Page 106 - NS-2 Textbook

WORLD WAR II: THE PACIFIC WAR 99

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JAPANESE
DEFENSE
PERIMETER

CANTON

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CALEDONIA
CORAL SEA

The Pacific theater, showing the Japanese defense perimeter.

encounter. The Battle of the Java Sea on 29 February all battered British Indian Ocean Fleet into East African
but eliminated the Allied force. The majority of ABDA ports. They had accomplished all of their primary objec-
ships, including the cruiser USS Hallstall, lvas Slmk by tives in less than half the time they had planned, and
aircraft and destroyer-fired torpedoes. The Allies fought ,vith insignificant losses.
gallantly, but they inflicted only minor losses on the On 11 March, two days after the fall of Java, General
Japanese before Nagumo's naval aircraft mopped up the Douglas MacArthur was ordered out of the Philippines
opposition. Surviving Allied destroyers made it to Aus- by President Roosevelt. He slipped away from his com-
tralia to fight another day. mand post on Corregidor in Marilla Bay on a PT boat and
The Japanese began landing on Java on 28 February made his way to the southern Philippines. From there he
1942; by 9 March the island was forced into lillcondi- flew to Australia to take command of the defense of that
tional surrender. Before the end of March all of the Dutch nation. As he left the Philippines, he promised the Fil-
East Indies were in Japanese hands, and the rich oil wells ipinos, in his nnw-famous words, "I shall return." In
of Java, Borneo, and Sumatra were providing an inex- April arld May the last Filipino and American defenders
haustible supply of fuel and other resources. TI,e Japa- of the Philippines ,vere overrun on Bataan Peninsula and
nese had attained all of their objectives in the south, and Corregidor. The survivors suffered every form of human
at the same time they had conquered Burma and the An- brutality as they were forced on a "Death March" from
daman Islands in the Indian Ocean. TIley had driven the Bataan to their prison camps.