0100 Hours, 12 December 1942, Bassein River Delta, Burma – Captain O’Donnell would have been amused to know that his Japanese counterpart was working on his next course of action as well. The light cruiser Kiso and the destroyers Wakaba, Nagatzuki, Matsukaze, and Harukaze were anchored at the forward support base in the mouth of the Bassein River along with the light cruiser Kinu, the second line destroyer Sanae, and the seaplane tender Sanyo Maru. Wounded men were getting transferred to the seaplane tender and makeshift shore facilities while the crews of the warships attempted to make some repairs and took on supplies from barges and river steamers. Sanyo Maru was also transferring fuel to the destroyers.
Despite or maybe because of the disastrous defeat of the operation to land troops on Ramree Island Rear Admiral Shima was not about to give up. Of the more than 1100 men (out of 3000) the escorts rescued from the sunken transports, just under 700 were fit to fight. His supply officers and surviving officers from the 65th Infantry Brigade were already working to see what supplies existed onboard Shima’s ships, the supply barges at the base, and with some of the local garrison troops in the area so they could outfit convoy’s survivors. Once they had a good tally of how many men they could outfit, the plan was to load the soldiers onto the destroyers and make a 25-knot sprint from their current sanctuary to Ramree Island. Shima estimated the transit would take approximately eight hours and if they departed in the late afternoon, they could reach Ramree Island by midnight, offload the men and be on their way before dawn. With the vast majority of the operation conducted at night, Shima reasoned that ships would be safe from the prying eyes of Allied reconnaissance aircraft.