To bolster this force, he called on the four American destroyers that had returned to Tjilatjap. They would join the four that had returned to Surabaya, and he would also press the cruiser Sumatra into service, even though it had been laid up with engine problems for some time. So he would end up with a baker’s dozen that day, the fleet limping out of Surabaya at no more than 26 knots.
The first American destroyer squadron led the way, with Edwards, Jones, Alden and Ford. Then came the Dutch squadron, the cruisers Java, Sumatra, De Ruyter, and two destroyers Witte de With and Kortenaer. Lastly he had the second US destroyer squadron, with Parrott, Pillsbury, Stewart and Pope. It was the last hurrah of what was once called the US Asiatic Fleet, and the final act in the drama the Dutch Navy would play in this campaign.
The Japanese knew the enemy was out there. Doorman’s fleet had been spotted by search planes off the cruiser Natori, and the fleet was subjected to a probing air strike at 14:20 that afternoon. No hits were scored by the few Japanese planes that came in, and Doorman reformed and pressed on. He was going to meet a different mix of forces this time out, largely from the Western Screening Force led by Rear Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa. He had been well north in the Malacca Strait, but learning of the British evacuation underway from Singapore, he moved quickly south to interfere. Though he had arrived too late to stop Montgomery and his troops from reaching Java, he was now in a perfect position to cover the western segment of the Java landings.
Ozawa had a fairly powerful group, light carrier Ryujo, 7th Heavy Cruiser Squadron with Kumano, Mikuma, Mogami, and Suzuya; light cruisers Natori, Yura, and Sendai, along with 12 destroyers in three divisions of four each. One division, and all his mine sweepers, stayed with the invasion convoy carrying 2nd Infantry Division. The rest of his covering force was out to give battle.
Doorman could feel in his bones that he was going to be overmatched that day, but true to his roots in Naval Aviation, he put out a call for air support as soon as the lead formation of Japanese destroyers was sighted. The British still had 36 of the 48 Hurricanes that had been operating from Sumatra. Now they were based at fields near Batavia, and they ran to answer the call. They would join a group of 16 Blenheims, and a few Hudsons and a squadron of Buffalos in an effort to gain air superiority over the Java Sea. Against this force, Ryujo would put up 16 A5M fighters and 12 B5Ns, and there were several squadrons of land based fighters coming from Balikpapan, with 25 Zeroes, and another 11 A3M Claudes in the first wave of Japanese air strength. The drone of their engines tipping over in a dive was the opening overture of the Battle of the Java Sea.
Chapter 14
Destroyer Flotilla 3 under Rear Admiral Hashimoto was the first to sight the Allied fleet. He had been steaming as part of a wide screening line of destroyers, his flag on the cruiser Sendai, with destroyers Fubuki, Hatsuyuki, Shirayuki and Shirakomo. Sendai opened the action at 16,000 yards with her 5.5 inch guns targeting the lead US destroyers, Edwards and Jones. The Japanese DD Flotilla then put on speed and charged in at the tail of that column, their guns engaging Alden and Ford.
Further south, the 5th DD Flotilla under Rear Admiral Hara aboard light cruiser Natori swung up to the northwest to engage the Dutch. Destroyers Asakaze, Harukaze and Matsukaze were in a good position to make a torpedo attack, and they put down a spread of 12 Long Lance torpedoes, firing from 15,000 yards. Behind them came the heavy cruisers Kumano, Mogami and Mikuma, and their bigger 8 inch guns already had the range to begin firing.
These three cruisers, all in the same class, had been cleverly designed in 1934 with five triple 6.1-inch gun turrets to be classified as a light cruiser. Yet the ships were over 8,500 tons, and 646 feet long as opposed to a standard Nagara Class light cruiser of about 5,300 tons and 534 feet in length. The barbettes for those five turrets were also secretly enlarged so they could accommodate a bigger turret during refits if desired. It was a deceptive little shell game played by Japan early in the treaty years, when they felt snubbed to be allocated fewer ships than the so called “Major Powers” like the US and Britain.
So in 1937, these ships all had their facelift, receiving better 8-inch gun turrets to deftly move them into the heavy cruiser class. Later on, the lead ship, Mogami, would be converted to a hybrid seaplane carrier, with 11 planes aft on a long flight deck, and three turrets forward, much like the Tone class.
Those three ships combined for thirty 8-inch guns, and they were going to wreak havoc on the thin skinned old destroyers. The American Tin Cans charged into the teeth of that fire, making smoke as they came, but visibility was good, the seas steady, and the Japanese aim was dead accurate. In the swirling duel that followed, Edwards, Pope, Alden and Ford would all take damaging hits, with the first three sinking within the hour, and Ford dead in the water. The engineers managed to get the screws turning again, and Ford limped off, fated to run into light cruiser Jintsu and come under the guns of heavy cruiser Haguro as it passed very near the Japanese landing zone, en route to Surabaya.
The Japanese destroyers lunged in towards the center of Doorman’s battle line, and the Long Lance torpedoes were again in the water, this time from the south. Yet the Japanese had little luck with this deadly weapon that day. One hit would take Dutch Destroyer Kortenaer aft, and the resulting explosion put so much damage on the screws and rudder that she would wallow helplessly for the next 40 minutes, eventually sinking at 18:20.
The line of three heavy cruisers then engaged Doorman’s force, and the ensuing battle would close to 8,000 yards and see hits on every side. Sumatra was so badly damaged that one of her boilers exploded, and the resulting fires would gut that ship in an hour. The Flagship De Ruyter was pummeled by no less than five hits, and had only one main gun operational thirty minutes into the fight.
This Japanese gunnery was superb compared to the results another set of heavy cruisers had obtained in the old history. There they had fired over 1600 rounds, getting only five hits, with four of those failing to explode. Those ships had been of the older Myoko Class cruisers. In this action it was all Mogami class, and they had scored at least sixteen hits for roughly the same expenditure of ammunition, an average of one hit per hundred rounds fired.
This was combat at sea in WWII, and nothing like the almost certain calculus that Kirov enjoyed. It was all a haphazard affair, one part seamanship, one part sweat and skill, three parts sheer luck. Doorman himself was wounded, his bridge clotted with heavy smoke, and he realized that his brave charge had done all it could. He turned about, hoping to make Surabaya before his ship lost power, and the remaining four US destroyers wheeled about to lay a heavy smoke screen and cover the withdrawal.