Cruiser (53 page)

Waller and Gordon were ushered into a conference room to find the Admiral and the Dutch, British and American Captains of the Striking Force gathered around a long table beneath a wall of maps. Doorman, speaking good English, outlined the task. Air reconnaissance north-east of Surabaya had encountered Japanese transports, escorted by cruisers and destroyers, on a course for Java. The Combined Striking Force would find and destroy them. The Allied destroyers would attack the transports with torpedoes while the cruisers would concentrate their gunfire from a distance. The Captains were
given some brief technical details: the order for leaving harbour, cruising stations at sea, and night recognition signals – and that was that.

As a plan for an encounter with an enemy at sea, it was pitifully slight, and Waller, with his experience of serving under Andrew Cunningham in the Mediterranean, must have wondered what on earth he was getting himself into. Doorman concluded with what he thought was a piece of good news. There might well be air cover, he said. The American seaplane tender USS
Langley
was due to arrive in Java from Australia the very next day with a cargo of 32 Tomahawk P-40 fighters and their pilots, ready for action. This remark produced a ripple of laughter around the table. Air cover? Fighter protection? Every officer there had heard those promises before, without result.

At sunset, the Combined Striking Force weighed and headed to sea, one American officer remembering that:

On paper, the force was impressive. There were five cruisers and nine destroyers. Doorman's flagship, Her Netherlands Majesty's Ship
De Ruyter
, was a modern light cruiser, less than ten years old, carrying 6-inch guns. The second Dutch cruiser,
Java
, was older – in fact, she had been obsolete when she was launched in 1925 – but also with a 6-inch armament.
Perth
and
Exeter
were the two Commonwealth cruisers. And the fifth and perhaps most remarkable of the lot was the USS
Houston
, a ship of such graceful lines and spacious accommodation that, for several years before the war, she had served as Franklin Roosevelt's presidential yacht. ‘My
Houston
,' he used to call her fondly. Like
Exeter
, she carried 8-inch guns, but her handsome looks were deceptive, for her rear turret had been wrecked by a Japanese bomb some weeks before, with the death of 48 men.
The shipwrights had patched it up for appearance's sake but it was entirely useless. Only the two for'ard turrets could train and fire. She had no radar and – something peculiar to US cruisers – she carried no torpedoes. Tokyo Rose, the Japanese propaganda broadcaster, regularly claimed she had been sunk, which inspired her proud crew to give her the name of ‘The Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast'.

Houston
was still technically the flagship of the US Asiatic Fleet – another naval euphemism much grander than the reality. There were no battleships and no aircraft carriers in the Asiatic Fleet. Its three cruisers and its destroyers and submarines had left the Philippines in hurried disorder after the Japanese invasion in December, and in the succeeding months they had been whittled away.
Houston
was now the only cruiser left, but she brought with her to Doorman's force four destroyers of First World War vintage, the USS
John D. Edwards
,
John D. Ford
,
Alden
and
Paul Jones
. As lean and low as whippets, of just over 1000 tons and with four tall funnels each – ‘four-pipers' the Americans called them – they carried 12 torpedo tubes, but, like
Houston
, they were worn from age and the stress of battle, their engines in need of careful nursing.

Completing the destroyer force were the three British ships,
Electra
,
Jupiter
and
Encounter
, which had arrived at Surabaya with
Perth
and
Exeter
, and, finally, two small Dutch ships,
Kortenaer
and
Witte de With
.
Kortenaer
had a leaky boiler, which restricted her speed to 25 knots.

Leaving Surabaya, there was a bad omen when
De Ruyter
collided with a tug and a barge, sinking both, but there was also a cheerful note of British elan as
Exeter
swept down the channel with the strains of ‘A-hunting We Will Go' blaring from her speakers. There might have been less good cheer if the men had been aware that Doorman had ordered that any damaged ship was to be left behind and that survivors of sunken ships were not to be rescued. In calm seas lit by a moon almost full, the force headed north in search of the enemy.

They found nothing – no sign of a convoy at all. But at
dawn the next morning, 27 February, the enemy found them. A lone Japanese reconnaissance plane shadowed them at a distance and eventually called up a handful of bombers. There were a couple of perfunctory attacks, beaten off by anti-aircraft fire, and no damage was done, but it added to the strain on crews weary from a sleepless night. They did not know that yet another Allied disaster was unfolding south of Java. The old carrier
Langley
, on the way from Australia, was bombed. Most of her crew abandoned ship, leaving her a blazing wreck, which eventually sank just 120 kilometres from the Java coast. Her much-needed aircraft went to the bottom with her. Doorman's captains, sceptical about his promise of fighter cover, would find their doubts justified once again.

Disappointed by the fruitless search, knowing that his destroyers were low on fuel and aware of the stress on his men, the Admiral decided to return to Surabaya and resume the search the next day. Away in Bandung, Helfrich, furious at what he thought was a lack of resolve, instructed Doorman to reverse course and continue hunting. Doorman chose to disobey the order, signalling to his boss instead that:

It was an accurate and compassionate observation. For months, these ships and men had found no time for rest, no moment to restore body or spirit, either at sea or in harbour. They were exhausted, mentally and physically.
Perth
's ship's company, relatively new on the scene, was in better shape, but not much. Anything for a night's sleep. A couple of hours' sleep. Surabaya, even with its stinking oil fires and its inevitable air raids, beckoned invitingly. The Striking Force prepared to enter harbour that afternoon.

Just after two o'clock, Helfrich signalled again. Dutch aircraft had sighted three groups of Japanese ships slightly to the north of where Doorman had been the night before. The
reports were emphatic. There could be no doubt. It was the invasion force. A flag hoist whipped up
De Ruyter
's foremast. ‘Follow me,' it said. Laboriously, the Striking Force turned about and headed out to sea again, lashed by a sudden tropical rain squall. Hec Waller, soaked to the skin on
Perth
's bridge, called for a fresh shirt and shorts from his sea cabin. Stripping naked, he towelled himself off and dressed again – a costume change in the opening act. The prelude to the Battle of the Java Sea had begun.

Less than a hundred kilometres to the north, on the bridge of the destroyer
Amatsukaze
(
Heavenly Wind
), Lieutenant-Commander Tameichi Hara
⁷
was pacing back and forth, smoking nervously. The sudden reversal of course by the Combined Striking Force, reported by Japanese reconnaissance aircraft, had him wondering if the Eastern Attack Group was blundering into a trap. At first, it had seemed the five Allied cruisers and their destroyers were fleeing to Surabaya. Now, they were heading out again. If they were to get among the lumbering transports full of soldiers, it would be wolves among the sheep.

Hara, from a poor farming family, was a graduate of Eta Jima, the prestigious but bare-knuckle Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. A thrusting career officer now aged 42, he had written the IJN manual on torpedo tactics and was looking forward to putting his theories into practice in his first time in action.
Amatsukaze
had been attacked the day before by two Dutch bombers but the bombs had hit the sea some 300 metres away. It seemed there was nothing much to fear there. The battle, when it came, would be of ships and men on the sea surface. The Long Lance torpedoes, the best in the world, would deliver the killer blows.

But Hara was right to be concerned. The Eastern Attack Group was split into three parts. At its centre was the troop convoy, escorted by the 4th Destroyer Squadron, made up of destroyers, minesweepers and the old light cruiser
Naka
. These ships were strung out over 30 kilometres, slogging along at
just ten knots in a haphazard zigzag towards Java. Some way ahead of the convoy was a covering force of more destroyers, the 2nd Destroyer Squadron, including
Amatsukaze
, led by another elderly light cruiser,
Jintsu
. The third component of the Attack Group, the 5th Cruiser Squadron, consisted of two fast and powerful heavy cruisers,
Nachi
and
Haguro
, mounting ten 8-inch guns and 12 torpedo tubes, commanded by Rear-Admiral Takeo Takagi, who was in overall control of the Attack Group. Each of his two giants, of 13,000 tons and 36 knots, easily outclassed any of Doorman's cruisers. But they were providing distant cover more than 200 kilometres astern of the troop convoy. Hara feared that the first two groups might be overwhelmed by the big guns of the Allied force before
Nachi
and
Haguro
could arrive on the scene. The battle would be over and the invasion of Java thwarted – a disastrous Japanese defeat.

Electra
was first to sight the enemy – a smear of smoke on the north-eastern horizon. It was just after 4 pm, in perfect sunshine, with high visibility and calm seas. She and the other two British destroyers were scouting some seven kilometres ahead of the Striking Force, all heading north-west. The five cruisers followed in line astern: Doorman in
De Ruyter
, then
Exeter
,
Houston
,
Perth
and
Java
. The two Dutch destroyers were behind the cruisers out on their port quarter, and the American four-pipers brought up the rear. At 4.12 pm, as the smoke began to turn into a thicket of masts and then funnels and full silhouettes,
Electra
sent a sighting report: ‘One cruiser, unknown number of large destroyers bearing 330° speed 18 knots, course 220°.' This was
Jintsu
with its destroyer squadron. The Japanese, heading west, would cross ahead of the Combined Striking Force, shielding the troop convoy, which had withdrawn to safety. Hara desperately scanned the sea behind him, praying that
Nachi
and
Haguro
were not far away. His prayers were answered. The two heavy cruisers loomed over the north-eastern horizon in the nick of time. In the Striking Force, and in the Attack Group, men tensed, guts knotted.

Doorman increased speed to 26 knots – the best the Dutch
destroyers could manage. The Japanese were first to open fire. On
Perth
's bridge, they saw the flashes from the enemy gun muzzles rippling down the line, bursts of light as bright as burnished copper. Then the shells were in the air, looking oddly like black crows, arriving with that sound somewhere between a high-pitched banshee scream and the rush of a speeding steam locomotive. Pillars of brown water erupted as they plunged into the sea, well short of the Allied ships. The range was still too great for hits by either side, much to the relief of Fred Skeels:

Doorman was now in danger of having his T crossed – a naval tactic known since the age of sail. The Combined Striking Force was the vertical line of the letter T. The Japanese were the crossbar, which meant they could bring all their guns to bear, fore and aft, their heaviest possible broadside, known as the ‘A' arcs. But the Allied ships on the vertical line could fire just their for'ard guns, and then from only those turrets not masked by ships ahead. Being on the crossbar confers a big advantage in firepower.

So Doorman made a turn in line to the west – the correct response, which would bring his cruisers parallel to the Japanese and allow all his guns to open their arcs … if they were in range. And this was the first of the Dutch Admiral's many errors. They were not in range. Doorman had turned
too early. The 8-inch guns of the heavy cruisers
Exeter
and
Houston
could barely reach the enemy line, their shells plunging short in a futile waste of ammunition, and the 6-inch cruisers,
De Ruyter
,
Java
and
Perth
, had no chance. Their guns stood silent. Yet the enemy's fire was now dangerously close. Japanese ballistics, finely honed, were superior. On
Perth
's compass platform, Hec Waller fumed in impotent despair. After the battle, he would write in his Action Report that ‘I found a long period of being “Aunt Sally” very trying without being able to return the fire'.
⁹