Word: jap
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...lost. Vice Admiral C. E. L. Helfrich's orders to the Dutchmen and the gentle, excited Indonesians on his own ships, to the hard young men on the U.S. ships, said as much. His orders were to attack the oncoming, superior enemy at all costs, to kill Japs and sink Jap ships regardless of the risk to Allied lives and outnumbered Allied ships. If the Jap could not now be stopped at sea, almost within gunshot of the Java coast, at least he could be made...
...Jap Paid. Dutch and U.S. cruisers and destroyers sighted a great Japanese convoy of 40 transports, 20 warships. The transports stayed well away from the naval combatants-a precautionary measure which they seemed to follow throughout the Java invasion. At twelve-mile range the Allied cruisers loosed their main batteries on the Japanese. Destroyers closed with shell and torpedo fire. A Japanese heavy cruiser sank. Another Jap cruiser-the Mogami, whose main batteries had apparently been converted from 6.1-to 8-in. guns-retired in flames. Hits crippled a third 8-in. gun cruiser. Three Jap destroyers blazed up, appeared...
Allied bombers reported hits on two more Jap cruisers; at least 17 Jap transports were bombed, shelled or torpedoed...
Outnumbered, outgunned, sorely in need of heavy cruisers to bolster their light naval units, the Allies took a beating off Java. The Dutch had started the war with five cruisers: the loss was a severe blow to total cruiser strength in the Indies. For his losses, the Jap got his landings on Java (see p. 16). For the Allies, graver than their total loss in ships was the immediate threat to their last naval base in the Indies...
...Admirals Helfrich and Furstner, by then the dominant figures of The Netherlands Navy, were already at work on war plans and naval expansion. Their plan was offensive: continuous reconnaissance, hard and rapid stabs at the Jap, as far away from the Indies as possible. Their new Navy was geared to this plan. When war came they had five light cruisers, eight destroyers, 20 submarines and about 30 torpedo boats, designed for maneuver in the narrow Indies waters. They also had a small but growing naval air force...