Status - John Skinner - USS O'Brien:
O'Brien was steaming for Pearl Harbor after repairs were completed at Mare Island. By March 2nd, O'Brien was approaching, or had reached, Pearl Harbor.
Battle of the Java Sea
The island of Java was the next target for the advancing Japanese forces. It is about 620 mile long (east to west), and about 120 miles wide (north to south). The two major cities were Batavia (now Jarkarta) in the west, and the capital, Surabaya in the east. The Japanese now sent two convoys to invade eastern and western Java. The western convoy had 56 transports, accompanied by 7 cruisers and 25 destroyers, and the eastern convoy was similar with 51 transports, accompanied by 4 cruisers and 13 destroyers. There were also Japanese air forces available from the nearby islands.
In an attempt to replenish the air forces in Java, the USS Langley (which had been the first US aircraft carrier and was now a seaplane tender) escorted a transport bringing new airplanes to the southern Java coast. On February 27th, Langley was sunk by ground based Japanese aircraft. The transport was able to deliver the aircraft, but they were never used, as Java fell too quickly for them to even be uncrated.
Since the outbreak of the war, the allies had had a joint command for the Australian, Dutch, British, and US ships, denoted as ABDA. The remainder of this force came together near the capital at Surabaya at the end of February, in the hope of intercepting one or both of the invasion convoys. There were four cruisers and nine destroyers left for this task. On the 28th, this force moved out toward the eastern Japanese convoy. After a long running firefight, two Dutch cruisers were sunk.
The remaining two cruisers, USS Houston and HMAS Perth headed for Batavia in the hopes of either confronting the western convoy, or transiting the Sunda Strait and returning to Austraila. After refueling, the next night the two ships sailed west and ran directly into the escorts for the western convoy. The two ships were greatly outnumbered and low on ammunition, and fought for a short time before being sunk. About a third of the crew of the Houston survived and made it to land, where they were captured. In the book Ship of Ghosts, James Hornfischer describes the experiences of the captured; many were forced to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway that was the inspiration for the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Other Japanese forces, including fleet carriers, were patrolling near Java, and sank many of the surviving Allied ships from the Battle of the Java Sea. A cruiser, 3 destroyers and an oiler were sunk on March 1st, and 2 more destroyers on the 2nd. This was the end of the ABDA force.
More Information:
- Official Navy Chronology, pp. 162-164
- The First South Pacific Campaign, John B. Lundstrom, pp. 35-36.
- Ship of Ghosts, James D, Hornfischer, pp. 45-145.
NEXT POST: MARCH 6TH
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