by RockyMountainNavy, 26 February 2025
When it comes to the naval history of World War II the Battle of the Java Sea tends to either be ignored or severely glossed over. Part of the reason the battle is so often ignored is likely because it was not an Allied victory. Part of the reason is that, given the Allied force was led by Dutch Rear Admiral Karl Doorman, neither the British nor Americans are inclined to mention their roles so as to disassociate themselves from the specter of defeat. For wargamers, however, the Battle of the Java Sea is an interesting scenario that, for as many titles include it in some manner, has much gaming potential that seemingly remains unexplored.
On paper the Battle of the Java Sea in late February 1942 looks almost balanced. A scratch force of Allied ships (ABDA – Australia, Britain, Dutch, American) composed of two heavy cruisers (USS Houston, HMS Exeter), three light cruisers (HMNLS De Ruyter [Flagship] and Java, HMAS Perth), and nine destroyers met a force of Japanese Imperial Navy ships composed of two heavy and two light cruisers (Nachi, Haguro, Jintsu, Naka) and 14 destroyers charged with escorting an invasion fleet bound for Java.
The Battle of the Java Sea was a multi-day affair. Paul S. Dull in A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945) divides the battle into six phases starting at 1525 local time on 27 February and not ending until 1 March (Dull, pp. 76-88). The short version of the 27 February main battle, as written in Helmut Pemsel’s A History of War at Sea, reads this way:
A long-range gunnery fight develops between the cruiser squadrons; Exeter is badly hit, and a Dutch destroyer is hit by a torpedo and explodes. In a destroyer duel around Exeter a British destroyer is sunk. The opponents sometimes lose sight of each other. Doorman tries several times to times to get around the Japanese warships and into the transports, but in vain. A British destroyer, meanwhile, sinks in a new minefield. After 7 hours of intermittent, but savage, combat, De Ruyter and Java are hit by torpedoes and sink; Doorman dies with them, and the surviving Allied ships withdraw. (Pemsel, p. 127)
The lopsided results seem out of line with the apparent “balance” of forces going into the battle. The reality is the Allied ships were hopelessly outclassed from the beginning. As Jeffrey R. Cox explains in Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II the sides were nowhere near equal. The major reasons Cox points to are:
- 8in guns – The Japanese shipped 20 of the 8in guns versus a mere 12 in the Allied fleet.
- Torpedoes – The Japanese fleet shipped 144 torpedo tubes of which 138 carried the legendary Type 93 “Long Lance;” the Allies had only 100 tubes of which 48 were on “ancient US destroyers.”
- Speed – The slowest Japanese ship was rated for 33.8 knots; the fastest the Allied fleet could travel was 26 knots which even then challenged the old US destroyers.
- Age – The oldest Japanese ship, Harukaze, was completed in 1922 but the rest of the fleet had been completed or modernized in the 1930s and were considered “top-of-the-line.” The Allied fleet, on the other hand, was mostly those older US destroyers built 1919-1920.
- Maintenance – The Allied forces were unable to properly maintain themselves going into battle. As Cox describes, “The Houston’s aft turret could not be repaired, The Exeter was having fire control problems generally and train issues with her own aft turret. The Kortenaer was slowed by her damaged boiler. The American destroyers all suffered from leaky condensers, old boilers, and bottoms biofouled with such annoyances as barnacles that could slow them down.”
- Crew conditions – Japanese sailors were riding high on a series of victories; the Allied sailors were exhausted. Going into the battle the Allied ships had been at battle stations for the past 24 hours.
- Training – The Allied ships had never trained together.
- Communications – The ABDA force came from four different countries in three different navies speaking two different languages; there was no common system for communications and many messages required time-consuming translation.
- Airpower – The Japanese had cruiser floatplanes for reconnaissance and spotting; the Allied ships lacked any air support. (Cox, pp. 285-287)
Taking all the factors Cox points to into consideration it becomes clear why the Allied force was defeated.
Java on the table
The Battle of the Java Sea appears in many tactical naval wargames likely because it is in some ways a “simple” scenario. Simple in the sense that the scenario can be played as a surface engagement without needing rules for aircraft or submarines. If one wants to truly explore the battle and take into consideration the factors Cox points to the scenario can quickly become quite complex.
One strength—and appeal—of wargames is that they allow players to “change the rules” and experiment with history. In the case of the Battle of the Java Sea many scenarios seem to challenge players to “try to do better” than the historical outcome. Many times changes are made to the scenario such as discounting the poor condition of Allied ships (“miraculous repairs”) or to add or subtract forces (at least one more US destroyer was nearby or Allied aircraft could have made an appearance).
Maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but I prefer to not “simplify” challenging scenarios but to make them more realistic. I personally am interested in seeing if I can get a better outcome despite the challenges. Many of the challenges I think about are rarely found in a Battle of the Java Sea scenario. Take for instance this description of battle challenges found in Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II by John Prados:
Technical factors account for a proportion of [Allied] fleet ineffectiveness. Commander Maher maintained later that Houston’s fire-control equipment for her big guns was obsolete before the war began. More practically, on the fifth salvo a fuse box failed in Houston’s A turret, incapacitating the mechanism for ramming the shells and powder bags into the gun barrels. Doing this work by muscle power, regarded as virtually impossible before the war, was certainly extremely difficult and reduced the ship’s gunnery efficiency. On the De Ruyter, the concussion of the guns broke the flagship’s signal lamps, further complicating already atrocious command control. Allied liaison officers were reduced to radio, for which encoding and decoding delays made battle direction almost impossible. Doorman could pass signal flags in Dutch to his liaison officer aboard Houston, who translated the commands and passed them to other English-speaking ships, but this extra layer in the command net proved extremely cumbersome. To complete the headache, the British ships also passed signals among themselves using Royal Navy flag code, which none could read save Englishmen. (Prados, pp. 261-263)
Alternatively, one could also make the argument that there is no way to adequately wargame the Battle of the Java Sea and remain true to the history. Cox in Rising Sun, Falling Skies makes this observation:
The back of their [Allied] resistance would be broken by their defeat at the hands of the Japanese at the Battle of the Java Sea. But by then the “Java Sea Campaign,” as the US Navy would later call it, was largely decided. It had long since stopped being a test of arms and had become a test of character.
…
With few notable exceptions, their goal was not to win — that was impossible — but to delay the Japanese.
…
These were the men of the US Asiatic Fleet, the British Eastern Fleet, the Royal Netherlands Navy’s East Indies Squadron and the Royal Australian Navy — and their supporting units like Patrol Wing 10, the Royal Netherlands Air Service, the US Army Air Force’s 17th Pursuit Squadron (Provisional), and submarine crews from all these fine nations. (Cox, p. 8)
While we wargamers like to honor the past by playing a wargame and exploring the history, it is also important to remember that those cardboard chits or minis on the table represent humans who fought valiantly. If you play a Java Sea scenario make a toast to the sailors who fought. Those cardboard ships or minis are but a token of their sacrifice that deserves your honor.
Sources Consulted
- Cox, Jeffrey R. (2014, 2015) Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.
- Dull, Paul S. (1978) A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945). Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
- Pemsel, Helmut (1975) A History of War at Sea: An atlas and chronology of conflict at sea from the earliest times to the present. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
- Prados, John (1995) Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II. New York: Random House.
- Willmott, H.P. (1983) The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies February 1942 to June 1942. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
Feature Image: “HMAS Perth sinking during the Battle of Java Sea” via NHHC
click image to enlarge
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