asia and the Pacifi c, World War II in the Pacifi c, or the “Pacifi c War,” was essentially
unrelated to World War I or, for that matter, World War II in Europe. On the contrary,
it has been argued that this Pacifi c War was a natural (some might say inevitable) outcome
of the meteoric rise of Japan.
Th e seeds of the Pacifi c War were indeed many and varied, but probably the most
direct route to the war was opened on July 8, 1853, when, propelled by the US annexation
of California, the opening of Chinese ports, the shift from sail to steam, and the growth
of the American whaling industry, Commodore Matthew Perry from the US Navy sailed
into Tokyo Bay with his four ships to “re-establish trade and discourse between Japan and
the western world,” or at least to agree to open certain ports to American trade and to
replenish coal and supplies for the US commercial whaling fl eet. For America, it was the
age of Manifest Destiny, and Japan was needed to help attain that destiny. For Japan,
which had isolated itself from most foreigners since 1626, Perry’s arrival and refusal to
brook opposition to any aspect of America’s request proved to be as traumatic as the
Japanese response was ultimately dynamic – dynamic in a way few countries have ever
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Rising Sun, Falling Skies
been able to achieve. On March 31, 1854, Japan signed the Treaty of Kanagawa signaling
friendship between the two countries, opening two ports to American ships, agreeing to
help American ships and their passengers and crews shipwrecked on the Japanese coast,
and allowing American ships to buy supplies, coal, water, and other necessary provisions
in Japanese ports.
This victory for the Americans, after a celebratory feast, ultimately precipitated a
national upheaval for Japan, sowing the seeds that would later come to fruition in the
Pacific War. In 1867, Japan’s military dictatorship, known as the Tokugawa Shogunate,
was removed from power and the archaic, feudal shogunate system for rule by generals
was dismantled. Now Japan would be ruled by an emperor.2 This was considered a major
improvement. Starting in 1868 with the official fall of the Tokugawa, rule by an actual
emperor who had real power was restored to Japan. This throne was occupied by a man
who, during his lifetime, was known to the West by his given name of Mutsuhito; since
according to Japanese tradition, the given name of the emperor was not referenced during
his rule. However, like many royal families in Asia, he was given a second name to be used
posthumously, especially in Japan. It was by this name that this emperor’s rule would
become known to history: Meiji.
The Meiji Restoration, as this era would eventually become known, would be marked
by an amazingly swift change from an isolated, feudal, agricultural society to a modern,
industrialized one with ties and influence the world over. Japan began a crash course in
modernization that may be unrivaled in all of human history, in terms of both the scale
of its effort and its phenomenal success.
The new powers of the emperor were enshrined in a “Constitution of the Empire of
Japan,” usually called the Meiji Constitution, a rather complicated and somewhat
controversial blueprint for the new Japanese government. After the Meiji Constitution
came into effect in 1890, Japan became a constitutional monarchy, of a sort. The emperor
was constitutionally limited to absolute power. The civilian government was parliamentary
in nature, but the national parliament, the Diet, had little real power. Historically,
however, the Japanese emperor had not ruled directly. The emperor, who was also the
chief priest of Japan’s state religion, Shintoism, was believed to be the descendant of the
sun goddess Amateratsu of the southern island of Kyushu so an element of divinity was
always attached to the emperor’s image. The emperor was separated from his subjects by
concentric circles of advisors, courtiers, generals, ministers, and the imperial bureaucracy.
This separation was an extensive and deliberate construct, intended to protect the
emperor. It is in this context that the Meiji Constitution with its vague and sometimes
contradictory terms must be understood.
Under Meiji, Japan moved relentlessly forward with modernization, industrialization,
and Westernization. Meiji had seen what had happened to neighboring China, with the
European powers using the weakness and corruption of the ruling Qing Dynasty to
nibble away at its sovereignty – resulting in “concessions” that gave sovereignty to the
French in part of Shanghai, to the British in Hong Kong, to the Germans in Tsingtao,
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On the Day Before
and so forth. He was determined that this would not happen to Japan. And the Japanese,
with an admirable determination, modernized within the space of a generation.
But that modernization, industrialization, and Westernization had a very dark thread
running throughout, a subtle thread that went little noticed in the West. Japan had been
isolated for more than 200 years as a response to initial visits by aggressive Christian
missionaries starting in the 16th century who, the Tokugawa and the emperor felt,
threatened Japan’s Shinto religion. In 1626, Christianity was banned in Japan and the
country closed its doors to outsiders. To the Japanese, the Americans and Europeans were
“barbarians” – although that particular feeling was mutual – so Perry’s entry into Tokyo
Bay and his refusal to accept any compromise was offensive, intolerable, humiliating.
It was a loss of “face,” an always ephemeral concept that remains hugely important in
Asia and imperfectly understood in the West.
Meiji and his advisors came up with a solution that would turn Westernization on its
head. In essence, they would learn all they could about the Europeans and Americans,
copy their industry, modernize the Japanese military, and then drive the barbarians out of
the Japanese home islands. Japan would drive outward, conquering its neighbors to create
a buffer zone that would prevent the Europeans and Americans from ever setting foot on
Japanese soil again.3
Soon enough, Japan was indeed copying those European powers in helping itself to
pieces of a corrupt and weakening empire. With a desperate need for resources and space
for its exploding population, in 1894 Japan went to war with China for control of Korea,
which both countries had been ruling as a co-protectorate. Using the pretext of Korea’s
Tonghak Rebellion, which both Japanese and Chinese troops had been sent to quell, the
Japanese marched down the strategic Liaotung (Liaodong) Peninsula west of Korea and
captured the strategic port of Port Arthur (now the Lüshunkou district of Dalian). China
had been considered stronger than Japan up to this point, so Japan’s rapid defeat of
Chinese land and naval forces demonstrated to the world that Japan had become a
military power to be reckoned with. Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed on April
17, 1895, China recognized the “independence” of Korea, which was now ruled by a
Japanese puppet government, and ceded Formosa (Taiwan), the Pescadores Islands, and
the Liaotung Peninsula to Japan, including the forced leasehold of Kwantung, an area at
the tip of the Liaotung Peninsula that included Port Arthur. Alarmed at the sudden
Japanese aggression and expansion, Germany, France, and Russia under the terms of the
Triple Intervention agreement – a direct response to the first Sino-Japanese conflict –
threatened war with Japan if it did not give up Kwantung. The Japanese were outraged,
but they could not very well fight three major powers at once – yet – and they returned
Kwantung to China.
Having possessions on mainland Asia, however, put Tokyo on an imminent collision
course with Russia and its eternal search for a warm-water port. In December 1897, the
Russian Far East Fleet arrived up to occupy Port Arthur, essentially doing some
base-shopping and counting on the guns of the fleet’s battleships to smooth out any
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