ABDACOM
American-British-Dutch-Australian Command was the acronym for a US-American - British - Dutch - (English "Dutch".) Australian command in the Southeast Asian area at the beginning of the Pacific War in World War II ( A merican- B ritish- D utch- A ustralian Com mand ). The aim was to stop the Japanese advance towards the British and Dutch colonies .
prehistory
During the months of January and February 1942, the American leadership was only able to resort to defensive tactics against the Japanese. The immediate intended goal was to strengthen forces in the Philippines to push the Japanese back there. In the regional environment, last year the Americans stood by the other three nations, the Dutch, British and Australians, in their request for support and cooperation in the defense of their colonial territories by only promising that they would intervene in the event of war . As a result, the plans had to include military means for the defense of these areas, especially of the Dutch East Indies .
Great Britain was determined to defend its symbols of influence in the Far East, Singapore and Hong Kong , which it had held for over a hundred years . The planning of the so-called Singapore strategy was geared towards this. However, Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on December 25, 1941; after the attack on Pearl Harbor, help from the US fleet was no longer expected. Even their own Force Z , which had been relocated to the Far East, had been eliminated by the Japanese in the Gulf of Siam . The British therefore had to rely on their remaining land and air forces and hope for Allied help. The British had already sought the latter from the Dutch, Australians and US Americans at the Singapore Conference in October 1940, at which the relevant resolutions had been passed. At further meetings in Singapore, the participating states developed a defense doctrine for Southeast Asia. The USA repeatedly held out the prospect of military intervention on its part if war broke out. The Dutch expanded their reconnaissance area from the Java Sea to the South China Sea and the area around Borneo and New Guinea , primarily to defend Java . While the British pledged aid to the Dutch, their absolute priority was Singapore, the fulcrum for the defense of Southeast Asia. As soon as its defense was secured, they would support the Dutch in repelling Japanese forces.
The Dutch mainly provided naval forces to support the British, but this turned out to be ineffective. The British, on the other hand, found themselves unable to help the Dutch, which after the fall of Singapore made it much easier for the Japanese to conquer Southeast Asia .
The British and Dutch were very concerned about the goals of the American forces in the Pacific, also because of their statement that "defending an outdated colonial empire is not their business." In addition, after the fall of the Philippines, the US could try to ask them for help with their limited resources, which both states saw as a waste of their forces. Above all, the remnants of the Asian fleet , consisting of three cruisers , fourteen destroyers , a few submarines and various other ships, had been withdrawn from the Philippine base at the end of December . Some US bombers were relocated to Java, but others also to Australia.
founding
One month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the command was established on January 8, 1942 and placed under the command of British Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell . The chief of staff was Lieutenant General Henry Pownall , the former British "Commander in Chief Far East". The Dutch general Hein ter Poorten was in command of the land forces . The Malay forces were subordinate to the British Lieutenant General Arthur Percival . The American Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton took over the command of the air force. He was replaced on January 28, 1942 by the British Air Marshal Richard Peirse . The naval forces were subordinate to the American Admiral Thomas C. Hart , whose Asian fleet formed the core of the ABDA fleet . Hart was replaced on February 12 by the Dutch Vice Admiral Conrad EL Helfrich . The reason was increasingly strong conflicts of interest between the Dutch and the ABDACOM leadership, which were due not least to the fact that the Dutch were much more familiar with the ABDA area than the Americans. Hart then withdrew from his command and justified this with health problems. The American-Filipino units under the US-American General Douglas MacArthur were theoretically subordinate to ABDACOM, but were only able to operate independently due to the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, which began in December 1941 . The headquarters of ABDACOM was initially in Singapore , but was relocated to Lembang , around 16 km north of Bandung on Java , on January 15, 1942 at the request of the Netherlands .
Problems
Despite some successes at sea, the ABDACOM did not have a long life. The command was disbanded by Wavell on February 25, 1942, as he realized after the first fighting against the Japanese that not enough forces were available to defend the huge area. In particular, the many islands from Burma via the Dutch East Indies , the Philippines to Hong Kong and Formosa made a successful defense with the available means practically impossible. Other problems were the opaque command structures, the different political interests and strategic concepts of its international forces. Relations with US General Douglas MacArthur , in particular, were strained, and his interests lay less in defending the Malay Barrier than in restoring the lines of communication with Luzon and in supporting US forces in the Philippines.
Two days later, on February 27 and 28, 1942, the ABDA fleet was effectively shut down under the Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman during the battle in the Java Sea . Immediately afterwards, on the same February 28th, Japanese troops landed on Java , occupying the last Dutch-owned island in the region.
The last remaining ABDA land forces on Java withdrew inland to continue the fight, but had to surrender to the overwhelming Japanese forces on March 9, 1942 after bitter resistance .
Country successes
Possibly the only noteworthy success of the - at that time already former - ABDA land forces was the Battle of Timor , which was carried out by Australian and Dutch infantry and local Portuguese settlers after the Japanese landing on February 19, 1942 as a guerrilla war for another year continued until the final evacuation of these last Allied units in the region on February 10, 1943.
Sea successes
- Sinking of the Japanese submarine I-60 by HMS Jupiter near Krakatau
- Sea battle off Balikpapan - Four destroyers of the ABDA fleet sink three Japanese troop carriers and a patrol boat
- Sea battle in the Strait of Badung - damage to some Japanese troop transports by the flagship Mr. Ms. De Ruyter
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steven B. Shepard, LCDR, USN: American, British, Dutch, And Australian Coalition: Unsuccessful Band of Brothers , University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1990, pages 3 to 5, PDF; 709 kB, accessed on August 28, 2013
- ^ A b c d Louis Morton, War in the Pacific: Strategy and Command, the First Two Years (United States Army in World War II), page 168 ff