Cruiser (57 page)

Dewey always believed that at least two of his reports had got through to ABDACOM headquarters in Bandung. It seems likely that they went further, to Batavia.

One of
Houston
's surviving officers, Walter Winslow, then a lieutenant (junior grade) and one of the cruiser's floatplane pilots, offered a clue in his post-war memoirs. The Dutch Army command in Batavia was aware that the entire Japanese Western Invasion force was not far away to the north, he wrote,
but did not pass on this knowledge to Collins or the naval command:

Yet again, the left hand of ABDACOM had no idea what the right hand was doing. The army had not talked to the navy, and the navy had not talked to the army. This crowning piece of incompetence would put the two cruisers directly in harm's way. Not forewarned. Not forearmed.

Waller invited Rooks back to
Perth
that afternoon, where he summoned John Harper and told them they would sail at 6 pm at a moderate speed to conserve fuel through the Strait, then stay well clear of the coast after they rounded Java Head to head east for Tjilatjap, which they would approach by dark the next night. It is intriguing to picture the two Captains together. Perhaps they relaxed for a brief moment in Waller's day cabin. They were men from much the same mould, and in just two days they had been through a great deal together in the Java Sea. They knew that, for all the gold braid and saluting and ‘aye, aye, sir', command of a warship is a solitary burden where, even in peacetime, a quick decision can mean the difference
between life and death. At war, that burden is infinitely heavier. Those who bear it relish the company of their equals, to talk a little shop, to unwind a little with others who understand.

At 51, Albert Harold Rooks was nine years older than Hec Waller. By contrast with the Australian's rough-hewn features, he was almost Hollywood handsome. Rooks, too, was a country boy, born on 29 December 1891, in the American north-west at Colton, Washington, which is to this day a farming hamlet of a few hundred souls near the state line with Idaho. He had graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1914 and as a young ensign his first ship was a four-piper cruiser, the USS
West Virginia
. Later, he commanded submarines and served in the battleship
New Mexico
when she made a cruise to Australia in 1925. The US Navy clearly had marked him for higher things. In 1936, he was given a new destroyer to commission, the USS
Phelps
, and after her he lectured at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
Houston
was his first cruiser command – a plum job in the flagship of the Asiatic Fleet that almost certainly would have propelled him forward to hoist an admiral's flag.

Edith Rooks had flown to Hawaii from their home in Seattle to farewell her husband on his way to Manila to take over the new ship in August 1941. They had not seen each other since, and Rooks, in his letters home, was eager for news of their two boys, Albert Jnr, 12 years old, and Hal, who was at Harvard and destined to follow his father into the navy. Like his crew, Rooks had not received any mail since well before Christmas, and his words to Edith sometimes displayed a streak of loneliness and pessimism. At other times, he sought to cheer her up. ‘I have a feeling that fate is going to be kind to me and that on some happier tomorrow we will be walking the streets of Seattle in company as we do now in spirit,' he wrote.
⁴

Here was another connection with Hec Waller, also a father of two sons, one of whom was also a future naval officer. We can imagine that home and family threaded their way into the conversation, over a beer or a gin in the cabin, surrounded by
Hec's collection of models of his Scrap Iron Flotilla ships. Or perhaps they kept to professional topics: Doorman's disastrous leadership; his inexplicable failure to bring the cruisers within range for so long or the turn south that had come so close to running them both aground. Or maybe they took a wider view of the tide of war running so heavily against the Allies. And there was another touchstone: the memoirs of
Houston
's survivors show that Rooks, like Hard Over Hec, had the profound respect of his crew. Some of his sailors had signed a letter vowing to serve with him through thick and thin.

After farewelling the American, Waller turned to his friend, Polo Owen, who was still officially destined for
Hobart
. ‘Well, Polo, are you coming with us?' he said. ‘Or would you rather be taken prisoner by the Japs?'

‘I'm coming with you.'

While the Captain had been ashore, the usual buzzes went around the ship. Java was done for. Nothing was going to save the Netherlands East Indies. The bloody place wasn't worth saving anyway. Surely, now, they would be returning to Australia. Men readied themselves in their own way, the young hands such as Buzzer Bee seeking assurance from the wisdom of their elders. ‘We're not finished with those little yellow bastards yet,' Percy Stokan told him.

Not long before they sailed, there was a brief alarm when a Japanese reconnaissance plane flew low over the harbour, although without doing any damage, and there was another alert when a Dutch anti-aircraft battery on shore mistakenly shot at one of
Houston
's scout planes returning to the ship, fortunately without hitting it. Far more worrying was a desertion in
Perth
's crew: Redlead the cat had suddenly vanished ashore. Having two chaplains in the ship was bad enough, but for the ship's cat to suddenly disappear before sailing sent a chill through everyone. Bob Collins, her keeper, was ordered to find her and bring her back, which he did, but Redlead made two more attempts to escape. Jan Creber, the Master-at-Arms, finally solved the problem by clapping her in irons – a kerosene
can with holes cut in it. There might have been more disquiet still if they'd learned that
Houston
's cat had also attempted to jump ship that afternoon.

The sun, dirty red in the smoke, was lowering over the port as they heard the familiar pipes.

‘Special sea-duty men close up.'

Waller had ordered
Evertsen
to join them, but the Dutch destroyer replied that she had no orders and no steam, so there was nothing to do but leave her behind.

‘Cast off for'ard.'

The harbour pilot had disappeared and there were no tugs, but that couldn't be helped either. They would have to make it through the protective minefield on their own, with Harper and his Assistant Navigator, Lloyd Burgess, trusting to their charts.

‘Let go back spring.'

They were free. The two cruisers nosed past the breakwater and down the channel,
Perth
in the lead, the treacherous beauty of the palm-fringed Java coast disappearing astern in the gathering night. They were glad to get out of Priok, and, although weariness still sat heavily upon them in the heat, all seemed normal enough. The ship's routine went on. Bill Bee, on the flag deck with his special charge, the starboard 18-inch signal projector, noticed that visibility was good in a rising moon. Gavin Campbell stretched out at his action station, the multiple .5 machine-gun mounting aft above Y-turret. In the wardroom, Dolly Gray and two of his engineer lieutenants, Frank Gillan and John Mears, were snatching a meal of Cornish pasties, the navy's famous tiddy oggies. Also in the wardroom, the doctor, Sam Stening, thought he might try to get some sleep and went to his cabin. For Reg Whiting below at the gyro compass, Jack Lewis with his boilers, the McGovern brothers, Frank and Vince, Elmo Gee, Blood Bancroft, Bob Collins, George Hatfield, Fred Skeels, Ray Parkin, all of them, it was business as usual. Clear of the land, Waller ordered revolutions for 22 knots and signalled
Houston
to conform. The
wakes opened up behind them in a silvery zigzag.

‘This is the Captain speaking.' The loudspeakers crackled to life. ‘We are sailing for the Sunda Strait for Tjilatjap on the south coast of Java. Shortly, we will close up to the second degree of readiness. Air reconnaissance reports that the strait is free of enemy shipping, but I have a report that a large enemy convoy is about 50 miles north-east of Batavia, moving east. I do not expect, however, to meet enemy forces.'

Tjilatjap? They had not been there before, and it was certainly not Australia, although it was closer to home, which was a good start. But the news would not have been well received in
Houston
: the Americans knew Tjilatjap only too well. They had buried their dead there after the battle in the Makassar Strait a few weeks ago, and it was a stinking hellhole, full of shit. Hopes of a return Stateside fell to the deck.

Banten Bay lies on the north-west coast of Java, almost at the end of the island. Wide and open to the north, it was the logical place for the Japanese to land their Western Invasion Force of some 35,000 troops of the 16th Army, packed into the convoy of 56 transport ships that had been moving slowly down from Indochina in the last weeks of February. For the army's Commander, Lieutenant-General Hitoshi Imamura, travelling on board the transport
Ryujo Maru
, everything so far had gone exactly to plan. A seasoned veteran of the wars in China, Imamura expected to put his force ashore in Banten and at another nearby port, Merak, in the early hours of Sunday 1 March.

He had a strong naval escort to get him there. The close screen for the convoy was the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, led by the light cruiser
Natori
, with eight modern destroyers. Slightly further away was the 7th Cruiser Squadron of four heavy cruisers with a destroyer screen, and providing distant cover was the light aircraft carrier
Ryujo.
At 10 pm on 28 February
– at the same time as Hec Waller was telling his crew he did not expect to meet the enemy – the transports entered Banten and began to drop anchor.

Perth
and
Houston
, hugging the long, dark line of the Java coast as they headed west, would pass Banten to port and then round St Nicholas Point, at the tip of the island, to enter the Sunda Strait. At 10.45 pm, they saw the gleam of the lighthouse on Babi Island – one long white flash every six seconds – off to starboard as expected. Waller had taken a break to kip flat-out on the deck. ‘Kick me if anything happens,' he told the Officer of the Watch. Waking himself a little later, he stepped back to the rear of the bridge for a cup of kye. Jock McDonough, with nothing much to do, was peering through one of the big bridge rangefinders and thought he saw a dim shape ahead.

And then, from one of the lookouts, a loud cry: ‘Ship, sir, bearing green oh-five!'

Heads on the bridge turned to see a dark blur on the starboard bow, perhaps eight kilometres away, close to St Nicholas Point.

‘Very good. Make the challenge.'

It was probably friendly, most likely one of the Australian corvettes they had been told might still be patrolling the strait. Percy Stokan clacked out the challenge on the Aldis projector, which should have produced the Allied Night Recognition Signal in response. It did not. The stranger flashed back two green lights, which the signalmen recognised as Morse for the letters U B. That was odd.

‘Challenge again,' said Waller.

This time, there was no reply. The distant shape turned away and began making smoke, her silhouette broadening into the distinctive shape of a …

‘Jap destroyer!'

‘Action stations. Sound the alarm!'

It was 11.06 pm. The rattles sounded through the ship. A Japanese destroyer! There weren't supposed to be any bloody …

‘For'ard turrets open fire!'

Four 6-inch guns thundered out their opening salvo.

‘One unknown,' said Waller. That report went out from the Radio Room behind the Plot, and in faraway Darwin it was the first news that
Perth
was under attack.

Houston
spotted the enemy only seconds after the Australian cruiser, and her big 8-inch turrets opened up in quick succession. The Battle of the Sunda Strait had begun.

It was not a trap. The Japanese were equally startled to find their enemy suddenly emerging in their midst. The destroyer
Fubuki
, patrolling out to sea from Banten, had sighted the two cruisers heading towards her at around 10.30 pm and apparently had assumed they were battleships.
Perth
, with her two tall funnels, had a silhouette easily mistaken for one of the Royal Navy's King George V class.
Fubuki
shadowed these unwelcome intruders at long distance for half an hour, unnoticed by the lookouts in either ship. They should have seen her, but these were sleepless men far from their best. Radar would probably have detected the shadower, but
Perth
's replacement set, the one Waller had argued and pleaded for, was still buried in navy paperwork back in Sydney.