When was the Second Battle of the Java Sea?

On 1 March 1942, according to the U.S. Navy's history of USS Pope and the Australian War Memorial. One EBSCO account dates the attack to 28 February.

Which ships were sunk in the Second Battle of the Java Sea?

The British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, the British destroyer HMS Encounter and the American destroyer USS Pope.

Japanese heavy cruisers crippled her with gunfire, and the Australian War Memorial records that she was finished by a torpedo from the destroyer Inazuma.

What happened to the crew of USS Pope?

152 men abandoned ship, one was killed by a scuttling charge, and the rest drifted for three days before the Japanese destroyer Inazuma picked them up. 27 died as prisoners of war.

Why was Exeter in the Java Sea after the first battle?

She had been badly damaged on 27 February and was too deep in the water for the eastern channel out of Surabaya, so she had to try to escape north and west through the Java Sea toward the Sunda Strait.

Second Battle of the Java Sea, 1942: the end of Exeter

HMS Exeter sinking, 1 March 1942, photographed from a Japanese aircraft; the print was captured by U.S. forces on Attu in 1943. U.S. Navy photo 80-G-179020, Naval History and Heritage Command, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Quick answer

What was the Second Battle of the Java Sea?

On 1 March 1942, two days after the main Allied defeat in the Java Sea, the damaged British heavy cruiser HMS Exeter tried to escape from Surabaya with the British destroyer Encounter and the American destroyer Pope. Japanese heavy cruisers and destroyers caught them north of Java. Exeter and Encounter were sunk that morning, and Pope was finished off by aircraft and cruiser fire a few hours later.¹

The battle of 27 February had destroyed the Allied striking force; this was its epilogue. With Java about to fall, the last Allied warships at Surabaya tried to slip away, and three of them never got out of the Java Sea.²

A cruiser that could not run

Exeter was a famous ship. In 1939 she had fought the German pocket battleship Graf Spee off the River Plate. In the Battle of the Java Sea a Japanese shell had struck her engine room, and when she limped into Surabaya late on 27 February, escorted by Encounter, she could make only five knots. Emergency repairs to her boilers raised that to sixteen.³

On 28 February the Allied command ordered the remaining ships to leave for the Indian Ocean. The four old American destroyers, out of torpedoes, were to go east around Bali, which was thought safer. Exeter drew too much water for the eastern channel, so she was to go north into the Java Sea toward Borneo and then turn west for the Sunda Strait. Pope, the only destroyer still carrying torpedoes, was assigned to escort her with Encounter. They sailed after nightfall.⁴

The morning of 1 March

At 9:15 a.m. on 1 March Exeter sighted the heavy cruisers Haguro and Nachi with two destroyers, and the little convoy turned away. A Japanese plane appeared and kept them in sight, and soon more ships were seen ahead. At 9:35 the two Allied destroyers engaged a Japanese destroyer at 12,000 yards, and ten minutes later Exeter and the Japanese cruisers opened fire. Pope laid a smoke screen and the others followed; according to her history she hit the Japanese destroyer and drove it off, and fired two torpedoes without visible result.⁵

At 11:00 a second group appeared: the heavy cruisers Ashigara and Myoko with the destroyers Akebono and Inazuma. Exeter's engineers had kept working under way and had her up to 25 knots, but it was not enough. At 11:40 a direct hit knocked out her power and left her dead in the water. The Australian War Memorial records that she was sunk by a torpedo from the destroyer Inazuma. Encounter, trying to cover her with smoke, was hit and sank too.⁶

Pope alone

Pope ran for a rain squall. She had fired all her torpedoes, her old boilers were failing after more than 140 salvos, and her speed was falling. At 12:15 a floatplane from the seaplane carrier Chitose found her as she came out of a second squall. Six aircraft from the cruisers dive-bombed her, and on the eleventh of twelve attacks a bomb exploded close alongside under the waterline near the stern, bending a propeller shaft and opening the hull. Carrier bombers from Ryujo joined in.⁷

At 12:40 Lieutenant Commander Blinn ordered the ship abandoned and scuttled. A yeoman was killed by the demolition charge meant to destroy the sonar. Ashigara and Myoko then came up and shelled the sinking destroyer, which went down stern first within seconds of the sixth salvo.⁸

Captivity

Pope's crew of 152 drifted for three days in a whaleboat and three rafts until the Japanese destroyer Inazuma, one of the ships they had fought, picked them up on 3 March. They spent the rest of the war as prisoners, and 27 of them died in the camps.⁹

The date is not quite settled in print. The U.S. Navy's history of Pope and the Australian War Memorial both put the action on 1 March, while the EBSCO account of the Java Sea campaign dates the attack on Exeter, Encounter and Pope to 28 February. With these three ships gone, and Houston and Perth sunk in the Sunda Strait in the early hours of the same day, no Allied cruiser or destroyer remained in the waters around Java, and the Dutch on the island surrendered a few days later.¹⁰