Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

Facing The JaPanese OnslaughT 1941–42
Waller’s team appreciated that the Japanese had air, surface and submarine superiority
to the north of Java, and possibly to the south of the island as well. They also knew
there were no Allied forces of any consequence to come to their assistance if the enemy
was encountered, and certainly not from the air. By 26 February ABDA air forces had
been reduced to 25 fighters and three bombers. The only Allied ships Waller expected
to encounter were the Australian minesweepers of the 21st Minesweeping Flotilla
patrolling Sunda Strait. Detection of a Japanese force would be through lookouts, as
neither Perth nor Houston had serviceable aircraft to launch, nor radar. 195
Although he was well supplied with the latest Allied information, Waller’s situation
could probably not have been averted by better intelligence. The Japanese had almost
total command of the air over the Java Sea, with considerable naval forces operating
at both ends of Java. His small force was trying to escape, and his best chance was to
slip through the neck of the bottle at Sunda Strait before it was blocked by the Western
Assault Group. Unfortunately, the information provided was incorrect: the IJN had
already closed that escape route. Small Allied naval forces leaving Tanjong Priok after
Perth and Houston were intercepted and sunk on 1 March. Cilicap was a temporary
haven that had to be abandoned only two days later. Several convoys fleeing towards
Australia were attacked and destroyed by a Japanese heavy cruiser force operating
in the Indian Ocean. 196
In retrospect it can be said that senior Allied commanders ignored intelligence in
continuing to send forces to prop up the collapsing situation in the Netherlands East
Indies. After Wavell had advised on 21 February that the situation was lost, there
was little to be gained by sending more ships to engage in futile battles against
overwhelming Japanese forces, except pride. Perhaps the British were consumed by
a sense of guilt over their failure to concentrate forces in accordance with PLENAPS
earlier in the campaign, when there had been a fighting chance of blunting the Japanese
advance. Helfrich was prepared to fight to the last, but one wonders why his Allies felt it
necessary to commit scarce and experienced ships to a cause clearly lost. 197 The lack of
these ships and their companies was to be keenly felt in the bitter months to come.
Regardless of much gallantry and sacrifice, the ABDA experiment failed, despite
intelligence on the Japanese threat and not because of any lack of it. The jigsaw was
virtually complete. The intelligence lesson to be learned from the short and futile history of
ABDACOM is that, no matter how good the intelligence provided, strategic and operational
commanders can only act effectively if they are able to assemble the necessary forces to
exploit it. The operational lesson is that ‘coalition warfare’, as it is now termed, requires
considerable planning and training based on commonly held principles for fighting and
winning a conflict. This was a problem the Americans and the Australians now faced as
they retreated from the Malay Barrier to regroup on the Australian mainland.
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