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When the Jap struck, the Indies were as ready as could be expected. Admiral Helfrich had a respectably equipped Navy: five cruisers, more than 20 submarines, a well-trained but small fleet of destroyers (six to eight), torpedo boats and auxiliaries. He also had a vastly strengthened base at Surabaya, where everything but capital ships could be overhauled, a good secondary base on Amboina.
Blood on the Islands. The Jap's furious assault on the Philippines and Malaya has worked better than anybody but the Jap (and perhaps the Dutch) had expected. The Jap has knocked out Hong Kong and Manila, immobilized the great base at Singapore and grievously threatened its possession. Already his pathway to the Indies has been opened.
The Japanese front was moving relentlessly south To Hein ter Poorten, as to most of the Dutch, hints that the U.S. and Britain might not oppose this relentless movement with equally relentless defense were alarming and maddening.
Hitler must be kept busy and Hitler must be beaten. Beating Hitler would not necessarily mean the collapse of the Jap. But if the Jap can once call Singapore and the Indies his own, he can feed on the Indies—its oil, strategic metals, foods—growing new muscles on his runt-sized economic frame. Meantime the democracies would be cut short of rubber, tin and other strategic metals, tapioca (for sizing cotton and for abrasives), copra (for fats) and all the other vital supplies that the Indies supply.
More crucial for the N.E.I.'s allies, the Jap would control one of the world's most important seaways. From Java and Sumatra his raiders could range into the Indian Ocean, slash at supplies bound for Suez and India.
The U.S. route to Rangoon and the Burma Road, now 11,100 miles would be stretched to 14,300 because it would have to go around Australia. If supplies are cut off from the Chinese, China's resistance will be so reduced the Japanese can withdraw troops from China for use elsewhere—1;including an attack at Russia's rear.
Thus Hein ter Poorten now holds a line which, if lost, will set back all the enemies of the Axis—set them back so far that if it does not endanger their chances of winning the war, may well make their job twice as hard and twice as long.
The Jap has already struck at the Indies, hard, viciously, successfully. He has landed troops in Sarawak. He has put down three landing parties on the northern handle of Celebes, from which he may well establish some sort of control over sea traffic in the Straits of Macassar and Molucca Strait to the east and west of Celebes. He has also grabbed the little Dutch island of Tarakan (off Borneo), where the oil flows from the wells so pure that it can be pumped into the fuel bunkers of ships without refining.