the onset of the air attacks on the Striking Force in Surabaya, Captain Rooks realized the futility and risk of maintaining his own aircraft. He ordered Lt. Payne, the ship’s senior pilot, to fly the last operable SOC off the ship and find a safe place to hide it while the fleet was at sea. As the crew raced to battle stations, Lanson Harris joined the other idlers from the aviation division seeking a good place to watch the coming battle. Walter Winslow climbed to the signal bridge, scanning the northwestern horizon for Japanese ships and looking on with no small amount of anticipation.
Three British destroyers, the
Jupiter,
the
Electra,
and the
Encounter,
were arrayed left to right in line abreast, forming a van scouting line perpendicular to and about five miles ahead of the cruiser column. Doorman’s
De Ruyter
led the main body of the Striking Force, followed at nine-hundred-yard intervals by the
Exeter,
the
Houston,
the
Perth,
and the
Java
. Though the formation looked impressive, its deployment suggested its shortcomings. The Striking Force’s destroyers had been run so hard during the previous few weeks that Doorman could not deploy them as he would have wished. Hamstrung by cranky engineering plants, the
John D. Edwards, Alden, Paul Jones,
and
John D. Ford
weren’t fast enough to pass to the head of the formation and take up position on Doorman’s port bow. They settled instead for following in column astern the cruisers. Doorman’s two Dutch tin cans, the
Kortenaer
and the
Witte de With,
steamed on his port beam in part because the
Kortenaer
had boiler trouble that limited her speed to twenty-four knots. Destroyers were called many things—dogs, wolves, cans, thoroughbreds—but never albatrosses.
The Striking Force’s other deficiencies were less apparent to the eye, if equally likely to hamper its lethality. Foremost among these were communications. Despite the development of radio and years spent by different navies creating signal flag systems, Doorman’s ships had a hard time talking to each other. Each nation had its own signals and communications in good order. A naval authority called the system used by the U.S. Navy “a tactical instrument of collective genius, as reliable and thoroughly tested as the laws of physics. Itwas a treasure of efficiency, cohesiveness and clarity.” But within this multinational force, those virtues were notably overboard. The squadron’s communications were hastily jury-rigged in a futile attempt to accommodate differences in language and protocol.
On the
De Ruyter,
Doorman broadcast his orders to the Striking Force via a shortwave transmitter in his native Dutch. This was fine for the
Java,
the
Kortenaer,
and the
Witte de With
. But the English-speaking vessels confronted unneeded complexity. A U.S. Navy liaison officer stationed on the
De Ruyter,
Lt. Otto F. Kolb Jr., and a signalman first class, Marvin E. Sholar, translated the orders concurrently and relayed them via signal light or tactical radio to the
Houston,
which in turn passed the orders to the
Exeter,
the
Perth,
and the destroyers. As a consequence of the translation and rebroadcast, confusion could easily arise as to the sequence of orders. Commanders often could not reconcile them. Even a common language did not guarantee effective communications. If signal flags had to be used, the British and the Americans might as well have been speaking alien tongues, because the British used signal flags that no one else could read.
“Everyone knows that you cannot assemble eleven football players who have never seen each other before, and go out and beat Notre Dame,” Lieutenant Hamlin wrote. “Even if they are good, they need to have some workouts to learn the signals and get to know each other. This team never got any workouts. Two hours after it assembled it was out on patrol.”
“ Follow me ,” Doorman had ordered. Traditionally, such a command enabled an admiral to lead his column without need of
Three British destroyers, the
Jupiter,
the
Electra,
and the
Encounter,
were arrayed left to right in line abreast, forming a van scouting line perpendicular to and about five miles ahead of the cruiser column. Doorman’s
De Ruyter
led the main body of the Striking Force, followed at nine-hundred-yard intervals by the
Exeter,
the
Houston,
the
Perth,
and the
Java
. Though the formation looked impressive, its deployment suggested its shortcomings. The Striking Force’s destroyers had been run so hard during the previous few weeks that Doorman could not deploy them as he would have wished. Hamstrung by cranky engineering plants, the
John D. Edwards, Alden, Paul Jones,
and
John D. Ford
weren’t fast enough to pass to the head of the formation and take up position on Doorman’s port bow. They settled instead for following in column astern the cruisers. Doorman’s two Dutch tin cans, the
Kortenaer
and the
Witte de With,
steamed on his port beam in part because the
Kortenaer
had boiler trouble that limited her speed to twenty-four knots. Destroyers were called many things—dogs, wolves, cans, thoroughbreds—but never albatrosses.
The Striking Force’s other deficiencies were less apparent to the eye, if equally likely to hamper its lethality. Foremost among these were communications. Despite the development of radio and years spent by different navies creating signal flag systems, Doorman’s ships had a hard time talking to each other. Each nation had its own signals and communications in good order. A naval authority called the system used by the U.S. Navy “a tactical instrument of collective genius, as reliable and thoroughly tested as the laws of physics. Itwas a treasure of efficiency, cohesiveness and clarity.” But within this multinational force, those virtues were notably overboard. The squadron’s communications were hastily jury-rigged in a futile attempt to accommodate differences in language and protocol.
On the
De Ruyter,
Doorman broadcast his orders to the Striking Force via a shortwave transmitter in his native Dutch. This was fine for the
Java,
the
Kortenaer,
and the
Witte de With
. But the English-speaking vessels confronted unneeded complexity. A U.S. Navy liaison officer stationed on the
De Ruyter,
Lt. Otto F. Kolb Jr., and a signalman first class, Marvin E. Sholar, translated the orders concurrently and relayed them via signal light or tactical radio to the
Houston,
which in turn passed the orders to the
Exeter,
the
Perth,
and the destroyers. As a consequence of the translation and rebroadcast, confusion could easily arise as to the sequence of orders. Commanders often could not reconcile them. Even a common language did not guarantee effective communications. If signal flags had to be used, the British and the Americans might as well have been speaking alien tongues, because the British used signal flags that no one else could read.
“Everyone knows that you cannot assemble eleven football players who have never seen each other before, and go out and beat Notre Dame,” Lieutenant Hamlin wrote. “Even if they are good, they need to have some workouts to learn the signals and get to know each other. This team never got any workouts. Two hours after it assembled it was out on patrol.”
“ Follow me ,” Doorman had ordered. Traditionally, such a command enabled an admiral to lead his column without need of
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