Dutch East Indies Successful Defense

Driftless

Donor
In his 1950s & 60s research on WWII intelligence Laidislas Farago turned up USN documents accusing the manager & chief engineer at the Brewster factory of being German agents. Those date from 1944 & the US Navy takeover management of the factory. I don't know if either man was charged with any criminal offense, or what roles they had in 1939-1941. The basic problem the Navy had in 1944 was abysmal quality control, a inability to meet any delivery deadlines, and incomplete deliveries, from the Brewster company.

That's a very serious charge. You have to wonder how much was incompetence hoping to remain hidden, outright intended fraud or worse. By 1944, Brewster's a tertiary player, so the Navy probably wanted to bury a potential deeply embarrassing situation, so....

I know the Buffalo often gets a bad rap, but when it first came out, it was a front runner - for a short time. Another tangent, but what if it had been made by a different manufacturer?
 

Driftless

Donor
Now that I've sidetracked the OP.... What AA guns and ammunition could the Dutch have gotten to the DEI in time to be useful?

One medium AA weapon I see listed is the Vickers 75mm Model 1931. The Dutch apparently bought in small numbers.
 
One thing you learn from researching these problems is how many little things contributed to making an incredibly difficult situation downright impossible. Up to date English language navigation charts for the DEI is one example. Another is Allied airmen and intelligence officers believing the reports Chennault sent back from China regarding the performance of Japanese fighters. The reports were either buried or dismissed in most cases. One guy who did believe them was Jimmy Thach, he believed them because he said they read like they were written by a fighter pilot. Little things like this all add up...
 

Errolwi

Monthly Donor
Zheng He said:
but how would you like to be a fighter pilot who is told your trusty mount has a second hand engine that was pulled out of a commercial aircraft with the assurance, "Oh, but we rebuilt it for you so it's all good."​
When I get home, I'm sure I can find some direct quotes from Last Stand in Singapore

Not many quotes, but some comments of interest;

488 Squadron [RNZAF aircrew and groundcrew, fresh from NZ, took over unserviceable Buffaloes in Singapore] shared Kallang with RAF No. 243 Squadron and a Netherlands East Indies Brewster Squadron, so it wasn't long after the arrival of 488 [which had essentially no spares] that these squadrons found some of their stocks and supplies diminishing. Although 243 was a RAF squadron, most of the aircrew were Kiwis who had been posted there before the formation of 488 squadron.
...
Bert remembers one day in particular the has the groundcrew almost tearing their hair out. A flight of 488 Squadron had left earlier in the day with some Dutch East Indies air force Buffaloes that has flown in from Batavia. The Dutch pilots had plenty of experience with this type of aircraft and the flight was part of a training exercise.While the group was away, Kallang experienced a heavy tropical downpour. Bert reckoned the water was 6 inches deep on the runway. The 488 boys landed first and ground looped five of their aircraft onto their noses. [...] There was no problems for the Dutch fliers as they had the experience and landed all their aircraft safely and the right way up.
...
This was not a good day for 488 Squadron; unfortunately it set the scene for the rest of their campaign in Singapore. The Brewster Buffalo was hopelessly outclassed as a fighter aircraft. It could not sustain maximum power while climbing at full throttle without suffering from overheating and a drop in oil pressure, which caused the propeller oil seals to give way and blow oil all over the aircraft. The Buffalo could not operate above 25,000 feet but, worse than that, had to be nursed up to that height, a process that took 35 minutes. The Japanese aircraft were faster and more manoeuvrable; our pilots were disadvantaged from the very first day.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
The Dutch had the F2A-2 339C and 339D models which were lighter than the F2A-2 339E models the Commonwealth forces got but they were not the F2A-1 239E models the Finns got. The Dutch planes also had reliable fighter grade engines in them whereas a lot of the Commonwealth models got repurposed engines from DC-3 airliners. What a mess...

This was done all the time. One of the reason the Dutch torpedo boats did so abysmally against the Japanese was that their engines were second hand from retired Dornier Do J planes.
 
This is an interesting quote from the skipper of USS John D. Edwards, it gets to my earlier point that the having the national naval forces try and fight together was too hard due to a myriad of reasons and they should have been employed under joint operational direction but tactically independent:

It was evident that the Dutch had little tactical experience, their knowledge of communications was rudimentary and they went on the assumption that a hastily organized, uncoordinated force of ships from three navies could be assembled and taken into a major action after a one-hour conference. It is impossible for anyone who did not go to sea in the Striking Force to comprehend the utter lack, in the Dutch, of any knowledge of tactical organization and employment of a force as a unit. They were individual ship men and went to their deaths with grim foreknowledge. The Allied Force was little more than a column of strange task groups which entered the battle with a vague general directive and no specific missions.
 
Have followed that one.



Strictly speaking there was, and earlier, but it was incomplete, lacked depth, and resulted in little of the necessary details worked out. Perhaps the best work was on the intel side, with a exchange of intel and some code breaking details shared. The last meeting was when Adm Phillips conferred with MacArthur 6th December @ Manilia.

Actually Phillip's spent more time with Adm. Hart.Hart was in the process ,aborted by the loss of force Z, to transfer a 4 ship division of destroyers fo Phillip's to add to Phillip's inadequate screen.
Hart was still at the outbreak of war moving his surface ships, and fleet train South, knowing that keeping them in the P.I.without adequate air cover was near suicidal.the Submarines were to mount the main naval defense of the P.I. However. With the loss of 200 torpedoes, mainly MK Xs in the bombing of Cavite, and the disaster that MK XIV torpedos were., that concept died.
 
I'm not a expert on the campaign. Was the ABDA fleet defeated by the enemy air? I know the Houston lost a turret & the Langley sunk by air attacks. What else?

USS Marbelhead crippled by the same air attack that killed Houston's number 3 turret. She received minimal repairs then sent staitside, via Ceylon, and South Africa. Oiler Pecos, lost to air attack, DD Edsall lost to air attack enroute to aid Pecos.
 
USS Marbelhead crippled by the same air attack that killed Houston's number 3 turret. She received minimal repairs then sent staitside, via Ceylon, and South Africa. Oiler Pecos, lost to air attack, DD Edsall lost to air attack enroute to aid Pecos.

A lot of ships took varying degrees of damage from air attack that while minor from any one attack, added up overtime. Also, it was incredibly stressful for the crews which wore down their efficiency. It was a literally a case of at least being under aerial surveillance and often times so degree of attack just about everyday they were at sea.
 
I've been reading through the book Royal Navy Strategy in the Far East, 1919-1939 and I think my notion of having Force Z further back for the start of the war is not so out of bound. Churchill himself envisioned the ships acting as a deterrent force by sailing between Singapore, Aden, and Simonstown so the Japanese would never quite know where they were and on 3 December the Admiralty advised Phillips to get his ships clear of the area because American reconnaissance aircraft had spotted a number of Japanese submarines in the South China Sea.

Phillips did plan on dispersing his forces and sent Repulse and two destroyers to visit Darwin but they were recalled to Singapore when a large Japanese convoy was sighted. Four American destroyers at Balikpapan were also ordered to Singapore and the cruiser HMS Exeter was ordered to detach from the convoy she was escorting and make for Singapore.

I guess the POD would be to have the Admiralty and the local commanders realize deterrence has failed, war is coming and coming soon and they want to keep the fleet dispersed instead of concentrated until the crap hits the fan and then they can concentrate once they get an idea of what the enemy is actually doing.
 
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