Well south of that column, Montgomery had a real dilemma on his hands. All of Western Java was a zone of heavy ashfall, and anything that lived was fleeing east, creating massive jams of refugees on the roads and a humanitarian nightmare. The desperate natives pleaded for help and, where they could, the British rendered assistance. The war was over in that portion of the island, and while light ashfall was experienced over most of Java, the real debilitating pumice and ash ended near Montgomery’s HQ at Bangdung.
Now he had to decide what to do with his Java Command Staff and a few battalions of the 54th Brigade he was holding in reserve. From all accounts, the chaos to the west was going to focus the remainder of his battle on the Japanese landing further east near Surabaya. Brigadiers Bennett and Clifton had already deployed there, and now he had most of his 18th division slogging east towards Cirebon. Word was that they found the rail lines operational there and could make good use of any rolling stock they could get their hands on. Krakatoa had pronounced its awful judgment on the strategies and plans of Generals on every side. Montgomery’s plan to try and hold Batavia was now swept away with that thunderous eruption, and he set his mind on deciding how to proceed.
“There’s nothing more we can do out west,” he told Bennett on the telephone. “We’ll have to come east and reinforce your defense of Surabaya. I’ll move the division through Cirebon to Semarang as soon as possible, and take what’s left of my reserve and headquarters to Surjakarta. It may be days before we can get sorted out, but we’ll muddle through.”
“What about Tjilatjap?” Bennett had asked. It was the only port open on the southern coast now.
“Blackforce is still there, with some local Dutch units and a few Aussie ships in the harbor. I can reinforce that position if need be, but I can’t see any immediate threat to the place at the moment. The Japanese must be as shaken up as we are. The Devil only knows what happened to those troops they landed out west. What is your situation?”
“Not entirely satisfactory,” said Bennett, with a characteristic understatement. “We’re holding Semarang, but the Japs have taken Rembang further east, and I’ve just the one battalion blocking the coast road in the north. My lines stretch southeast from there. Clifton holds the oil fields at Tejapu, but his right flank is open, and there appears to be heavy enemy movement in that sector.”
“They’re trying to flank Surabaya,” said Montgomery, “and I doubt if we’ll be able to get anything over that way for days.”
“My 2/20 Battalion is on the road northwest of Surabaya,” said Bennett. “It’s the only thing holding that axis at the moment, along with a company of those old Dutch armored cars.”
Montgomery took a deep breath. “Frankly, unless the Dutch can hold on, it doesn’t look like we can keep them out of Surabaya. Your 2/20th is likely to become caught up in all that.”
“Right,” said Bennett, “but I don’t much fancy the thought of those lads in a Japanese prison camp.”
“If need be, have them fall back through Surabaya to Malang. We’re still holding all of east Java, but if the Japs do swing south of Surabaya, that could change. It may be that the best we can do is stand the line from Semarang to Surjakarta, and hold on to Tjilatjap as our principal supply port until I can organize a counterattack.”
“Counterattack?” Bennett seemed surprised. All he had been doing since December was fighting one stubborn holding action after another. “That’s going to be a problem. I’m all for putting up the good fight, but that port can be easily interdicted by the Japanese Navy. To keep it open, Mountbatten and Somerville will have to maintain a constant presence south of Java, and with Perth being their only good base of support well to the south. For my money, we should get the troops off this god forsaken island while we can, and hold the line in Australia.”
“But if we move deliberately we can use that time to concentrate our entire force on Surabaya,” said Montgomery. “7th Australian Division is at sea, and coming to support us. Run this last Japanese division off, and we’ve won this thing.”
“But our boys won’t be able to come in at Batavia now,” Bennett warned.
“Yes, getting through the Sunda Strait is impossible. Tjilatjap will have to do. Then we can put them on the train to Surjakarta. By the time they get here, we should be ready for a decent push east to relieve the Dutch, assuming they can hold out that long.”
Monty’s dander was up, but his plan was overly optimistic. The Dutch would not hold, and that became the real problem. On the 1st of March, the Japanese landed at Karagajar east of Surabaya with three battalions of the Shoji Detachment supported by a recon battalion and two more engineer battalions and artillery from Makassar. Soon the city was flanked on every side, and Montgomery received the bad news the morning of March 3rd.
There was only one battalion of Australian troops supporting the Dutch garrison inside the vise around the port, and looking at his map Monty began to see a situation forming up that, as Bennett would have put it, was less than satisfactory. In spite of the catastrophic nature of the disaster, he had been pulling things together, and planning his next moves. The opportunity he saw in getting to Surabaya first had now slipped away. Fighting on the outer perimeter was tough going, and he could see that his troops would not get through.
If he had the Australian 7th Division in hand, that might do the job, but the disaster at Krakatoa meant Batavia was no longer there to receive them, and in the mind of Prime Minister Curtin, Tjilatjap would not do. He reluctantly gave the order to turn the convoy back to Colombo, the only other port it could possibly reach, and it would creep slowly back to the west, out of the battle, barely making port before the fuel ran out.
Now, with insufficient forces to really go on the offensive, Montgomery would be forced to heed Bennett’s advice and fall back on his only port at Tjilatjap. Obsessed with the capture of Surabaya, the Japanese did not attempt to pursue his withdrawal. The Dutch, and the brave stand put up by 2/20 Australian Battalion, would hold on just long enough for the bulk of the 18th Division to get down to the south coast, where they began boarding any transport shipping available.
The Japanese navy could have made a decisive intervention here, but all the ships were north of Java, and many had been sent to the stricken region out west in the hope of rescuing stranded troops of the 2nd Division. The destroyers and cruisers were plying through the dull grey seas, braving the ashfall, and pulling out a few hapless survivors adrift in the flotsam. One man in particular, would soon be found, and by a very important ship.
On the 5th of March, a flotilla of cargo ships arrived from Perth, and were joined at sea by Mountbatten with Illustrious and Indomitable backtracking from their flight to Colombo to serve as a covering force. They looked like gaunt shapes carved from bone, with ashfall completely blanketing every exposed area of the ships. They began pulling the rest of the 18th Division off, and the battle for Java would be lost. In spite of the presence of those troops, and the Rock of the East in Montgomery, nature had pushed the history along with the sheer power of that mighty eruption. The Rock was pushed along with it, and soon Montgomery would find himself in Perth, contemplating nothing more than a long sea journey back to Alexandria where he hoped to get back in the swing of things for Operation Supercharge.