If you want to watch more videos on the pacific theatre of WW2, here's a handy playlist: th-cam.com/play/PLk2daSTx1RZuSj0Lg5wgLD75gXYGt44mb.html If you want to help me continue to make more historical content, I'd be grateful for a visit here: www.patreon.com/historigraph Thanks for tuning in!
Quite sickening the Americans turned tail and ran. The battle might have been won with destroyer cover and some torp attacks. I hope it lived in the confidence of those commanding the ships.
One of the retreating American destroyers, Alden, had Ernest Evans on board. He felt ashamed about the retreat, and said that if he even commanded his own destroyer he would go into harm's way no matter what. Well, he did, as captain of the USS Johnston during the action off Samar, Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Damn, I remember watching a TV program about that battle. Think it mightve been an episode of Dogfights? Anyway, immense courage. He even earned the medal of honor
Despite how the IJN is usually remembered for the loss at Midway and the losses of her ships in the late years of the war, in the first half year of the war the Japanese demonstrated amazing tactical skills and coordination.
On the one hand it's true that the Japanese showed some impressive skill and decision-making early on in the war. That said, every force they were fighting against then was second if not third string of their opposing nations, and never did they come across an equivalent coherent enemy. Once they did, in the form of the Americans, they never really stood a chance.
The charge of HMS Electra doesn't get enough credit, this ship who had rescued Hood and Repulse's survivors took on 11 ships on her own, and managed to disable the Asagumo as well as scoring hits on Minegumo, Tokitsukaze and the Jintsu.
HMS Electra had quite the career in her short service, She served in the naval campaigns of Norway, she searched the Arctic for German raiders, She joined the hunt for the Bismarck and She saved the 3 survivors from HMS Hood, She partook in the escorting of convoys through bomb alley, She again went into the Arctic to the USSR on convoy escort 10 days later she was assigned to the force z alongside the battleship HMS Prince of Wales where her and the HMS Prince of Wales fate would be sealed. She was witness to the sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse saving 570 sailors from Repulse. 2 months later she would be sunk at Java. 54 men would survive the sinking make it back to port. They would hop on transports to Australia then back to Britain…. But on the way they were captured by German raiders then remained POWs in Japanese Prisoner camps. Her captain and her crew paid the ultimate sacrifice thank god we won at the end but at great cost.
Royal Navy did not lack brave destroyer actions, but among those Electra seemed always be given less attention than her more famous colleagues (Glowwrom, Acasta and Ardent etc.)
I had the honour of casting poppies into the sea over the site of Exeter's sinking along with my CO when I was serving on HMS Montrose in 2019. Sobering experience. May all those lost rest in eternal peace. Lest we Forget.
remember them. my grandfather Henry Robert Wood was a Stoker on HMS Encounter. He died in Fukuoka Camp B on 4th January 1944 aged 43. all the men of ABDACOM deserve to be remembered. Lest we forget.
Doorman spoke English fluently. The communication problems lay in the fact that the British and Dutch used different radio frequencies and could not hear each other. Only the Americans could communicate with both. On top of that, Doorman knew full well that the mission was suicide but could not disobey orders. Finally, what is often forgotten is that the man was half dead from dysentery.
So in other words he was told to hold the line at all costs and instead of doing the smart thing and withdrawing and saving as many ships and military personnel as possible, orders be damned, he led his force into a fight where they were outnumbered and outclassed.
Please read CDR Eccles AAR for USS John D. Edwards. His comments concerning Doorman's communications were pointed, likening them being by crystal ball. This despite the attachment of an officer from USS Houston to improve the situation (lost with De Ruyter).
Admiral Doorman never said: "I am attacking, follow me" : that was an invention/dramatization afterwards. He actually said "All ships follow me," after a hit to one of the allied ships forced it to leave the formation, and other ships started to follow that ship, and Doorman needed to restore order to the line of battle. That is not to say the Task Force did not try to fight. They repeatedly tried to reach the squadron of transport ships carrying the Java invasion force, but were repulsed each time by the Japanese cruisers. But in the end, whether it was because of Japanese air recon, better Japanese weapons, better Japanese gunnery skills, poor allied cohesion or whatever, the Japanese outfought the allies who never managed to break through the cruiser screen and suffered heavy damage with every attempt.
Yeah I find in texting I break it up into 2 sentences at a time otherwise it looks like a block of writing as above. Saying that though if it was on a standard page and using grammar rules then the above example is correct.
Fun fact, HMS Electra saw Bismarck sunk the Hood, was one of the first ship to escort convoy to Russia arctic, saw the sinking of Princes of Wales and Repulse, before finally reset in the Java sea.
Fun fact: Wrong! Electra was not in sight of Hood for the battle or sinking. Here: "At 0601, Hood took a 38 cm (15-inch) shell from Bismarck in the after magazine, which caused a massive explosion, sinking the ship within two minutes. Electra and other destroyers were about 60 nautical miles (111 km) away at the time. Upon hearing that Hood had sunk, Electra raced to the area, arriving about two hours after Hood went down"
If that is true...my god what a cursed ship. If I saw HMS Electra I would just tell it to turn back, presence of this ship tends to decrease your life expectancy.
"I am Attacking, Follow Me. " My World of Warships moment. Edit - But later I realized that I was the only one attacking... Thanks for the likes though.
His actual words were: "All ships follow me." The line you posted is how Doorman went down in Dutch national history books. "Ik val aan, volg mij." Famous last words but he never uttered those exact words (in Dutch of all languages at that time and place)!
My uncle went down on Perth that terrible night. They were outgunned and outfought but went down swinging. Thanks for your interesting episode and commentary.
Met the Sgt of Royal Marines, who was the Master at Arms from HMS EXETER in 95. He was imprisoned in Japan after the sinking and he related how he was beaten relentlessly but survived. He subsequently emigrated to Australia. Amongst the other survivors was a young drummer boy ( in those days the RN ships still “beat to quarters” over main broadcast as well as call to actions stations with bugle). He was 15 years old. The boy seaman ( as they were called) made a small wooden box with the ships crest carved in the lid from wood that he scavenged whilst imprisoned. He was seen giving it to the Master at Arms ( who was in effect his protector and boss) and for the transgression was beaten to death by a Japanese guard. The Royal Marine sgt kept it for the rest of his life until I hosted him and some other old vets onboard HMAS HOBART in 1995. Amazingly, he did not know that there was another ship named EXETER ( a type 42 frigate) and that it was visiting Brisbane for Battle of Coral Sea remembrance celebrations. We were able to arrange for him to go on board and in a very very emotional ceremony presented the lid of the small box ( the only piece left in tact) with the ships crest carved on it, to the Commanding Officer. Lower deck was cleared and the whole ships company were in attendance and not a dry eye was to be seen. A most remarkable man from a remarkable generation.
Excited for another video. Historigraph is one of the best history channels rn and deserve way more attention just like channels like the Operations Room and Armchair Historian etc.
Agreed, the choice of topics is also excellent. His videos on Norway, Malaya, Budapest alone are some of the best content I've ever seen on this godforsaken website. I would love to see other neglected operations such as the Soviets crossing the Dnieper or the Burma campaign.
The Battle of Sunda Straight which resulted in the loss of the cruisers HMAS Perth and the USS Houston and the Dutch destroyer HNLMS Evertsen (sunk later), took several hours in which it is reported by survivors that the Perth ran her guns out of ammunition and resorted to firing target practice 'bricks' at the Japanese forces. The cruisers, surrounded, fought their guns until they went under the water.
There is a fantastic book about the Houston and the action she and the Perth got into the night they sunk. It's call The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait. I was lucky enough to have one of the Houston Sailors speak to my squadron. Ray Goodson, a fine sailor and a true American hero. He was in one of the forward gun mounts. He was taken prisoner and work in Japan in the mines 12 hours a day everyday until the war was over.
@@NoNameAtAll2 like Battle of Surigao Strait, US PT Boats and Destroyers that mainly created chaos to the Japanese formation with their torpedoes, cruisers and battleships were there to clean up the rest
I used to position myself at various points along the front in a frigate, as soon as the battle started I used to rush forward to try to expose where the enemy was. Dodging torpedos was also fun. I did however get destroyed by battleship shells. But I used to earn good rewards for my sacrifice, as well as give away many enemy ships positions.
My Great Grandfather was on the Perth on the night when she sank and from what I heard he may as well have saved a lot of his crew mates by switching off the electricity of the ship as she went down, miraculously he survived but when on to become a prisoner of war at the Thai Burma Railway and still miraculously survived that too, lest we forget
Nice and very informative video again! Was hoping for mention on the Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen, one of the last vessels to escape by camouflaging as an island. The ship still exists as a museum ship in Den Helder. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_Abraham_Crijnssen_(1936)
Very cool, I remember hearing the story but I had no idea the ship had been preserved. One day I'll check it out! We have a similar one in Australia - Krait. Little fishing boat though that carried Commando Frogmen into Singapore harbour to sink 7 ships. She was a captured Japanese fishing boat that quite often disguised as an island, I guess drawing inspiration from HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen.
“I am attacking, follow me” - Karel Doorman orders before he was KIA - 1942. I got goosebumbs when I read that sentence. I have been to a museum in the Netherlands in Den Helder where they have a whole building dedicated to this. They have got a wall of all the people who died during the battle of the Java sea. I have been on the legendary HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen.
The DE skipper who told his Men that he intended to take "this ship into Harm's Way" before attacking a BATTLESHIP AND CRUISER formation in the Leyte Gulf, ranks up there!
I would really like to see a presentation of the Battle of the Sunda Straight if you are willing. Though smaller, I think it was just as dramatic as the Battle of the Java Sea, and contitutes a 'second half' to the original battle. A very dreary time in history for all involved
Excellent, extremely detailed account. Just goes to show what excellent aerial recon together with a decent force of destroyers under a unified command can do. Against a practically blind, unorganized force that has part of it leaving the battle citing low fuel (and we don't wanna die...) All I have read in Dutch history books was that Doorman gave his orders: "All ships follow me." The Allied force was annihilated and the Japanese invasion was delayed only by a single day... He never said he was attacking because everyone in his command knew they were there to attack the Japanese invasion force. It's as unlikely he said "I'm attacking, follow me" as any Allied commander on D-Day uttering the words: "I'm gonna charge the beach! Yeehaw!!!"
The Houston was sunk after the battle, along with HMAS Perth. Both ships are still revered in the cities they were named after; as a Houston native, I learned the ship's story early.
Horrendous what has happened to their wrecks however. Yep both are pretty legendary in the RAN. It's such a shame Waller never got a VC. Apparently instead another ship or sub will be named after him instead once HMAS Waller (I) decommissions. The man was a legend even for his exploits in the Med.
Sadly, in recent years the wrecks of the Dutch and Allied ships have been removed by unscrupulous Indonesian scrap metal merchants, even though they are designated War Graves, just to get at the precious and rare metals still found within the wreckage (which is probalby in very small amounts). Now there is just an area on the sea bed floor scrapped clean where these proud ships once lay.
@@reieben886 Museums are full of the contents of robbed graves, from simple holes in the earth to the Pyramids or the first chinese emperors terracotta army. Your point is? There very likely aren't even meaningful remains after 70+ years under water. And it's not the country's tradition that these wrecks lie around of. That due to the powers who built these ships are still disadvantaged and poor. Struggling to keep up in the modern world so to not again fall into crippling dependency from the bigger powers. Sentimentatity is for the rich and entitled. not for those barely getting along. Masons and carpenters do not get Mausoleums or crypts. Privates do not get statues or cenotaphs.
On paper, Doorman had a fairly powerful force, however with little prior training together and the language barrier, working cohesively together was a long shot at best
You are right but also on paper his force was strong but his ships weren’t as good as the more modern Japanese ships the Damaged housten and Exeter to the Japanese heavy cruisers the Japanese had a larger range and more guns while the de ruyter was lightly armored and lacked the range same for Perth and Java the Japanese also had more destroyers and the feared long lance torpedo they used
@@germaniacbill3824 Very true. None of the Allies involved wanted to risk any of their more modern better ships and with good reason as there was just no way the ABDA force could stop the IJN, at best they were hoping for a delaying action.
hey you know my grandfather was a japanese navy officer at that time, my grandfather was in the navy program and he worked on the destroyer IJN HARUSAME He also participated in this war, yes, my grandfather told the story
One thing I've learned from Historiograph videos is that Royal Navy destroyers shouldn't be underestimated, even in defeat. They're like the hornets of WWII naval engagements, small, fragile, but with a nasty sting.
Decisive but not really a hinge in the way other major engagements were. Java was a lost no matter what. The Japanese had the region surrounded, help wasn't coming and even if Doorman had managed to sink the transports, his force would be picked off over the following weeks anyway by the ever closing net. It was only a matter of time.
two of my great uncles fougth there as part of the dutch navy, one drowned and the other one was later caputered and die whilest working on the railway of death in thailand. we visited his grave a couple of years ago. great video and it means a lot to learn about the history of my family
Hoi Bart, Ik werk aan een meer gedetailleerde versie over deze slag. Kan nog wel even duren omdat er nog veel losse eindjes zijn en reconstructie van de scheepsbewegingen moeilijk is. Ook het NIMH heeft geen gedetailleerd beeld. De versie waaraan ik nu werk is waarschijnlijk de meest gedetailleerde die er tot nu toe is. Mvg, Geert
As an Indonesian, I guess the shipwrecks are probably lost because scrapers from Madura Island, they are famous for picking random metal scraps from literally everywhere even in middle of nowhere and famously becoming crazy riches because of that (and started that "Maduranese metal scrappers" stereotype among Indonesians)
Not always. In naval warfare the element of luck played a big role as one lucky shell could knock out an opponent or cripple them enough to finish them off. Naval gunnery was (and still is) such that only at close range can you be certain of hits, so you engage, close the distance, and lay as many salvos as you can hoping that the lucky hit belongs to you, and not to your opponent. That's why there are no more large-gunned ships, as accurate missiles are a much better bet than luck in achieving the hits you need to win.
@@P_RO_ There's no denying that "luck" plays a role in warfare. Remember how that lucky torpedo hit on BISMARCK's stern damaged her rudder, thus leading to her sinking? And how a hit in SCHARNHORST's boiler room reduced her speed just as she was outrunning Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser's forces? . . .
@@orvilleh.larson7581 According to Kennedy's excellent book "Pursuit", one of the deepest and most definitive books about the sinking of Bismark, their crew were told that with the heavy armor, torpedo hits would be "like bee-stings, which hurt but do no harm" and that the odds of a hit on the steering gear room were "ten thousand against". And to have that lucky hit inflicted by a thoroughly outdated biplane... Yes, luck can make all the difference in the world, but it never belongs to those who do not try.
A sad episode for the Allies. My Dad's brother went down with Houston in the Sunda Straits on March 1st, 1942, his parents had no knowledge of his true fate until they got his official death notice in the mail just before Christmas 1945.
Japanese also sunk several of thier own ships when landing on western Java when they encountered stragglers from allied fleet. Dutch subs also sank some ships, if you are talking about ships sunk directly by surface fleet, I stand corrected.
I wonder if the Germans thanked the Japanese for taking revenge for the Graf spree. HMS Exeter was involved in the battle of River plate that resulted in the Graf spree scuttling.
indeed, though it raises the question if the germans even knew the identity of the ships that battled the Spee. (its weird but its spelt Spee and not Spree, but pronounced Schpae) Edit: i did a little research on the battle, and the Spee's crew identified the HMS Exeter and 2 Leander class light cruisers, though it doesn't say if they identified the sisters as Ajax and Achilles
Hitler was greatly displeased with rapid Japanese advance in the SE Asia, worrying Australia may fall and an entire continent would be lost for white man.
@@hurricano471 In case you have no idea, the name "Spee" is taken as the namesake from Vice Admiral Maximillian von Spee where he partakes in germany's east asian squadron.
@@bimosetyajidewanto9823 indeed i was aware, usually Spee is just the shortened version people refer to the ship as. the story of Admiral Max. Graf von Spee's voyage though is definitely something ive read about
The allied fleet reminds me of the AustroHungarian invasion of Russia, because of their railway infrastructure was made of various ages they were concerned that the railways would all be jammed with traffic, so the order was for all trains on all lines to proceed at the speed of the slowest active train on the slowest active line. So they invaded Russia at the speed of 12mph. You’ve got a bunch of destroyers following older destroyers that are having engine trouble... just cut the stragglers loose and send them home, you’re getting shot at from outside of your own effective range while creeping along because of a few slower ships in your fleet.
Commander May and his crew on board HMS Electra were brave. The men in the water gave May three cheers as he stood on the bridge, saluting them , as Electra went down.
Really good show! Sometimes the pure scale of these battles is hard to comprehend. Done without radar for the most part during this time. So many brave men!
Would be awesome to have one of the Southern Operations actually! From blitzing HK, to D-Day in Malaya and Lingayen, to sinking of Force Z, to ABDA's efforts!
He most likely didn't, but he was under immense pressure to make aggressive moves, and Helfrich was trying to push blame for the situation onto him so he likely felt he had no choice.
A sad note to this story is that almost all of the sunken ships have been illegally salvaged in the recent decades, destroying the final resting place of these sailors.
@@Soothsayer-rs5nb Yeah? How about this? Those ships represented the government that denied the fundamental rights to the citizens of Indonesia. The very rights that the Dutch enjoyed in their own country. After the war, the Dutch reoccupied Indonesia and committed war crimes to keep their colony. This from a people who were occupied by the Germans. I can't imagine WTF was going through their idiotic minds that they would assume the Indonesians would love to have their former occupiers back. Those ships are in Indonesian waters, and as far as they are concerned, they are salvage, you want to make them into a war grave, then hire some barges to pour cement over them.
Nice video. I'm Indonesian and this was not taught in our history lessons. I only knew about this battle after reading the Wikipedia article about some of the ships.
We learn it, but it not mentioned in details since the focus on our history book were the independence movement that were increasingly galvanised during the japanese occupation era
Seriously how stupid is that kind of statement (which is commonly said)? Neither dutch, british, australians, americans etc learned it in their history lessons either. People know details of history because they make research, not because their teachers taught them everything they need to know in high school. Also this particular detail involved the colonial masters which didn't directly involve their colonial subjects, so how were they supposed to know in the first place unless there were times to disseminate the information?
@@LV_427 no one could put all history into a school curriculum. it's one of the reasons you learn very little greece and roman empire or the rise of nazi germany from 33-39 in high school history in indonesia or thailand for that matter, nor did they learn about srivijaya or the spice trade in europe.
In 1940, after the carrier USS Yorktown was fitted with radar, there was talk of sending her to the US Asiatic Fleet. I’ve so often wondered how she could have impacted events such as joining with Force Z or with the ABDA force, etc. I should try to write an alternate history novel.
Well, the Japanese would have merely countered Yorktown with their own air power, whether ground-based or carrier-based. American carriers simply didn't have a prayer of matching the Kido Butai at this point in the war, even when they had equal numbers. At best Yorktown could have saved Force Z, but I don't think it would have mattered. Prince of Wales and Repulse couldn't fight off the entire Japanese navy, and any counterattacks would have exposed Force Z to further air attack or (even worse) an engagement with Yamato and other Japanese battleships. In all likelihood, Force Z would have retreated to the Indian Ocean and Yorktown would have retreated to Pearl Harbour. Anything else would've been suicide.
The Dutch Struggle In the Far East was a desperate, yet doomed fight. Despite what they prepared and what they fought with, influences of pacifism and the overly aggressive strategies of the Dutch Naval Command secured their demise. Amazing detailed Video may I also add! 👍
Welp, they were not prepared at all tbh. Had they prepare themselves well they would know that IJA would come at them anytime with all its might when they stop the oil and coal shipment from Dutch East Indies to Japan.
I do Pacific is something I haven’t seen much of, I know things happened but the Dutch East Indies, and Australian campaigns are things I know little about so this is cool!
Great video! Local town and Japanese names pronounciation is definitely improved, and the narration is very captivating! Good job! waiting for the next video.
Excellent video 📹 The command should have been given to Exeter and the British force. They had battle experience and would have been aggressive by themselves. The Dutch and Americans had no battle experience, as the American destroyers knew this and exited.
My granddad was on the Hr.Ms. Soemba, a light coastal ship of 1500 tonnes, during this battle. Because of maintenance and speed, his ship was too late for this battle and he and his ship could escape and survive. He later fought many other battles including at the landings of D-Day in Europe. Thankfully, he survived, because that's how I can tell this story.
You stated allied ships sunk nothing larger than a minesweeper, how ever they did sink a number of transports, which with the Japanese so dependant on sea supply, was important. Probably in the neighborhood of 50000 tons. About 75,000 tons in total from all branches. Sub plane etc.
In the opening salvos of an invasion where troops are mostly amassed in a single location, the supply situation doesnt really matter all that much. Holding down conquered territory is different tho.
50,000 tons? No. You are referring to the raid on Balikpapan on January 24, 1942. Three transport ships were sunk of 3500-5000 tons each and one 750 ton patrol boat. This was the first US fleet surface battle since 1898 and the Spanish-American war.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was arguably the best navy in the world at this time. Its rigorous training, its emphasis on night fighting and torpedo tactics made it a formidable force. They had the best night binoculars in the world, and only men with the best eyesight served as lookouts. And their "Long Lance" torpedo was the best weapon of its kind (1,000-pound warhead, long-range, left no wake).
This was actually a really fascinating encapsulation of Japanese doctrine at the time. They assumed before the war that they would need to fight in a "decisive battle" to get rid of the Europeans, so most of their navy was geared towards that concept. IE their ships were super highly trained, and they sunk a ton of resources into standoff weapons, particularly torpedoes. You'll note in the battle that 1) airpower was crucial, since seaplanes regularly spotted the enemy craft well before they came over the horizon, 2) torpedoes were spammed like nobody's business from extreme distances (only really possible with japanese "long lance" torpedoes) to keep the larger ships from engaging, and 3) the Japanese gunnery consistently outranged the allied ships. TLDR: I feel like this battle would've validated most of the Japanese naval doctrine pre-war, and was exactly the kind of conflict they were hoping for. Unfortunately for them, the americans were to arrive in force, and upend all of that....
To be fair, everybody thought there would be a decisive battle at sea. The american plan for defeating Japan was to send all battleships across the pacific to the philippines and have a decisive battle there. The attack on pearl harbor obviously foiled that plan, and then the Americans changed to airpower because it was the only think they had left and they had seen the effectiveness firsthand. I feel like some lower ranks, like admiral Yamamoto knew that air power was the next big thing, but the absolute navy top (and goverment) didn't see it that way yet.
@@janvisser4132 The plan for fighting Japan in the late 1930s was no longer to charge across the Pacific to save the Philippines: it was to pull back, build even more battleships, and counterattack in 1943 against a now-overextended Japan in a more prolonged war of attrition. Which was basically what actually happened, except both sides ended up building far more carriers than battleships (though both Japan and the US still wasted too much money on new, obsolete-upon-launch battleships) and fighting with those instead. So the Japanese were wrong to believe America could be drawn into a fast, decisive battle. And the idea Japan was somehow unusual in being stupid enough to believe in battleships is wrong, because literally everyone made the same mistake: even the US ended up wasting resources AFTER PH on completing all their new battleships despite the fact they were now pointless and just a waste of money.
Thanks for this interesting commentary. It is a reminder of the earlier phase of the war, to those who tend only to focus on the later (and more Allied successful) stages of the war. It is also a reminder of the fundamental difficulty of integrating the command of various different ships, from various different nationalities and with various different designs. [That's a hard job to do, and I think that it's fair to say that most "Allied" efforts to limit or deter Japanese aggression in the early part of the war failed, in part based upon the difficulties of coordination between Allied forces that were not well-trained to cooperate in close formation. Anyway, even a lot of brave, committed Dutch, British, American, and other forces had trouble combining and coordinating into a truly unified and effective resistance to the very unified and all-Japanese attackers.]
Allied forces did in fact sink a vessel larger then a minesweeper. The U.S Navy submarine, USS S-37 managed on February 8th 1942, to sink a Japanese destroyer, IJN Natsushio, as she was escorting a convoy towards Masakar. She gained the dishonor of being the first warship sunk by an American submarine of WWII.
@@historigraph Your account is excellent regardless since so little focuses on this area of the war. I'm only mention this because this video had me thumbing through a few sources on the Java Sea campaign, and i was quite surprised to have found a rare successful USN submarine attack in an otherwise disastrous campaign.
Well they took quite some casualties as well and their offensive didn't even hold for a year. Their opponents were caught of guard, had few good forces and miss managed Them completely (one would wonder how much harder the Japanese would have had to work to invade java if the UK hadn't suicided their two best ships at day one)
In many ways the Japanese were like the Germans in their respect early war periods. They were the aggressors, organised, well trained and equipped and driven by a near-spiritual sense of destiny. By contrast the Allies were outnumbered, outgunned (except the Royal Navy) and largely disorganised. The US Navy just had it's face kicked in at Pearl Harbour and the Royal Navy was stretched across the world trying to hold down the largest contested area of the world, of any nation. Yep, by the time the 1942 drew to a close, the Allies were in a perilous state. The US had scored a marginal victory in the Guadalcanal campaign though at a high cost in ships and men. It wouldn't be until 1944 that major naval actions returned to the Pacific as the Americans bolstered their forces in the years after Midway.
@@dynamo1796 Not quite accurate though. By the time the 1942 drew to a close, Allies were not even remotely in a perilous state. Japanese offensive was effectively stopped, with Japanese naval air arm so devasted that it basically sit throught 1943 in order to regain strenght. Guadalcanal campaign was anything but marginal. It arguably was more important than Midway since it costed far more aircrafts and pilots than Midway did, both of which Japan could barely replenish in proper timeframe. US restarted major naval operation already in 1943. Japan simply did not respond with theirs' until summer of 1944.
Very sadly, I believe that the sunken ships together with their human remains, have been destroyed by illegal salvage. Often only a depression remains in the sea bed to show where they were.
I would have ordered Kortenaer to fall out and all ships full flank ahead .. Cruisers and Destroyers in Battle cannot be hampered by restrictions to their speed and maneuverability ..
My mother worked for a couple in the housekeeping where the husband served aboard the flagship Hr Ms de Ruyter as a officer. Both survived Japanese captivity.
The Japanese had the best naval aviation in the world and they substantially outnumbered the American, British, Dutch and Australian fleets in the Pacific even before Pearl Harbour. It was inevitable.
Random fact, HMS Electra was the destroyer that rescued the 3 survivors from HMS Hood. She then sailed with the Prince of Wales and Repulse for Singapore and rescued survivors from Repulse. She had a busy and short war. Lest We Forget.
Perth and Houston did more damage in the Battle of Sunda Strait than Doorman's entire squadron. The RAN lost her finest captain Hec Waller when Perth went down.
USS Houston and HMAS Perth were sunk together, with both captains still on their bridges, fighting their ships to the end. The Houston captain was awarded the posthumous Medal of Honour. The Australian captain of the Perth was recommended for the Victoria Cross but as the RAN was under RN command, the Brits declined the award. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made, up til the mid 2010s, to redress this injustice, most recently opposed by the Australian defence forces, preventing it, just before the Australian PM was about to approve it. Astounding.
The Dutch has colonized Indonesia for 350-ish years, so for us the Japanese was a liberator... Then the Japanese colonize us for 3½ years and we finally got our independence in 1945.
@@DOESb 18 Agustus 1945. That's our independence day. That's the day we celebrate. That's the original date. I know we still have trouble even up until the 1950s.
@@De-us not really, in the school's textbook it is indeed mentioned that the dutch colinized us for 350 years, however, the dutch are only able to fully conquer the area of nowadays Indonesia in 1912
I just posted about that as well. Entire wreckage are gone. What's supposed to be untouched grave sites plundered for the metal. Happens all throughout history all over the world. Doesn't make it right but it happens nonetheless.
No one can patrol the wreck 24x7 and most likely they use the situation during moonsoon season where the gale is strong enough to deter any patrol ships from going too far from the shore.
I looked at Cdr Binford's career after the battle. USN Stewart, his flagship, turned over while in dry dock so had to be abandoned. The IJN refloated, repaired and used her. Cdr Binford got the Navy Cross for the battle. What happened afterward tells me that Nimitz or King was not impressed with his performance. He was sent back to the States and placed on shore duty. He only went back to sea during the last year of the war. One would had thought he would had been assigned to either a ship command or staff duty in the Pacific, being one of the few officers to fight a naval surface engagement prior to Guadalcanal.
Bailing out midway through the battle was a very poor look for the US during what everyone knew was the last stand of the Allies in Java. Where the US built it's wartime reputation fighting to the man on Wakefield, Binford effectively ran away not only abandoning his Allies but his own countrymen as well. The specifics around ammo and fuel become irrelevant once that perspective was formed - you simply couldn't have a commander known only for running away in charge of anything more than a wharf.
seems poor to condemn a guy for being cautious when the US had no Pacific fleet; might have had to cover Darwin or Midway compared with all those other admirals who got rows & rows of awards when they were fighting IJN later in the war (while being backed by the economic juggernaut that was making a new fleet worth of ships every 12 months) this video does a better job than others of showing how the ABDA fleet had been already underway for 24hrs before the initial engagement I think even the most casual of viewers would see that fighting the Japanese fleet at night was not courageous.
@@RW77777777 Unfortunately the USN had a long list of overly cautious commanders at this phase of the war - much as been made of the actions at Guadalcanal where the US had several opportunities to really swing the tide for the Japanese but didn't. I'm not here to say if the Commander's action was objectively right or wrong but A) battles aren't won by running away and B) the perception issue remains. Just look at Captain Bode or the R.A Wright's stories - both situations where the US should have dominated the engagement and didn't, leading to career damning actions. Bode shot himself in disgrace while Wright shared a fate similar to Binford. Lack of confidence from COMSOPAC and poor (or in Bode and Wright's case, disastrous) performance are not things you come back from.
@@dynamo1796 The Dutch were willing to throw away the force in order to Show The Flag in the East Indies. Which is fine; if they don't do that then it's complete moral collapse of their right to rule the East Indies, not just a total military collapse (which could not be stopped at this point). The Americans actually had to win the war from here on and thus needed ships and men.
Imagine if Doorman captained the Project 1047 battlecruiser. He would have possibly faced B65 Super Type A battlecruisers. The fight would have been glorious.
He would simply be bombed by aircrafts from captured airfields or from Kido Butai. Battlecruiser would be enough of the target to deploy such assets which otherwise were not used during invasion of Java.
The IJN would've probably dispatched some CVs and either Nagatos or Kongos in that scenario Either way the Dutch Battlecruiser would've been sunk regardless since she'd be outnumbered both by air and on sea.
He and other allied captains at the time were ignorant of the capabilities of the Long Lance and dismissive of Japanese night fighting prowess. Even if it escaped the Kido Butai, charging at the enemy at night in a 30,000 ton battlecruiser would have simply presented a larger target for IJN torpedo spam.
@@Ozraptor4 So far I have heard is that US high command had intell on those long lance torps but did not believed it because why would Japan have them if the US did not and thus this information was not given to the people in the field.
![กี่หมื่นฟ้า | Your Sky Series EP.1 [1/4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vLGjxFL6U_I/mqdefault.jpg)
If you want to watch more videos on the pacific theatre of WW2, here's a handy playlist: th-cam.com/play/PLk2daSTx1RZuSj0Lg5wgLD75gXYGt44mb.html
If you want to help me continue to make more historical content, I'd be grateful for a visit here: www.patreon.com/historigraph
Thanks for tuning in!
So Burma campaign or battle of Hong Kong next?
Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps!
Historigraph, please identify the country’s names on your maps. That will make it easier to follow the narrative.
P00
Quite sickening the Americans turned tail and ran. The battle might have been won with destroyer cover and some torp attacks. I hope it lived in the confidence of those commanding the ships.
One of the retreating American destroyers, Alden, had Ernest Evans on board. He felt ashamed about the retreat, and said that if he even commanded his own destroyer he would go into harm's way no matter what. Well, he did, as captain of the USS Johnston during the action off Samar, Battle of Leyte Gulf.
wow I had no idea he was also in this battle.
so that's where Evans got his balls from
Big balls. HUGE Balls!
Damn, I remember watching a TV program about that battle. Think it mightve been an episode of Dogfights? Anyway, immense courage. He even earned the medal of honor
Yes that dude is a badass
Despite how the IJN is usually remembered for the loss at Midway and the losses of her ships in the late years of the war, in the first half year of the war the Japanese demonstrated amazing tactical skills and coordination.
They still did post 1942, but what do you do against dozens of carriers? Night fight and die
They were defeated by a much larger and also competent enemy.
On the one hand it's true that the Japanese showed some impressive skill and decision-making early on in the war. That said, every force they were fighting against then was second if not third string of their opposing nations, and never did they come across an equivalent coherent enemy. Once they did, in the form of the Americans, they never really stood a chance.
They told us we were the strongest opponent they ever faced
They are the strongest navy on 1941 until code leak broken them.
The charge of HMS Electra doesn't get enough credit, this ship who had rescued Hood and Repulse's survivors took on 11 ships on her own, and managed to disable the Asagumo as well as scoring hits on Minegumo, Tokitsukaze and the Jintsu.
Agreed. Electra showed the best performance out of all allied ships and dueled with multipule ships, before being disabled.
HMS Electra had quite the career in her short service, She served in the naval campaigns of Norway, she searched the Arctic for German raiders, She joined the hunt for the Bismarck and She saved the 3 survivors from HMS Hood, She partook in the escorting of convoys through bomb alley, She again went into the Arctic to the USSR on convoy escort 10 days later she was assigned to the force z alongside the battleship HMS Prince of Wales where her and the HMS Prince of Wales fate would be sealed. She was witness to the sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse saving 570 sailors from Repulse. 2 months later she would be sunk at Java. 54 men would survive the sinking make it back to port. They would hop on transports to Australia then back to Britain…. But on the way they were captured by German raiders then remained POWs in Japanese Prisoner camps. Her captain and her crew paid the ultimate sacrifice thank god we won at the end but at great cost.
Royal Navy did not lack brave destroyer actions, but among those Electra seemed always be given less attention than her more famous colleagues (Glowwrom, Acasta and Ardent etc.)
Yeah but Minegumo also went Leeroy Jenkins
Not as famous as USS Johnston's charge, which she fought more and bigger targets
"The remaining Ally ships will be hunted down and defeated" now say it with a Palpatine voice.
Exactly what I thought lol
best I can do is 8492nd squadron leader.
For a safe and secure society!
@@IshijimaKairo Belkan Magic is a pathway; to powers many consider unnatural
@@ShahjahanMasood ace combat references lol
I had the honour of casting poppies into the sea over the site of Exeter's sinking along with my CO when I was serving on HMS Montrose in 2019. Sobering experience. May all those lost rest in eternal peace. Lest we Forget.
Ah that’s an ace story, thanks for sharing
Thank you for doing that.
I was briefly alarmed and confused there as i initially misread that as puppies
Shame so much of these wrecks are targets for their metal
It’s a shame what pirates have done to her
remember them. my grandfather Henry Robert Wood was a Stoker on HMS Encounter. He died in Fukuoka Camp B on 4th January 1944 aged 43. all the men of ABDACOM deserve to be remembered. Lest we forget.
Likewise - my grandfather was also a stoker on Encounter but survived imporisionment in Japan just long enough to be repraiated
My great grandad was also on the Encounter but died when it went down. Love with your families.
@@mattwood3504 my deepest respect to the three of your grandfathers and my sympathy to your families on the loss.
Doorman spoke English fluently. The communication problems lay in the fact that the British and Dutch used different radio frequencies and could not hear each other. Only the Americans could communicate with both.
On top of that, Doorman knew full well that the mission was suicide but could not disobey orders. Finally, what is often forgotten is that the man was half dead from dysentery.
So in other words he was told to hold the line at all costs and instead of doing the smart thing and withdrawing and saving as many ships and military personnel as possible, orders be damned, he led his force into a fight where they were outnumbered and outclassed.
@@hokutoulrik7345 Verily.
Please read CDR Eccles AAR for USS John D. Edwards. His comments concerning Doorman's communications were pointed, likening them being by crystal ball. This despite the attachment of an officer from USS Houston to improve the situation (lost with De Ruyter).
The folly of following orders blindly
Robotic not human!
@@angloaust1575 Why do you think he followed them blindly? Were you on the bridge with him or did you consult him?
Admiral Doorman never said: "I am attacking, follow me" : that was an invention/dramatization afterwards. He actually said "All ships follow me," after a hit to one of the allied ships forced it to leave the formation, and other ships started to follow that ship, and Doorman needed to restore order to the line of battle. That is not to say the Task Force did not try to fight. They repeatedly tried to reach the squadron of transport ships carrying the Java invasion force, but were repulsed each time by the Japanese cruisers. But in the end, whether it was because of Japanese air recon, better Japanese weapons, better Japanese gunnery skills, poor allied cohesion or whatever, the Japanese outfought the allies who never managed to break through the cruiser screen and suffered heavy damage with every attempt.
The enter key is a thing, please try using it next time. 🙂
@@sfs2040 Well, it's a single paragraph, obviously.
Yeah I find in texting I break it up into 2 sentences at a time otherwise it looks like a block of writing as above. Saying that though if it was on a standard page and using grammar rules then the above example is correct.
@sfs2040 @@filipinorutherford7818 both of you need to re-learn how to read
@@sfs2040 Ctrl + scroll wheel is also a thing, maybe a larger font can help you read like a normal human being.
Fun fact, HMS Electra saw Bismarck sunk the Hood, was one of the first ship to escort convoy to Russia arctic, saw the sinking of Princes of Wales and Repulse, before finally reset in the Java sea.
Fun fact: Wrong! Electra was not in sight of Hood for the battle or sinking. Here:
"At 0601, Hood took a 38 cm (15-inch) shell from Bismarck in the after magazine, which caused a massive explosion, sinking the ship within two minutes. Electra and other destroyers were about 60 nautical miles (111 km) away at the time. Upon hearing that Hood had sunk, Electra raced to the area, arriving about two hours after Hood went down"
@@stevek8829 the fact that Ships don't physically have eyeballs or vision didnt throw you off at all did it?
If that is true...my god what a cursed ship.
If I saw HMS Electra I would just tell it to turn back, presence of this ship tends to decrease your life expectancy.
@@jacobs4545 It’s called “personification”.
@@stevek8829I mean, the explosion was huge, I could of had probably been seen, Yamato's could be seen for more than 20 miles.
"I am Attacking, Follow Me. " My World of Warships moment.
Edit - But later I realized that I was the only one attacking...
Thanks for the likes though.
In post year 2000 it would have been "LEEEERROOOOOYYYY JENKINNNSSS!!!!"
His actual words were: "All ships follow me."
The line you posted is how Doorman went down in Dutch national history books.
"Ik val aan, volg mij."
Famous last words but he never uttered those exact words (in Dutch of all languages at that time and place)!
I'm gonna cap A
@@liberalsockpuppet4772 Detected by enemy scout aircraft, gets focused fired into oblivion.
Pretty much
"I am attacking, follow me."
Ah yes, the War Thunder/World of Warships experience
@OLtzS Daniel NO! YES! LEADING FOR LANDING!
"Fairwell and good seas"
*"Torpedoes at port!"*
(Turns around)
"phew that was close"
*"Torpedo at starboard!"*
Wait wut
@OLtzS Daniel mine spammer is annoying. good thing you can shot the mine
Those who love me,follow me!
My uncle went down on Perth that terrible night.
They were outgunned and outfought but went down swinging.
Thanks for your interesting episode and commentary.
God bless all those men on Perth and Houston
@@theHentySkeptic Just them?
@@abwo47 Perth and Houston were lost together - Perth after running out of ammo - the initial commenter lost a rego on Perth.. I was saying thanks.
Met the Sgt of Royal Marines, who was the Master at Arms from HMS EXETER in 95. He was imprisoned in Japan after the sinking and he related how he was beaten relentlessly but survived. He subsequently emigrated to Australia. Amongst the other survivors was a young drummer boy ( in those days the RN ships still “beat to quarters” over main broadcast as well as call to actions stations with bugle). He was 15 years old. The boy seaman ( as they were called) made a small wooden box with the ships crest carved in the lid from wood that he scavenged whilst imprisoned. He was seen giving it to the Master at Arms ( who was in effect his protector and boss) and for the transgression was beaten to death by a Japanese guard. The Royal Marine sgt kept it for the rest of his life until I hosted him and some other old vets onboard HMAS HOBART in 1995. Amazingly, he did not know that there was another ship named EXETER ( a type 42 frigate) and that it was visiting Brisbane for Battle of Coral Sea remembrance celebrations. We were able to arrange for him to go on board and in a very very emotional ceremony presented the lid of the small box ( the only piece left in tact) with the ships crest carved on it, to the Commanding Officer. Lower deck was cleared and the whole ships company were in attendance and not a dry eye was to be seen. A most remarkable man from a remarkable generation.
@@theHentySkeptic I know and I appreciate that, but there were more schips and brave men that went down
When I visited the Dutch Navy museum last summer I had the chance to see De Ruyter’s bell which was very interesting and still very intact.
Excited for another video. Historigraph is one of the best history channels rn and deserve way more attention just like channels like the Operations Room and Armchair Historian etc.
Agreed, the choice of topics is also excellent. His videos on Norway, Malaya, Budapest alone are some of the best content I've ever seen on this godforsaken website. I would love to see other neglected operations such as the Soviets crossing the Dnieper or the Burma campaign.
Montemayor is the best!
He never uploads though
@@brissydiggin5209 agreed
The Battle of Sunda Straight which resulted in the loss of the cruisers HMAS Perth and the USS Houston and the Dutch destroyer HNLMS Evertsen (sunk later), took several hours in which it is reported by survivors that the Perth ran her guns out of ammunition and resorted to firing target practice 'bricks' at the Japanese forces. The cruisers, surrounded, fought their guns until they went under the water.
Might have better to fire the practice rounds first, to gauge splash and correction for following live shells.
I heard it was star shells, but little difference
There is a fantastic book about the Houston and the action she and the Perth got into the night they sunk. It's call The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait. I was lucky enough to have one of the Houston Sailors speak to my squadron. Ray Goodson, a fine sailor and a true American hero. He was in one of the forward gun mounts. He was taken prisoner and work in Japan in the mines 12 hours a day everyday until the war was over.
Issue was NEVER In doubt! Hunted down and Annihilated.
Battle of the Java Sea was truly a battle of Cruisers and Destroyers.
So as Battle of Cape Esperance, Battle of Savo Island and first Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Empress Augusta Strait, Blackett Strait and Kula Gulf
@@ramal5708 it's almost as if the smaller the class, the more ships of that class there are to act xd
@@NoNameAtAll2 like Battle of Surigao Strait, US PT Boats and Destroyers that mainly created chaos to the Japanese formation with their torpedoes, cruisers and battleships were there to clean up the rest
“I’m attacking, follow me!”
- a lone charging destroyer in WoWS
Only to end up eating torps launched by a cruiser right in the face.
True WoWs' "torpedo soup" experience
@@hanselsihotang With the torp beat. "Too too, too too, too too, too too boom" Same story all over again.
Mostly everyone in Asia server: no, I don't think I will
I used to position myself at various points along the front in a frigate, as soon as the battle started I used to rush forward to try to expose where the enemy was. Dodging torpedos was also fun. I did however get destroyed by battleship shells. But I used to earn good rewards for my sacrifice, as well as give away many enemy ships positions.
My Great Grandfather was on the Perth on the night when she sank and from what I heard he may as well have saved a lot of his crew mates by switching off the electricity of the ship as she went down, miraculously he survived but when on to become a prisoner of war at the Thai Burma Railway and still miraculously survived that too, lest we forget
"I am attacking. Follow me." -Leeroy Jenkins, 2005
Nice and very informative video again! Was hoping for mention on the Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen, one of the last vessels to escape by camouflaging as an island. The ship still exists as a museum ship in Den Helder.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_Abraham_Crijnssen_(1936)
this is the first time I hear about it, thanks!
Je bent me voor geweest p
Very cool, I remember hearing the story but I had no idea the ship had been preserved. One day I'll check it out! We have a similar one in Australia - Krait. Little fishing boat though that carried Commando Frogmen into Singapore harbour to sink 7 ships. She was a captured Japanese fishing boat that quite often disguised as an island, I guess drawing inspiration from HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen.
The action that resulted in the loss of both PERTH and HOUSTON deserve its own video. 🇦🇺🇺🇸
+1 to this, yes
Cheers bro I'll drink to that
Facts
You should read Ghost Ship. Excellent book about the Houston and her crew.
Proud echo, if you can find it, is from Perth's perspective. Also had the battle logs from both cruisers as they ran the gauntlet.
“I am attacking, follow me” - Karel Doorman orders before he was KIA - 1942. I got goosebumbs when I read that sentence. I have been to a museum in the Netherlands in Den Helder where they have a whole building dedicated to this. They have got a wall of all the people who died during the battle of the Java sea. I have been on the legendary HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen.
Karel Doormanlaan 😂
The DE skipper who told his Men that he intended to take "this ship into Harm's Way" before attacking a BATTLESHIP AND CRUISER formation in the Leyte Gulf, ranks up there!
My memory failed me. It was Samar!
Did he really say those exact words? I have read that he did not.
@@AeliusMagnus fucking autocorrection. Changed it now.
I would really like to see a presentation of the Battle of the Sunda Straight if you are willing. Though smaller, I think it was just as dramatic as the Battle of the Java Sea, and contitutes a 'second half' to the original battle. A very dreary time in history for all involved
Excellent, extremely detailed account.
Just goes to show what excellent aerial recon together with a decent force of destroyers under a unified command can do.
Against a practically blind, unorganized force that has part of it leaving the battle citing low fuel (and we don't wanna die...)
All I have read in Dutch history books was that Doorman gave his orders: "All ships follow me."
The Allied force was annihilated and the Japanese invasion was delayed only by a single day...
He never said he was attacking because everyone in his command knew they were there to attack the Japanese invasion force.
It's as unlikely he said "I'm attacking, follow me" as any Allied commander on D-Day uttering the words: "I'm gonna charge the beach! Yeehaw!!!"
The Houston was sunk after the battle, along with HMAS Perth. Both ships are still revered in the cities they were named after; as a Houston native, I learned the ship's story early.
I've read the book Ship of Ghosts. A great tribute to the men of a great ship. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it yet.
Horrendous what has happened to their wrecks however. Yep both are pretty legendary in the RAN. It's such a shame Waller never got a VC. Apparently instead another ship or sub will be named after him instead once HMAS Waller (I) decommissions. The man was a legend even for his exploits in the Med.
Sadly, in recent years the wrecks of the Dutch and Allied ships have been removed by unscrupulous Indonesian scrap metal merchants, even though they are designated War Graves, just to get at the precious and rare metals still found within the wreckage (which is probalby in very small amounts). Now there is just an area on the sea bed floor scrapped clean where these proud ships once lay.
Have any of the sailors on board complained? Didn't think so.
@@Ugly_German_Truths this wrecks are graves, robbing graves is inhumane and shameful act
@@reieben886 Museums are full of the contents of robbed graves, from simple holes in the earth to the Pyramids or the first chinese emperors terracotta army.
Your point is? There very likely aren't even meaningful remains after 70+ years under water.
And it's not the country's tradition that these wrecks lie around of. That due to the powers who built these ships are still disadvantaged and poor. Struggling to keep up in the modern world so to not again fall into crippling dependency from the bigger powers.
Sentimentatity is for the rich and entitled. not for those barely getting along. Masons and carpenters do not get Mausoleums or crypts. Privates do not get statues or cenotaphs.
Not all of them are gone. Electra at least is still mostly intact.
@@Ugly_German_Truths They didn't throw a fuss when they plundered China and Egypt. This hypocrisy is indeed sweet.
On paper, Doorman had a fairly powerful force, however with little prior training together and the language barrier, working cohesively together was a long shot at best
You are right but also on paper his force was strong but his ships weren’t as good as the more modern Japanese ships the Damaged housten and Exeter to the Japanese heavy cruisers the Japanese had a larger range and more guns while the de ruyter was lightly armored and lacked the range same for Perth and Java the Japanese also had more destroyers and the feared long lance torpedo they used
@@germaniacbill3824 Very true. None of the Allies involved wanted to risk any of their more modern better ships and with good reason as there was just no way the ABDA force could stop the IJN, at best they were hoping for a delaying action.
hey you know my grandfather was a japanese navy officer at that time, my grandfather was in the navy program and he worked on the destroyer IJN HARUSAME
He also participated in this war, yes, my grandfather told the story
One thing I've learned from Historiograph videos is that Royal Navy destroyers shouldn't be underestimated, even in defeat. They're like the hornets of WWII naval engagements, small, fragile, but with a nasty sting.
The naval battle of Java has been very little known and few records exist. However, it was, at the time it was a decisive battle. Very exciting.
Decisive but not really a hinge in the way other major engagements were. Java was a lost no matter what. The Japanese had the region surrounded, help wasn't coming and even if Doorman had managed to sink the transports, his force would be picked off over the following weeks anyway by the ever closing net. It was only a matter of time.
two of my great uncles fougth there as part of the dutch navy, one drowned and the other one was later caputered and die whilest working on the railway of death in thailand. we visited his grave a couple of years ago. great video and it means a lot to learn about the history of my family
Hoi Bart,
Ik werk aan een meer gedetailleerde versie over deze slag. Kan nog wel even duren omdat er nog veel losse eindjes zijn en reconstructie van de scheepsbewegingen moeilijk is. Ook het NIMH heeft geen gedetailleerd beeld. De versie waaraan ik nu werk is waarschijnlijk de meest gedetailleerde die er tot nu toe is.
Mvg, Geert
Doorman's commitment to fulfilling his duty seemed to earned respect among Japanese admirals.
As an Indonesian, I guess the shipwrecks are probably lost because scrapers from Madura Island, they are famous for picking random metal scraps from literally everywhere even in middle of nowhere and famously becoming crazy riches because of that (and started that "Maduranese metal scrappers" stereotype among Indonesians)
Ye the Dutch cruisers de ruyter and Java were illegally scrapped aswell as 50% of the Dutch destroyer kortenear and parts of Perth
The Chinese are famous for doing that as well.
Battles are won or lost before they begin. The odds were completely stacked against Doorman.
Yep but they still gave the Japanese a hot foot and even though they went down it gave people a chance to escape.
Not always. In naval warfare the element of luck played a big role as one lucky shell could knock out an opponent or cripple them enough to finish them off. Naval gunnery was (and still is) such that only at close range can you be certain of hits, so you engage, close the distance, and lay as many salvos as you can hoping that the lucky hit belongs to you, and not to your opponent. That's why there are no more large-gunned ships, as accurate missiles are a much better bet than luck in achieving the hits you need to win.
@@P_RO_ There's no denying that "luck" plays a role in warfare. Remember how that lucky torpedo hit on BISMARCK's stern damaged her rudder, thus leading to her sinking? And how a hit in SCHARNHORST's boiler room reduced her speed just as she was outrunning Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser's forces? . . .
@@orvilleh.larson7581 According to Kennedy's excellent book "Pursuit", one of the deepest and most definitive books about the sinking of Bismark, their crew were told that with the heavy armor, torpedo hits would be "like bee-stings, which hurt but do no harm" and that the odds of a hit on the steering gear room were "ten thousand against". And to have that lucky hit inflicted by a thoroughly outdated biplane... Yes, luck can make all the difference in the world, but it never belongs to those who do not try.
Songs should be made of his courage.
A sad episode for the Allies. My Dad's brother went down with Houston in the Sunda Straits on March 1st, 1942, his parents had no knowledge of his true fate until they got his official death notice in the mail just before Christmas 1945.
Japanese also sunk several of thier own ships when landing on western Java when they encountered stragglers from allied fleet. Dutch subs also sank some ships, if you are talking about ships sunk directly by surface fleet, I stand corrected.
Several, which ones?
I wonder if the Germans thanked the Japanese for taking revenge for the Graf spree. HMS Exeter was involved in the battle of River plate that resulted in the Graf spree scuttling.
indeed, though it raises the question if the germans even knew the identity of the ships that battled the Spee. (its weird but its spelt Spee and not Spree, but pronounced Schpae)
Edit: i did a little research on the battle, and the Spee's crew identified the HMS Exeter and 2 Leander class light cruisers, though it doesn't say if they identified the sisters as Ajax and Achilles
They had more pressing things to concern them.
Hitler was greatly displeased with rapid Japanese advance in the SE Asia, worrying Australia may fall and an entire continent would be lost for white man.
@@hurricano471 In case you have no idea, the name "Spee" is taken as the namesake from Vice Admiral Maximillian von Spee where he partakes in germany's east asian squadron.
@@bimosetyajidewanto9823 indeed i was aware, usually Spee is just the shortened version people refer to the ship as. the story of Admiral Max. Graf von Spee's voyage though is definitely something ive read about
The allied fleet reminds me of the AustroHungarian invasion of Russia, because of their railway infrastructure was made of various ages they were concerned that the railways would all be jammed with traffic, so the order was for all trains on all lines to proceed at the speed of the slowest active train on the slowest active line. So they invaded Russia at the speed of 12mph.
You’ve got a bunch of destroyers following older destroyers that are having engine trouble... just cut the stragglers loose and send them home, you’re getting shot at from outside of your own effective range while creeping along because of a few slower ships in your fleet.
You are probably right, however this just tells us how outgunned and desperate ABDACOM was at this point.
Was about to say, there was no home left if the Dutch indies fell. So yeah
@@Marmamartha There were Australian forces in ABDACOM - could they not retreat to Australia, or would that have been too far for the fuel available?
Commander May and his crew on board HMS Electra were brave. The men in the water gave May three cheers as he stood on the bridge, saluting them , as Electra went down.
Really good show! Sometimes the pure scale of these battles is hard to comprehend. Done without radar for the most part during this time. So many brave men!
“I am attacking. Follow me.”
Me when the boss won’t give us a raise
Would be awesome to have one of the Southern Operations actually! From blitzing HK, to D-Day in Malaya and Lingayen, to sinking of Force Z, to ABDA's efforts!
Another wonderfully produced and narrated video. Thank you. Although, watching the results is always painful.
Really sad obviously, but there's one thing I'm wondering: Why did Doorman think he could win?
I'm not convinced he did. But running wasn't an option for him I guess
@@historigraph Yeah, that's fair. Definitely need to look into early Pacific War more, so much stuff I just don't know enough about.
He most likely didn't, but he was under immense pressure to make aggressive moves, and Helfrich was trying to push blame for the situation onto him so he likely felt he had no choice.
Just because you have no chance to win doesn’t mean you don’t fight
What else could he do? Win or die.
Full respect to the ABDA crews. Salute.
My uncle was onboard HMS Exeter and captured by the japanese and imprisoned until liberated in 1945.
My compliments to your uncle, just as much for surviving Japanese captivity as for the battle!
One of the teachers at my high school in New Zealand, Cyril Miles, was on HMS Exeter when it was sunk. Met and talked to him late 1970s.
Your pronunciation of "Soerabaja" is much better. Congrats and thanks!!
But one thing, it's actually "Bawean" not "Baewan" though hehe. Good job anyway!!
A sad note to this story is that almost all of the sunken ships have been illegally salvaged in the recent decades, destroying the final resting place of these sailors.
when those salvage ships are found over these sites the participants should be arrested and their ships sunk.
@@Soothsayer-rs5nb
Yeah? How about this? Those ships represented the government that denied the fundamental rights to the citizens of Indonesia. The very rights that the Dutch enjoyed in their own country. After the war, the Dutch reoccupied Indonesia and committed war crimes to keep their colony. This from a people who were occupied by the Germans. I can't imagine WTF was going through their idiotic minds that they would assume the Indonesians would love to have their former occupiers back.
Those ships are in Indonesian waters, and as far as they are concerned, they are salvage, you want to make them into a war grave, then hire some barges to pour cement over them.
@@Soothsayer-rs5nb Those are Indonesian waters. Who exactly do you think is going to sink those salvage ships???
@@ennui9745 The Flying Dutchman of course! Admiral Doorman just became its newest captain.
@@Lawnmower737 Would be nice if that happened ;)
Nice video. I'm Indonesian and this was not taught in our history lessons. I only knew about this battle after reading the Wikipedia article about some of the ships.
Made me appreciate the Dutch
We learn it, but it not mentioned in details since the focus on our history book were the independence movement that were increasingly galvanised during the japanese occupation era
Seriously how stupid is that kind of statement (which is commonly said)? Neither dutch, british, australians, americans etc learned it in their history lessons either. People know details of history because they make research, not because their teachers taught them everything they need to know in high school. Also this particular detail involved the colonial masters which didn't directly involve their colonial subjects, so how were they supposed to know in the first place unless there were times to disseminate the information?
@@CuriosityCircuit2024 Then what do you think is the point of history lessons?
@@LV_427 no one could put all history into a school curriculum. it's one of the reasons you learn very little greece and roman empire or the rise of nazi germany from 33-39 in high school history in indonesia or thailand for that matter, nor did they learn about srivijaya or the spice trade in europe.
In 1940, after the carrier USS Yorktown was fitted with radar, there was talk of sending her to the US Asiatic Fleet. I’ve so often wondered how she could have impacted events such as joining with Force Z or with the ABDA force, etc. I should try to write an alternate history novel.
Well, the Japanese would have merely countered Yorktown with their own air power, whether ground-based or carrier-based. American carriers simply didn't have a prayer of matching the Kido Butai at this point in the war, even when they had equal numbers. At best Yorktown could have saved Force Z, but I don't think it would have mattered. Prince of Wales and Repulse couldn't fight off the entire Japanese navy, and any counterattacks would have exposed Force Z to further air attack or (even worse) an engagement with Yamato and other Japanese battleships. In all likelihood, Force Z would have retreated to the Indian Ocean and Yorktown would have retreated to Pearl Harbour. Anything else would've been suicide.
What you're handily forgetting with your counterfactual is the cascading effect of Yorktown not being available to the Pacific fleet.
The Dutch Struggle In the Far East was a desperate, yet doomed fight. Despite what they prepared and what they fought with, influences of pacifism and the overly aggressive strategies of the Dutch Naval Command secured their demise.
Amazing detailed Video may I also add! 👍
Welp, they were not prepared at all tbh. Had they prepare themselves well they would know that IJA would come at them anytime with all its might when they stop the oil and coal shipment from Dutch East Indies to Japan.
I do Pacific is something I haven’t seen much of, I know things happened but the Dutch East Indies, and Australian campaigns are things I know little about so this is cool!
Battles rarely occured in the DEI after 1942, only some parts of Papua (Biak) saw battles between japanese and the allies.
Great video! Local town and Japanese names pronounciation is definitely improved, and the narration is very captivating! Good job! waiting for the next video.
Glad to see more coverage of the Fourth Ally. :)
The loss of crew on these ships was immense.
When it takes less time to invade most of South-East Asia than to make a video series about it. Great set of videos. Keep it up!
4:23 Sorry for a bit nitpicking, it's pronounced Bawean Island.
Damn, nice new intro!
It's quite fitting for the channel as well!
Excellent video 📹
The command should have been given to Exeter and the British force.
They had battle experience and would have been aggressive by themselves.
The Dutch and Americans had no battle experience, as the American destroyers knew this and exited.
My granddad was on the Hr.Ms. Soemba, a light coastal ship of 1500 tonnes, during this battle. Because of maintenance and speed, his ship was too late for this battle and he and his ship could escape and survive. He later fought many other battles including at the landings of D-Day in Europe. Thankfully, he survived, because that's how I can tell this story.
You stated allied ships sunk nothing larger than a minesweeper, how ever they did sink a number of transports, which with the Japanese so dependant on sea supply, was important. Probably in the neighborhood of 50000 tons. About 75,000 tons in total from all branches. Sub plane etc.
In the opening salvos of an invasion where troops are mostly amassed in a single location, the supply situation doesnt really matter all that much. Holding down conquered territory is different tho.
50,000 tons? No. You are referring to the raid on Balikpapan on January 24, 1942. Three transport ships were sunk of 3500-5000 tons each and one 750 ton patrol boat. This was the first US fleet surface battle since 1898 and the Spanish-American war.
Of course there were the Japanese Transports the Japanese sunk ... one of the down sides to having torpedoes with a really long range ...
.
@@BobSmith-dk8nw p ok
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-124
I am loving this channels content day by day. Its hard to get info on japanese military and navy side of things.
I really enjoy this series! What are you gonna do for the next videos?
Thank you for the maps. They help explain the action so well. Such a desperate battle. Badly coordinated and with no advantages. Heroes all...
The Imperial Japanese Navy was arguably the best navy in the world at this time. Its rigorous training, its emphasis on night fighting and torpedo tactics made it a formidable force. They had the best night binoculars in the world, and only men with the best eyesight served as lookouts. And their "Long Lance" torpedo was the best weapon of its kind (1,000-pound warhead, long-range, left no wake).
Not even lying, these videos get better and better.
This was actually a really fascinating encapsulation of Japanese doctrine at the time. They assumed before the war that they would need to fight in a "decisive battle" to get rid of the Europeans, so most of their navy was geared towards that concept. IE their ships were super highly trained, and they sunk a ton of resources into standoff weapons, particularly torpedoes.
You'll note in the battle that 1) airpower was crucial, since seaplanes regularly spotted the enemy craft well before they came over the horizon, 2) torpedoes were spammed like nobody's business from extreme distances (only really possible with japanese "long lance" torpedoes) to keep the larger ships from engaging, and 3) the Japanese gunnery consistently outranged the allied ships.
TLDR: I feel like this battle would've validated most of the Japanese naval doctrine pre-war, and was exactly the kind of conflict they were hoping for. Unfortunately for them, the americans were to arrive in force, and upend all of that....
To be fair, everybody thought there would be a decisive battle at sea. The american plan for defeating Japan was to send all battleships across the pacific to the philippines and have a decisive battle there. The attack on pearl harbor obviously foiled that plan, and then the Americans changed to airpower because it was the only think they had left and they had seen the effectiveness firsthand. I feel like some lower ranks, like admiral Yamamoto knew that air power was the next big thing, but the absolute navy top (and goverment) didn't see it that way yet.
@@janvisser4132
The plan for fighting Japan in the late 1930s was no longer to charge across the Pacific to save the Philippines: it was to pull back, build even more battleships, and counterattack in 1943 against a now-overextended Japan in a more prolonged war of attrition. Which was basically what actually happened, except both sides ended up building far more carriers than battleships (though both Japan and the US still wasted too much money on new, obsolete-upon-launch battleships) and fighting with those instead.
So the Japanese were wrong to believe America could be drawn into a fast, decisive battle.
And the idea Japan was somehow unusual in being stupid enough to believe in battleships is wrong, because literally everyone made the same mistake: even the US ended up wasting resources AFTER PH on completing all their new battleships despite the fact they were now pointless and just a waste of money.
Thanks for this interesting commentary. It is a reminder of the earlier phase of the war, to those who tend only to focus on the later (and more Allied successful) stages of the war. It is also a reminder of the fundamental difficulty of integrating the command of various different ships, from various different nationalities and with various different designs. [That's a hard job to do, and I think that it's fair to say that most "Allied" efforts to limit or deter Japanese aggression in the early part of the war failed, in part based upon the difficulties of coordination between Allied forces that were not well-trained to cooperate in close formation. Anyway, even a lot of brave, committed Dutch, British, American, and other forces had trouble combining and coordinating into a truly unified and effective resistance to the very unified and all-Japanese attackers.]
Sadly, many of the wrecks in these battles were salvaged and sold of for scrap metal. Disturbing a seaman's grave like that is a heinous act.
Your government won't pay for it, so we sold it to be recycled.
You can blame your own government
Allied forces did in fact sink a vessel larger then a minesweeper. The U.S Navy submarine, USS S-37 managed on February 8th 1942, to sink a Japanese destroyer, IJN Natsushio, as she was escorting a convoy towards Masakar. She gained the dishonor of being the first warship sunk by an American submarine of WWII.
Sorry should have clarified in the script, I mean allied *surface* ships
@@historigraph Your account is excellent regardless since so little focuses on this area of the war. I'm only mention this because this video had me thumbing through a few sources on the Java Sea campaign, and i was quite surprised to have found a rare successful USN submarine attack in an otherwise disastrous campaign.
"Our artillery reports have been frustratingly inaccurate"
"It's like we've been jinxed"
I heard about this battle when I was young. My dad was on the USS Alden. The run to Austrialia is another great story.
The allies continued to underestimate the IJN in the early months of the war. Fortunately with time tactics improved.
Great job on this , thank you !!!
It's crazy just how effective the Japanese were during the early war
Well they took quite some casualties as well and their offensive didn't even hold for a year. Their opponents were caught of guard, had few good forces and miss managed Them completely (one would wonder how much harder the Japanese would have had to work to invade java if the UK hadn't suicided their two best ships at day one)
@@protosszocker5678 ye
In many ways the Japanese were like the Germans in their respect early war periods. They were the aggressors, organised, well trained and equipped and driven by a near-spiritual sense of destiny. By contrast the Allies were outnumbered, outgunned (except the Royal Navy) and largely disorganised. The US Navy just had it's face kicked in at Pearl Harbour and the Royal Navy was stretched across the world trying to hold down the largest contested area of the world, of any nation.
Yep, by the time the 1942 drew to a close, the Allies were in a perilous state. The US had scored a marginal victory in the Guadalcanal campaign though at a high cost in ships and men. It wouldn't be until 1944 that major naval actions returned to the Pacific as the Americans bolstered their forces in the years after Midway.
@@dynamo1796 Not quite accurate though. By the time the 1942 drew to a close, Allies were not even remotely in a perilous state. Japanese offensive was effectively stopped, with Japanese naval air arm so devasted that it basically sit throught 1943 in order to regain strenght. Guadalcanal campaign was anything but marginal. It arguably was more important than Midway since it costed far more aircrafts and pilots than Midway did, both of which Japan could barely replenish in proper timeframe. US restarted major naval operation already in 1943. Japan simply did not respond with theirs' until summer of 1944.
@@dynamo1796 yes
Really happy to see how well this video is doing Josh, you have a great channel and I hope you keep up the good work, all the best
Very sadly, I believe that the sunken ships together with their human remains, have been destroyed by illegal salvage. Often only a depression remains in the sea bed to show where they were.
That's why by now, different warships from different countries are training or drilling together.
THE REMAINING JEDI- SHIPS WILL HE HUNTED DOWN AND DEFEATED!
The Allied naval defeat in SEA was comprehensive
The ijn naval defeat was total 🔥
That was really interesting. Thanks.
I would have ordered Kortenaer to fall out and all ships full flank ahead .. Cruisers and Destroyers in Battle cannot be hampered by restrictions to their speed and maneuverability ..
Damn, the eyes on the Japanese lookout spotting the Allied fleet at 16k yards, at night...
Sad to see the fate of the ships that sank here got illegally salvaged
99% likely Malaysian Salvage Pirates
@@loveofmangos001 either them or Indonesian's scrap metal collector. Madura is closeby afterall.
What a shame.
@@loveofmangos001 Nah. Unless we are talking about prince of wales and repulse then it is a yes
what else are you supposed to do with them?
I mean, they also illegally colonized Indonesia so....
My mother worked for a couple in the housekeeping where the husband served aboard the flagship Hr Ms de Ruyter as a officer. Both survived Japanese captivity.
The early part of this war is just Japan continually annihilating the allies
Fast forward 2 years and its precisely the reverse
@@dynamo1796 1 more year and 2 suns appeared on Japan main cities
@@dynamo1796 yes
The Japanese had the best naval aviation in the world and they substantially outnumbered the American, British, Dutch and Australian fleets in the Pacific even before Pearl Harbour. It was inevitable.
@@Cailus3542 interesting
'Cometh the hour, cometh the man,'
"I am attacking, follow me."
That must rank along side, some of the most famous naval signals in history...
I remember so many of these battles and ships from Battlestations Midway and Pacific. The memories!
Great games!
Random fact, HMS Electra was the destroyer that rescued the 3 survivors from HMS Hood. She then sailed with the Prince of Wales and Repulse for Singapore and rescued survivors from Repulse. She had a busy and short war. Lest We Forget.
Perth and Houston did more damage in the Battle of Sunda Strait than Doorman's entire squadron. The RAN lost her finest captain Hec Waller when Perth went down.
Collins was a great Captain as well.
I am just glad the history will never be repeated as training with other navies has been engrained into the fabric of sea training.
USS Houston and HMAS Perth were sunk together, with both captains still on their bridges, fighting their ships to the end. The Houston captain was awarded the posthumous Medal of Honour. The Australian captain of the Perth was recommended for the Victoria Cross but as the RAN was under RN command, the Brits declined the award. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made, up til the mid 2010s, to redress this injustice, most recently opposed by the Australian defence forces, preventing it, just before the Australian PM was about to approve it. Astounding.
Your channel is one of the best on whole YT. Keep it up.
The Dutch has colonized Indonesia for 350-ish years, so for us the Japanese was a liberator... Then the Japanese colonize us for 3½ years and we finally got our independence in 1945.
1948
It's not actually 350 years btw
@@DOESb 18 Agustus 1945. That's our independence day. That's the day we celebrate. That's the original date. I know we still have trouble even up until the 1950s.
@@dhanushaka6407 it is. Is it exact? No. Is it right? We don't know. But ask any Indonesian, they will say 300-350 years.
@@De-us not really, in the school's textbook it is indeed mentioned that the dutch colinized us for 350 years, however, the dutch are only able to fully conquer the area of nowadays Indonesia in 1912
Thanks for covering this little known naval battle
It's sickening to know these wrecks are being illegally salvaged for their metals
I just posted about that as well. Entire wreckage are gone. What's supposed to be untouched grave sites plundered for the metal. Happens all throughout history all over the world. Doesn't make it right but it happens nonetheless.
No one can patrol the wreck 24x7 and most likely they use the situation during moonsoon season where the gale is strong enough to deter any patrol ships from going too far from the shore.
I looked at Cdr Binford's career after the battle. USN Stewart, his flagship, turned over while in dry dock so had to be abandoned. The IJN refloated, repaired and used her. Cdr Binford got the Navy Cross for the battle. What happened afterward tells me that Nimitz or King was not impressed with his performance. He was sent back to the States and placed on shore duty. He only went back to sea during the last year of the war. One would had thought he would had been assigned to either a ship command or staff duty in the Pacific, being one of the few officers to fight a naval surface engagement prior to Guadalcanal.
Bailing out midway through the battle was a very poor look for the US during what everyone knew was the last stand of the Allies in Java. Where the US built it's wartime reputation fighting to the man on Wakefield, Binford effectively ran away not only abandoning his Allies but his own countrymen as well. The specifics around ammo and fuel become irrelevant once that perspective was formed - you simply couldn't have a commander known only for running away in charge of anything more than a wharf.
seems poor to condemn a guy for being cautious when the US had no Pacific fleet; might have had to cover Darwin or Midway
compared with all those other admirals who got rows & rows of awards when they were fighting IJN later in the war (while being backed by the economic juggernaut that was making a new fleet worth of ships every 12 months)
this video does a better job than others of showing how the ABDA fleet had been already underway for 24hrs before the initial engagement
I think even the most casual of viewers would see that fighting the Japanese fleet at night was not courageous.
@@RW77777777 Unfortunately the USN had a long list of overly cautious commanders at this phase of the war - much as been made of the actions at Guadalcanal where the US had several opportunities to really swing the tide for the Japanese but didn't. I'm not here to say if the Commander's action was objectively right or wrong but A) battles aren't won by running away and B) the perception issue remains. Just look at Captain Bode or the R.A Wright's stories - both situations where the US should have dominated the engagement and didn't, leading to career damning actions. Bode shot himself in disgrace while Wright shared a fate similar to Binford. Lack of confidence from COMSOPAC and poor (or in Bode and Wright's case, disastrous) performance are not things you come back from.
@@dynamo1796 The Dutch were willing to throw away the force in order to Show The Flag in the East Indies. Which is fine; if they don't do that then it's complete moral collapse of their right to rule the East Indies, not just a total military collapse (which could not be stopped at this point). The Americans actually had to win the war from here on and thus needed ships and men.
@@dynamo1796 What is Wakefield?
Imagine if Doorman captained the Project 1047 battlecruiser. He would have possibly faced B65 Super Type A battlecruisers. The fight would have been glorious.
He would simply be bombed by aircrafts from captured airfields or from Kido Butai. Battlecruiser would be enough of the target to deploy such assets which otherwise were not used during invasion of Java.
The IJN would've probably dispatched some CVs and either Nagatos or Kongos in that scenario
Either way the Dutch Battlecruiser would've been sunk regardless since she'd be outnumbered both by air and on sea.
He and other allied captains at the time were ignorant of the capabilities of the Long Lance and dismissive of Japanese night fighting prowess. Even if it escaped the Kido Butai, charging at the enemy at night in a 30,000 ton battlecruiser would have simply presented a larger target for IJN torpedo spam.
@@Ozraptor4 So far I have heard is that US high command had intell on those long lance torps but did not believed it because why would Japan have them if the US did not and thus this information was not given to the people in the field.
this is the only channel that makes me interested in naval history