Ship of Ghosts - James D. Hornfischer [74]
The destruction of the Allied fleet in the Dutch East Indies was proof of Capt. Albert H. Rooks’s foresight. His “Estimate of the Situation” foretold the entire fiasco. “There is an adage at war colleges that he who wills the end must will the means,” he had written. “For this task the means are lacking.”
Just as he had predicted, the other ships of the ABDA naval force, used in scattered piecemeal defense, came to sad ends. Once the Houston and the Perth were gone, there was little hope left for the stragglers. The Dutch destroyer Evertsen got under way a few hours after the two cruisers departed on their final voyages, clearing Tanjung Priok’s minefield by 9:15 p.m. on February 28. Shortly thereafter her captain reported flashes of gunfire ahead. A surprised Admiral Helfrich relayed to Rooks and Waller a message from Admiral Glassford reporting the start of the battle: “EVERTSEN reports sea battle in progress off St. Nicholas Pt…. If any of addressees are engaged with enemy others render assistance as possible.” This was not news to anyone in the Houston or the Perth. But since the Evertsen herself was soon thereafter attacked and sunk by two Japanese destroyers, Helfrich’s message created the misunderstanding in the Navy Department that the Houston had been lost while going to the Evertsen’s aid.
On the morning of March 1, Helfrich received notice from his chief of staff, British Rear Adm. A. F. E. Palliser, that all Royal Navy ships would withdraw from the theater. Helfrich argued for a time but eventually relented, perhaps recognizing the intractable conflict of national interests within his own headquarters. He then instructed Admiral Glassford to send the remaining U.S. ships to Australia. The old destroyers Parrott and Whipple, three gunboats, and two minesweepers were the only ones to reach Fremantle. The new Brooklyn-class light cruiser USS Phoenix, released from convoy duty and speeding to reinforce Java, was ordered back to Exmouth Gulf, Australia. It is said that when sailors from the old Asiatic Fleet encountered Phoenix crewmen later in the war, they ascribed that necessary decision to a lack of nerve. Sharp words occasionally followed, and a fisticuff or two.
The HMS Exeter, hastily repaired at Surabaya after the Java Sea debacle, tried to escape the waters of the conquered archipelago. On the morning of March 1, she was hunted down south of Borneo by four Japanese cruisers and sunk with the destroyers USS Pope and HMS Encounter. That same day, the USS Edsall was caught south of Java by the battleships Hiei and Kirishima. With their fourteen-inch salvos the battleships blew the old destroyer’s keel literally out of the water. The saddest story may belong to the Edsall’s sister ship, the USS Stewart. She had capsized in dry dock at Tjilatjap and was scuttled by her crew as the Allies abandoned the port. The Japanese repaired, refitted, and commissioned her as their own Patrol Boat No. 102, making that destroyer the only U.S. surface warship in World War II to be salvaged and made operational by her enemy. Through the rest of the war American pilots, recognizing her lines despite the modified uptakes and mast, would be mystified by the idea of an American ship operating so deep in enemy territory.
In his “Estimate of the Situation,” Captain Rooks leveled no criticism at his superiors, though it was plain enough that he would have done things differently had the campaign been his to direct. Politics had trumped operational strategy at every turn. As Rooks suggested, a failure of foresight and a shortage of matériel sealed their doom. Adm. Ernest King was said to have called the campaign to defend the southwestern Pacific “a magnificent display of very bad strategy.” Samuel Eliot Morison saw little