Ship of Ghosts - James D. Hornfischer [33]
Under the overall command of Rear Adm. Shoji Nishimura in the light cruiser Naka, the Eastern Attack Group had sailed from Jolo on February 19, embarking the Imperial Japanese Army’s 48th Division, veterans of the Philippines conquest. General MacArthur had duly reported them to ABDA. Stopping at Balikpapan, the convoy absorbed most of the 56th Regiment. As Nishimura’s group approached Java from the east, farther to the west Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa’s Western Attack Force, originating from Camranh Bay in Indochina, was southbound with fifty-six transports. The two invasion forces reached slowly south toward their prize.
Rear Adm. Karel Doorman, flying his flag in the light cruiser De Ruyter, left Surabaya harbor near sunset on February 26 sure that invasion was imminent, though less certain what course he should take to head it off. As his ships departed, the wrecked docks were dotted with old men, women, and children—relatives of Dutch sailors, perhaps—waving farewell. Spirits were high, but his squadron’s departure went less than smoothly. As the striking force was getting under way, the De Ruyter struck a tugboat hauling a water barge, sinking both of the smaller ships.
Doorman’s flotilla—De Ruyter in the lead, followed by the Houston, the Exeter, the light cruisers Java and Perth, and nine destroyers from three nations—cleared the narrows between the west coast of Madura Island and Java and reached open water. The time for hedging bets had passed. After months of indecision and scattershot planning, the Allies had a powerful surface force under one command. Doorman would take it to sea and risk everything in defense of his homeland’s exotic outpost.
As the Houston made way, the Exeter turned out and passed her. From her mainmast the British heavy cruiser was flying a bright white battle ensign, twelve feet on a side, illuminated by a ray of the setting sun. Paul Papish on the Houston, seeing the British ship, couldn’t help but think that as impressive a spectacle as it made, the ensign tended to defeat the elaborate camouflage painted on her hull. As the Exeter went by, sailors on the Houston could hear a tune playing over the British ship’s loudspeakers: “A-Hunting We Will Go…” The buglers on the Dutch destroyers blew what sounded like a hunting song too. “Even when we found that it was merely a bugle call to close water-tight doors it still had a fine challenging lilt to it,” remembered Lieutenant Hamlin.
Admiral Doorman took his column east along Madura Island until about 1:00 a.m., turned north, then reversed course west for the rest of the night. He led his ships as far as Rembang, then doubled back east. The Japanese fleet continued to elude him. Probing the night by eye, his lookouts found nothing. Then dawn came, dependably bringing with it the drone of Japanese aircraft. The air-search radar on the Perth detected them above the cloud layer. At nine o’clock a plane broke through and dropped a stick of bombs that splashed harmlessly in the vicinity of the destroyer HMS Jupiter. The attack was a mere gesture. It was the fact that the Japanese had spotted them that carried the greatest threat. Appearing sporadically over Doorman’s Combined Striking Force through the morning of February 27, the Japanese fliers shadowed it and kept Nishimura apprised. Duly alerted, the commanders of the heavy cruisers Nachi and Haguro doubtless knew they would have plenty of time to catch up with the transports and form up for battle.
By noon, with his destroyers’ oil bunkers getting light, Admiral Doorman chose to return to Surabaya. The consecutive nights’ failure to find and engage the enemy did not sit well with Admiral Helfrich. On hearing of Doorman’s return to port, he signaled his striking force commander, “Notwithstanding air attack you are to proceed to search for and attack enemy.” But the air attack was not the reason for Doorman’s withdrawal. He responded to Helfrich, “Was proceeding eastward after search from Sapoedi to Rambang. Success of action tonight depends