Every Day a Nightmare: American Pursuit Pilots in the Defense of Java, 1941-1942

PART FIVE: “Nothing Less than Desertion”

283 + + + + + PART FIVE “Nothing Less than Desertion” after breaking off at 2315 on February 22 and heading for Java, the Langley was only seventy-five nautical miles southeast of its Tjilatjap destination at 1140 on the morning of February 27 when two formations of Mitsubishi G4M1 “Betty” bombers that had taken off from newly occupied Denpasar Field on Bali approached it at fifteen thousand feet. Zigzagging to avoid the bomb runs of the sixteen Bettys, the captain of the Langley succeeded in eluding hits on the first pass, but on the second run the old seaplane tender was struck by five high-explosive bombs. Escorting Zeros then strafed the listing ship, setting fire to many of the P-40Es the Langley was carrying to Java with their pilots. That afternoon the old ship finally slipped below the water, but not before survivors were picked up by the destroyers Whipple and Edsall that had left Tjilatjap that morning to rendezvous with the Langley.1 When Maj. Gen. George Brett, now USAFIA commander in Melbourne, got word the following day that the Langley was “badly damaged” in an attack by Japanese bombers, he was furious. Vice Adm. C. L. Helfrich, the Dutch officer now commanding ABDAFLOAT, had personally assured him that he would provide suitable protection for the Langley in its solitary dash to Java, but he had let Brett down. The USAFIA commander immediately cabled Marshall in Washington requesting rescindment of the order sending the Sea Witch to Java and asking that no further equipment be sent to Java “in view of impossibility of NEI to protect.” He would consider any further shipments “unwarranted wastage.”2 In reply, Marshall agreed that no further planes should be shipped to Java “unless there is a change in the situation that promises greater safety in transit.” But he did not mention aborting the voyage of Sea Witch.3 284 Part Five Pursuant to Brett’s request of February 26 to ABDACOM in Bandoeng, evacuation from Java to Australia of remaining FEAF personnel got underway on the evening of February 28, when the first group was flown out of Jogjakarta to Broome.4 Personnel designated to be evacuated by sea instead left Tjilatjap on the overloaded Dutch freighter Abbekerk the afternoon before, bound for Fremantle, as arranged by Col. Eugene Eubank, 5th Bomber Command chief. But, incomprehensibly, the thirty-one pursuit pilots who had survived the Langley sinking were being ordered to Java on the destroyer Edsall at the same time their comrades were being removed from the island. Apparently , based on a message from the Whipple that the pilots had been rescued, Adm. William Glassford, commander of U.S. naval forces on Java under Dutch ABDAFLOAT commander Vice Admiral Helfrich, on the afternoon of February 28 ordered the Edsall to return to Tjilatjap with the pilots.5 early on the morning of March 1 the East Java invasion force in fortyone transports anchored off Kragan, precipitating desperate Allied air efforts to oppose it. Two days before, the Japanese armada had been attacked by ABDACOM naval forces as it approached, setting off the famed Battle of the Java Sea, in which the Allies suffered a disastrous defeat that spelled the end of their naval operations in the Indies. During the six-phase battle that ended Dutch freighter Abbekerk at Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1941. Photograph 302839© Australian War Memorial. Nothing Less than Desertion 285 on the morning of March 1, Dutch Admiral Doorman’s Combined Striking Force lost three cruisers and four destroyers in the pitched fighting, the first major encounter between fleets since the Battle of Jutland in 1916.6 However, Japanese landing operations scheduled for February 28 were delayed by one day. FEAF bombers and fighters that were being held back for one last operation in defense of Java now flew Dutch-ordered bombing sorties and a strafing mission against the invasion forces, but with no appreciable effect. At the other end of Java, at Banten Bay and Merak on the northwestern tip and at Eretanwetan on the north coast 145 miles to the east, the second and third prongs of the Japanese invasion force began landing on the evening of February 28 from fifty-six transports. The Banten Bay/Merak transports were attacked hours later by the U.S. cruiser Houston and the Australian cruiser Perth, which had inadvertently run into the force as they were attempting to escape from...