'You Engage and Then You See' the Battle of The
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You Engage and Then Remmelink You See Remmelink ‘You Engage and Then You See’ The Battle of the Java Sea from a Japanese Perspective The Battle of the Java Sea in 1942 was a major victory for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The recently published Senshi Sōsho volume 26, The Operations of the Navy in the Dutch East Indies and the Bay of Bengal, contains translated Japanese sources which give insight into Japanese tactics and the Naval Command’s appreciation of the battle. The course of the battle proved to be a rude awakening for the Japanese as it put their whole outranging tactic and torpedo tactic into question. Dr. W.G.J. Remmelink* uch has been said and written about the now know that there were other factors that MBattle of the Java Sea. For foreign readers, crucially determined the length of this battle. however, a comprehensive account from the Like all navies in the interbellum years, the Japanese side has been lacking until now. As we Japanese Navy was obsessed with the idea of a all know, the battle was a major victory for the decisive battle that would be decided in a matter Imperial Japanese Navy. Nevertheless, the of minutes because of the great progress made official communiqué from Imperial General in gun and torpedo fire. This led to a basic naval Headquarters was remarkably terse. The lack of doctrine that was wedded to big guns and capital any detail, except for the explicit mention of the ships. But here the Japanese were at a disad length of the battle, shows that the high vantage. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 command of the Navy was nonplussed, if not had capped the relative strength in capital ships dismayed, by the length of this almost eight between the United States and Japan at a ratio of hour battle. Decisive battles were not supposed 5:3, which put the strength of the Japanese Fleet to last that long. It is something that also struck effectively at 60 percent of the American Fleet. Samuel Morison, the first western historian of The Washington Naval Treaty ratios led to years the battle.1 ‘That [the battle] lasted so long was,’ of bickering within the Japanese Navy with in his eyes, ‘due to Admiral Doorman’s stubborn hotter heads demanding at least parity with the determination and the admirable manner in Americans and cooler heads maintaining that which men of the three Allied Navies under his Japan could never win an arms race against command fought and fought until they could America. In 1936, the hot heads prevailed and fight no more.’ Japan stepped out of the Second London Naval Treaty, leaving it free to expand its navy. Without taking anything away from the valor However, in the four years until the outbreak of and determination of Doorman and his men, we the war, it wasted much of its capacity to build two super battleships, which would play no real role during the war. * Willem Remmelink is a historian and editor/translator of Senshi Sōsho volume 26, The Operations of the Navy in the Dutch East Indies and the Bay of Bengal. The volume was published by the Corts Foundation and can be ordered or downloaded via https:// Japanese tactics and naval doctrine openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/65910 or https://cortsfoundation.org. The author presented this paper on 24 September 2018 during the book launch at Leiden University. The Japanese did, however, devise a tactic to 1 Samuel E. Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume 3, overcome their inferiority in the number of The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-1942 (Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1948) 358. capital ships. This was the socalled ‘outranging 112 MILITAIRE SPECTATOR JAARGANG 188 NUMMER 3 – 2019 Sprekende kopregel Remmelink YOU ENGAGE AND THEN YOU See The Japanese battleship Katori, photographed on 30 November 1923 at Maidzuru Navy Yard, while being dismantled under the terms of the Washington Treaty on naval disarmament PHOTO US NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND JAARGANG 188 NUMMER 3 – 2019 MILITAIRE SPECTATOR 113 Sprekende kopregel Auteur Remmelink the enemy’ tactic. The idea was to hit the enemy the remaining Allied strength and decided to at the outset of a decisive encounter with add the 5th Cruiser Division and the 2d concentrated longrange shell fire at a distance Destroyer Squadron to the Java invasion convoy from which the enemy could not retaliate. In escort and ordered them to be ready by the due course, this concept was further applied to evening of the 26th. This increased the strength the use of torpedoes, submarines, and, of course, of the escort to two heavy cruisers, two light naval aircraft.2 In the case of torpedoes, the cruisers and fourteen destroyers against Japanese had a truly revolutionary weapon, a Doorman’s fleet of two heavy cruisers, three pure oxygen torpedo with a maximum range of light cruisers and nine destroyers. Put in these 40 km, but more typically fired at a 20km terms, Doorman had one light cruiser more but range, which was still double the range of most five destroyers less than the Japanese. In terms Allied torpedoes. Moreover, since oxygen is of firepower, however, the Japanese were far soluble in water, it left practically no visible superior, especially in terms of torpedoes.4 wake. By 1940, the new torpedo was placed on all cruisers and most destroyers, while at the Japanese naval doctrine prescribed that convoys same time Japanese naval tacticians had also and naval vessels should not proceed until worked out a new torpedo tactic, the long sufficient command of the air had been distance concealed firing tactic.3 It required the established. The army, however, pushed to speed Japanese advance units to fire between 120 to up the invasion schedule as much as possible. In 200 of the new wakeless torpedoes at the enemy the end, the Navy gave in and allowed the battle line from a distance of at least 20 km. The convoys to depart even though command of the Japanese assumed that most of these torpedoes air had not yet sufficiently been established at fired at such a range would go wide of the mark, the landing areas. As a result, both the western but if only 10 percent made hits, there would be and eastern Java invasion convoys steamed into between twelve and twenty hits on the enemy, the Java Sea at a time when the Japanese throwing him into confusion. This would then suspected that the Allies still had some air forces be followed by a closein assault of destroyer left, and Doorman’s Striking Force was still squadrons. Rigorous exercises gave the Japanese largely intact. the confidence that in cruiserversuscruiser encounters their torpedoes would be decisive. The Japanese expected that they could cover the convoy and the landing with their landbased air How did all this play out in the battle of the Java and seaplane units from southern Celebes and Sea and did Admiral Doorman and his fleet have southern Borneo. On 27 February, however, somewhat of the chance that Admiral Helfrich inclement weather in these areas grounded thought he had? If Doorman had faced the virtually all their planes. That did not apply to original escort of the convoy, he would have had the remnants of the Allied air force on Java, but a considerable chance, but five days before the there does not seem to have been any battle, Vice Admiral Takahashi, the Japanese coordinated attempt to support Doorman’s commander, started to entertain doubts about Striking Force, apart from a pointless attack by three American divebombers together with ten or eleven fighter planes on the few escorting destroyers of the Japanese convoy.5 These 2 For a more detailed discussion, see David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun. aircraft might have been better employed in a Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941 (Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1997) 238-298. direct attack on the slowmoving ships of the 3 Idem, 266-272. convoy, or even better in support of Doorman’s 4 They mustered twenty 20-cm guns against the Allies’ twelve. In 14-15-cm guns the Striking Force, which had just engaged in battle. Allies were slightly superior, but in smaller caliber guns the Japanese far outgunned But with coordination and communications on the Allies. The greatest difference, however, was in the number of torpedo launchers. the Allied side as they were, even the few The Japanese counted 160 61-cm launchers against the Allies’ 79 53-cm launchers. 5 The Operations of the Navy in the Dutch East Indies and the Bay of Bengal, 436; Ph.M. reconnaissance messages reached Doorman too Bosscher, De Koninklijke Marine in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Volume 2) 602, note 273. late or not at all. As a result, the Battle of the 114 MILITAIRE SPECTATOR JAARGANG 188 NUMMER 3 – 2019 Sprekende kopregel Auteur YOU ENGAGE AND THEN YOU See PHOTO US NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND The Japanese devised the so-called ‘outranging the enemy’ tactic including long-distance concealed torpedo firing to overcome their inferiority in the number of capital ships Java Sea on 27 February shaped up as a classic the Japanese playbook. Or as one Japanese surfacetosurface battle with the only planes in commentator described it after the war, ‘The the air the spotter planes of the Japanese enemy fleet was just like a small bird stalked by cruisers. Why the Allied fleet had not taken a predatory eagle, and its destruction was just a along its own spotter planes remains a mystery.