This Japanese gunnery was superb compared to the results another set of heavy cruisers had obtained in the old history. There they had fired over 1600 rounds, getting only five hits, with four of those failing to explode. Those ships had been of the older Myoko Class cruisers. In this action it was all Mogami class, and they had scored at least sixteen hits for roughly the same expenditure of ammunition, an average of one hit per hundred rounds fired.
This was combat at sea in WWII, and nothing like the almost certain calculus that Kirov enjoyed. It was all a haphazard affair, one part seamanship, one part sweat and skill, three parts sheer luck. Doorman himself was wounded, his bridge clotted with heavy smoke, and he realized that his brave charge had done all it could. He turned about, hoping to make Surabaya before his ship lost power, and the remaining four US destroyers wheeled about to lay a heavy smoke screen and cover the withdrawal.
The Japanese were more than happy to see them go, and not inclined to pursue. Kumano had one forward turret out of action, Mogami two turrets that had sustained heavy damage, and Mikuma had her aft turret jammed by a hit near the barbette that prevented it from rotating. It would send the entire squadron home after the invasion for the refits that would see Mogami move from a caterpillar to a butterfly. The loss of Chikuma in the north meant the fleet needed fast scout cruisers with search planes, and this class was always eyed with that in mind.
So the Japanese had done exactly what a covering force was supposed to do, and protected the invasion convoy, putting five enemy destroyers and the cruiser Sumatra under the Java Sea. They would not lose a single ship, and the invasion would now proceed as planned.
Doorman’s surviving ships made Surabaya, and the haggard Admiral came ashore, his arm in a bloodied sling, realizing that he could do no more with his tattered squadron. He was, in fact, a Zombie now, for in the old history, his intransigence and persistence in leading his outgunned ships after the enemy would end with his death. This time he would have a very long night ahead to think about the men and ships he left behind. The four remaining American destroyers would slip off to try and reach Darwin, leaving him nothing much to fight with.
Doorman’s fleet had bothered the Japanese invasion of Sumatra, failed to stop the landings on Bali, and was now convincingly crushed in the Java Sea. The strategic result of his actions was nothing more than a brave, futile defeat, and his many sorties resulted in the Japanese now having total control of the Java Sea. Yet the naval game was not entirely over. Mountbatten was too late to intervene here, but he would arrive the following day just as the landings were underway.
It would put him in a very good position to cause trouble, but at that moment he did not know that another Admiral was steaming west in the Arafura Sea, Chiuchi Nagumo, with the 5th Carrier Fleet. Zuikaku and Shokaku had finished their work at Rabaul and now they came west, with three battleships, and trouble would not be half a word for what Nagumo had in mind.
* * *
That night, the 2nd Division convoy would make its approach to Merak, and the Eastern Covering Force moved into position to screen off any further sortie from Surabaya. The 48th Division followed it, with the Sakaguchi Detachment, and in the pre-dawn hours the ships deployed their paravanes and glided slowly towards their assigned anchorage sites. This detachment would be the first troops to set foot on Java at Kragan, a small fishing village on the north central coast. It had been chosen precisely because it offered a stretch of long shallow beaches, and was not near a port where the enemy might be expected to defend. As such, the landing achieved complete surprise, and was unopposed.
The troops moved quickly inland, reaching the rail line coming from Semarang through Lasem. Soon the remainder of the division would expand this beachhead east to Tuban on the road to Surabaya. One key objective were the oil fields at Tejapu, about 40 kilometers south of Kragan. This was assigned to Colonel Sakaguchi, as it was on the road to the large inland city of Surjakarta, which opened the route to the south coast.
The Dutch were the first to hear of the landings, and quickly dispatched their 2nd Cavalry Battalion positioned northeast of Surabaya to investigate. As it approached Tuban, it ran into 1/1 Formosa Battalion of the 48th Infantry, advancing quickly along the road in column.
Number 2 Armored Car Company was composed of 12 Alvis Straussler AC3D Armored Cars purchased from the United Kingdom in 1938. It was a speedy 13 ton four wheeled vehicle, with a hull mounted Vickers .303 MG and a turret mounted 12.7mm heavy machine gun. This small company stopped at Balud along the rail line near a bridge over the Solo River and began to set up a road block. The Japanese actually intended to cross this river at Bodjanegoro, about 30 kilometers west, but the position occupied by the Dutch was also on their list of objectives that day.
The only substantial fighting force for the Allies was well to the west, Brigadier Bennett’s Australian Brigade, which was all that was left of the 8th Division forces that had been on Singapore. They were 100 kilometers from the Sakaguchi Detachment landings at Kragan, and Bennett now had to decide what to do.
There were two routes he could take east. One was through a broad valley that skirted south of a stubby peninsula formed by the mass of Mount Murjo. This road would take him to the small port of Rembang on the north coast, then east to the site of the enemy landings. The second route followed road and rail lines through another inland valley that would take him to those oil fields at Tejapu, and then on to Surabaya. There was high country between the two routes, with no good roads of any kind. Bennett’s problem was that he would need to cover both routes. He got on the telephone to Brigadier Clifton, who was posted south at Surjakarta with the New Zealand Brigade.
“If we take the road to Rembang,” said Bennett, the Japanese could swing through Tejapu and then come west. That would bottle my brigade up near Mount Murjo. I would have to split my brigade and send at least one battalion by the other route as a blocking force.”
Bennett’s problem was they he could not walk two roads and yet one traveler be. Splitting his brigade in the face of uncertain enemy strength was not wise.
“If you decide that,” said Clifton, “then keep your main strength on the inland road to Tejapu. We know the Japs will want those oil fields. But I’ll go you one better. I can take my brigade up to Ngawa, right south of those fields. Then we’d be in a good position to support you.”
After contacting Montgomery, that was the order of the day, but it was specified that the airfields near Surjakarta and Semarang had to be garrisoned.
“We’ve heard the Japanese used paratroops on Timor,” said Monty. “Furthermore, we haven’t established that this is their main landing yet. Semarang is a nice cherry of a port. It will have to be held.”
That order was going to split Bennett’s Brigade three ways, and he wasn’t happy about it. He sent his 2/19 Battalion up to Rembang on the coast, and then took his artillery and 2/26 Battalion by the inland route. 2/18th Battalion deployed along the coast near Semarang. He had one more battalion, but it had been sent well south on the road to Malang, the “support” Monty had decided to provide to the Dutch forces in Surabaya.
As for Clifton, he found rolling stock and put his 24th Battalion on the line east. The Brigade than pooled its transport and sent the 26th Battalion by road, leaving the 25th Battalion in Surjakarta. So these orders were going to set four battalions in motion, advancing on a front that measured some 80 kilometers north to south.
Even as these troops set out on their marches, the next alarm rang far to the west at Merak on the Sunda Strait. Japanese troops of the Fukushima Detachment of 2nd Division stormed ashore there, swarming the Dutch and British defenders that had been watching that vital crossing point to Sumatra. The Dutch had just escaped from Oosthaven, welcomed by the single British battalion there, 2/5 Beds & Herts.
Further north, on the other side of a knobby mountain peninsula rising some 1900 feet, more Japanese transports had appeared in Banten Bay. It was soon clear that this was to be the
main attack against Batavia, and now Montgomery rocked on his heels. “They’ve split their forces in two,” he grinned, “east and west. That gives us an excellent chance to defeat them in detail.”
“Assuming this is all they have,” said Sitwell, acting as his Chief of Staff due to his better knowledge of the scene there on Java.
“True,” said Monty, but at the very least I think we can hem these landings in near Merak.”
Then word came of the landing further east on the coast near a small hamlet named Patrol, and Monty’s eyes lost some of their shine. “Any idea of the strength there? Any division identified?”
“It looks to be the leading edge of at least a regiment, but we have no further details. Collier’s Royal Engineers are at the airfield at Kalidjati.”
“That’s what they want,” said Montgomery, thinking. “They knew they needed Merak on the Sunda Strait to secure their communications over to Sumatra. But these landings at Banten Bay look substantial from all reports. I’m inclined to think this other landing to the east is merely a raid, aimed at securing that airfield. They wouldn’t land that far east to make a go at Batavia. That’s why they’re in Banten Bay.”
“Sir, we’ve got the Division Recon Battalion at Cerebon, and the 1st Sherwood Foresters on the road heading that way. Together with the Royal Engineers, we could put three battalions into that landing out east, and they’d be coming in from every side.”
“Perfect,” said Montgomery. “Make it so.”
Those Royal Engineers were fairly well equipped. They had 27 squads in all, with 13 Vickers MGs, plenty of 3-inch mortars and even four Bren carriers. They set out towards the landing site immediately, and soon ran right into a much smaller detachment of engineers that were making right for that airfield. They would meet at Pagadan Baru on the rail line over the Punegara River, and a sharp engagement ensued.
The Royals reached the bridge first, with rifle fire from the advancing enemy snapping off the metal girders. They had no idea of the actual enemy strength, and there was soon help at hand to the east when the recon battalion came up in lorries and began to attack a small detachment of Japanese armored cars from march. They drove them back, but the Japanese were only falling back on the first of their three battalions of infantry in this landing, and their defense soon strengthened.
Out in the Sunda Strait, Mountbatten had sent a pair of destroyers to screen and patrol, wanting to know if the Japanese were making any movement into the Indian Ocean. DD Jupiter heard the radio traffic near Merak, and steamed up to investigate, but Lieutenant Commander Norman Thew was running into trouble. He had just lowered his field glasses, after seeing the vast sweep of enemy troops ships and thought he would have a crack at them. Soon they began to receive enemy fire from small caliber guns, and he gave an order to maneuver, when there was a sudden violent explosion.
“Torpedo!” a man yelled from below, and it was clear the ship had taken a hard blow to the starboard side. In fact, Jupiter had struck a mine, making her appointment with fate exactly on schedule, in spite of the many changes in the order of these events. The mine had been laid to help screen the approaches to Merak the previous day, by the Dutch minelayer Gouden Leeuw.
So while spared the grave risk of the fighting in the Java Sea, Jupiter would nonetheless meet its ordained end here in the Sunda Strait off the rocky coast of Java. The tabular record of movement would report her end almost verbatim as it had in Fedorov’s history: “During maneuvers to avoid enemy fire, ship detonated mine in position 6.45S - 112.6E and was totally disabled. Remained afloat for four hours before sinking. 84 of ship’s company were killed or missing with 97 taken prisoner and 83 were either able to reach the shore or were rescued by the US Submarine USS-S38.”
Thus far, the enemy was ashore in at least three locations, but Allied resources had been close enough to reach them and move to contain the landings. But this was just the leading edge of the storm now blowing in from the Java Sea.
The real thunder was yet to roll.
Chapter 15
05:40, Sunda Strait, 28 Feb, 1942
In the early morning hours of Feb 28th, the distress signal received from destroyer Jupiter, along with the report that the Japanese were continuing their landings at Merak, prompted Mountbatten to act. Operating well south of the Sunda Strait, the flight crews on Illustrious and Indomitable were already beginning to spot planes for a planned airstrike at dawn. Mountbatten therefore decided to detach a stronger surface action group to move into the strait prior to that attack and scout the enemy position.
Destroyers Scout and Tenedos were already north of a small island group that sat in the middle of that strait, and they were probing closer to the Sumatran coast to ascertain whether the Japanese were making any use of the recently captured port of Oosthaven. Destroyers Electra and Express now led in a small task force to the south of those same islands, with light cruisers Dauntless and Dragon, followed by heavy cruisers Exeter and Dorsetshire. They soon encountered a screen of three Japanese destroyers south of Merak, and began to engage them with fire from the cruisers.
Captain Agustus Willington Shelton Agar, VC, DSO, was also a man to stack up names and titles, and he stood aboard Dorsetshire, watching the darkness ahead as the first salvoes fired. There followed soon after a slight quavering, which prompted him to look over his shoulder, thinking one of the other ships had fired behind him. All seemed quiet, so he looked forward again.
“That’s Exeter up ahead, is it not?” he said to the Officer of the Watch.
“Aye sir, she hasn’t fired yet.”
Thinking it was no more than an echo, the Captain turned to watch as Exeter finally fired, her 8-inch guns lighting up her silhouette some 2000 yards ahead. The guns barked, followed by a long, low rumbling sound that the Captain thought was thunder.
“Mister Dawes, are we expecting rain?”
“No sir, clear ahead and with a good moon. She’s nearly full sir. Should be good sighting once we close the range.”
The hydrophone operator on Dorsetshire had heard the sound as well, but thought it was nothing more than the dull rumble of naval gunfire, or perhaps even one of the destroyers dropping a depth charge on a suspected enemy submarine. Captain Agar looked at his watch, marking the time 05:48, and gave the order to increase speed to two thirds. The small bright flash of enemy gunfire appeared ahead as the Japanese destroyers realized their peril and began to fire back. No heavy guns yet, thought Agar, all the better for us, but we don’t know what’s back of that destroyer screen.
It wasn’t anything behind that destroyer screen that he should have been concerned about, for there was something in his wake that was far more dangerous. He had felt something like this an hour ago as they entered the Sunda Strait, a fluttering in the air, as if the pressure was changing, though the barometer remained steady. There came a trembling in the atmosphere, a quavering vibration that rattled the ship, setting lose equipment to shaking. The engines would rumble like that at times, protesting a sudden change of speed, but Dorsetshire had been fairly reliable of late. She was due for a refit soon, and the Captain hoped he would not have engine trouble now as he entered battle.
There was a loud boom, followed by a low growl, like the sound of a long distended roll of thunder, but the skies were clear, the wind calm, save for the vaguest sense of unease on the breeze, as if something was happening, a subtle shift, not in the weather, but in the earth itself. Captain Agar looked over his shoulder again, the hair on the back of his neck prickling up, as though he was being stalked by some unseen foe, but there was nothing to be seen, at least at first.
Dorsetshire fired again, and he moved out close to the edge of the weather deck to have a look with his field glasses, but he was not looking forward. Even in the urgency of the battle, the discomfiture he felt, an almost queasy sense of unease that was akin to dread, had prompted him to look aft, and there he finally saw something low on the horizon, a dull red glow much akin to what the sun might look
like in the first red moment of dawn. Moving quickly to the chart table on the bridge, his finger tapped out the spot where he thought he was seeing the spectacle. There came a low rumble again, like that of a tea kettle just before it boiled, and the sound of a distant hiss in the sky.
“Must be a bloody volcano,” he said aloud. “But this one has gone dormant, hasn’t it?”
The Captain was an educated man, and new something of the world he was sailing in. The sea mount on his charts was in fact a cluster of small islands, Penjang, Sertung, and then a series of three peaks, Pertuban, Danan, and the highest being Rakata. They rumbled about from time to time, but seldom bothered anyone beyond that. Now it was the boom of Dorsetshire’s third salvo that commanded his attention, and shaking his head, he turned to his battle without another backward thought.
Far to the southwest, the planes were lined up on the decks of the British carriers as the skies slowly began to lighten. Illustrious had suffered an odd collision with HMS Formidable in the old history, and repairs had kept her from this duty. But it never happened here. Somerville and Wells had taken Formidable on a private hunt, and so Illustrious was in fine fighting trim, her two newly installed radar sets alert to any sign of enemy planes. She had her flight deck enlarged by 50 feet, a new catapult installed, and ten more 20mm Oerlikon AA guns to beef up her defenses.
Just as Illustrious wasn’t supposed to be where she was, an officer on her flight deck that morning was also off his appointed rounds. His name was Charles Bentell Lamb, not to be confused with Lieutenant Peter “Sheepy” Lamb who’s fate we have already visited aboard the ill fated HMS Audacity. Charlie Lamb had come up through the Merchant Marine, then learned to fly with the RAF Coastal Command before being posted to Illustrious. He had a fondness for the old Swordfish torpedo bombers, spending many long hours in his Stringbag before it was finally replaced with the new Albacore. Before the war he had gained some notoriety as a boxer for the fleet, and now he was spoiling for another kind of fight, eager to get up and see what the Japanese were up to that morning.
Turning Point (Kirov Series Book 22) Page 13