Battle of Sunda Strait
After the Battle of the Java Sea, the remaining Allied forces are split between Surabaya and Batavia with a powerful enemy in between. It became imperative to retire all fighting ships from the enemy-controlled Java Sea into the Indian Ocean. Once they pass the Malay Barrier it will be most precarious to venture through any of the narrow passages and straits to challenge the Japanese Navy. An attempt is made to reassemble the Allied forces in Tjilatjap and fight again from there.
The four American destroyers who had participated in the Battle of the Java Sea are at Surabaya, almost out of torpedoes and in no condition to fight. Adm Helfrich authorizes Adm Glassford to send them to Australia for rearming. The Pope, the only American destroyer left with a full load of torpedoes, remains to help British destroyer Encounter escort the wounded British cruiser Exeter to the Indian Ocean.
The question remained, which passage would be less dangerous. Adm Glassford recommends Lombok Strait, since Bali Strait is too shoal and narrow for the cruiser, but Adm Palliser, believing that the enemy had occupied eastern Bali in great strength, directed the Exeter group to seek Sunda Strait not knowing, through lace of air intelligence, that the enemy had already closed it.
Tjilatjap via Sunda Strait is also the destination of the two cruisers that had put in at Tanjong Priok after Java Sea. On this last night of February, two of the three surviving groups of the Combined Striking Force - Houston, Perth and Evertsen out of Batavia, and Exeter, Pope and Encounter out of Surabaya - start toward Sunda Strait, which a powerful Japanese force had already closed in order to effect the largest landing yet attempted in the Soutwest Pacific.
Perth and Houston, steaming along the northern coast of Java without surface or air escort, expect trouble. Having been delayed in starting, the Dutch destroyer Evertsen is not present. They can hardly hope to avoid the Japanese Western Attack Force, which the Australian light cruiser Hobart had sighted the day before near Banka Island. It is a clear, calm night and the moon full.
Read-Adm Kurita brings his Western Attack Force down from Banka Island to land on St. Nicholas Point, the northwestern extremityf Java which makes the entrance to Sunda Strait. There are good anchorages in Banten Bayh and excellent road communications with Batavia, some 50 miles away. A strong force build around four heavy cruisers and the aircraft carrier Ryujo move about 20 miles north of Banten Bay, to protect the landing force from any attack from that direction. The Japanese cruisers Mogami and Mikuma are near enough to close if necessary, and the light cruiser Natori with a whole destroyer squadron cover the transports as they disembark troops on the shores of the bay.
Between 2240 and 2255 hours, while ship-to-shore movement of troops is under way, the destroyer Fubuki, patrolling off shore, sights Perth and Houston approaching Banten Bay. A short time later the cruisers spot the anchored Japanese transports and open fire. Although Houston and Perth are only trying to escape, they have run into an enemy amphibious force at its most vulnerable moment. But, it is too little, too late.
Fubuki's presence is not detecte by the weary lookouts on the cruisers for about half an hour, as she shadows them. At 2315 Perth sights the destroyer and challenges her, hoping it is a friendly ship sent to help the cruisers through the Strait. Hope vanishes when the Japanese answers with a flare and sent 9 torpedoes from the short distance of 2,500-3,000 yards. The cruiser column swings hard right and opens fire. The torpedoes miss Perth and Houston but hits some of the Japanese transports.
As they swing north through the narrow passage between Panjang Island and St. Nicholas Point, Perth and Houston escape from one trap only to enter another. A light cruiser and 10 destroyer lie between them and Sunda Strait. In response to frantic signals from Fubuki, heavy cruisers Mogami and Mikuma hasten to intercept. Even in their flight, the Allied cruisers wreak havoc with the anchored transports. Between them them, they account for 4 loaded transports out of the 56-ship convoy. One of them, the 7000-ton Sakura Maru, sinks outright while the other three are able to beach themselves. Two of these are headquarters ships, one carrying Gen Imamura himself.
Around 2340 the Japanese fighting ships that had been summoned to the spot converges on the two Allied cruisers. Both sides fight under the full moon with everything they had at ranges from 5000 down to 500 yards. Four torpedoes strike Perth. Destroyer Harukaze takes a shell on her rudder but is shortly able to come in with Hatakaze to launch six more torpedoes at the British cruiser. A hit by Houston at 2355 damages Mikuma's electric power, but is quickly restored and she resumes shooting scoring several hits.
Five minutes after midnight, at 0005 March 1, Perth goes down, holed by torpedoes and 8-inch gunfire.
Now every Japanese ship concentrates on putting Houston away. She is already listing dangerously to starboard when, at ten minutes past midnight, she receives a salvo in her engine-room. A torpedo hits forward smashing up the main battery plot. Turrets went to local control, and for a few moments the gunners profit by a mistake that the enemy makes, illuminating his own ships, and put a couple of shells where they did good. One of them may have sunk the minesweeper AM-2. Ten minutes later an enemy shell hits No. 2 turret just as powder bags are being loaded which starts a fire which forces Capt Rooks to have both magazines flooded. Three torpedoes hit the ship on her starboard side and shrapnel from small-cliber fire ricochets about her superstructure.
The decks are already strewn with the dead and the dying and water is pouring fast into the hull. At 0025 Capt Rooks orders Abandon Ship. A few moments later, while standing near a machine gun mount, he and the entire gun crew are killed by a shrapnel burst. Seeing safe abandonment is improbable, Cdr David Roberts, the executive officer, cancels the order. The men stand by their guns and fire every bit of ammo they have until it is all expended.
Cdr Roberts now orders Abandon Ship for the second time at 0033. Within 12 minutes, the Houston rolls over and sinks.
Over a thousand men were on board when Houston began her last fight. All survivors, 368 in number, are recovered by the Japanese and imprisoned. They and the survivors of Perth have over three years of starvation and brutality ahead of them, during which some wished they had gone down with their shipmates off Sunda Strait.
They are soon to be joined by officers and ment from the destroyer Evertsen, which was to have escorted the Allied cruisers through to safety. By extraordinary luck she slips past the Japanese beachhead and penetrates Sunda Strait, only to be attacked by two destroyers and forced to ground in a sinking condition on the island of Sabuku at the entrance to the Indian Ocean.
The Japanese Western Attack Group has now crushed all naval opposition, and can proceed at leisure to consolidate and expand the beachhead.
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Map of the Battle of Sunda Strait |
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