Badung Strait: Striking the Bali Convoy

Karel Doorman commands the slender Allied squadron of ABDA, the American-British-Dutch-Australian command tasked with defending the Dutch East Indies. A meticulous Royal Netherlands Navy officer, he knows that the fall of Bali would hand the Japanese an airfield within reach of Java, the last lock on the archipelago.

On 18 February 1942, a small Japanese invasion convoy lands its troops on Bali, escorted by a handful of destroyers. Doorman is ordered to attack at once, but his ships are scattered across several anchorages and the warning is too short to gather them. Dutch and American cruisers and destroyers will therefore set out in separate groups, hours apart, into the narrow channel of Badung Strait. The Japanese crews, for their part, excel at night fighting and carry torpedoes of formidable range.

Doorman must decide how to strike the blow. He can launch the attack at once, in echelons, as each group reaches the area; wait until the whole squadron is assembled to strike in mass as a single body; or call off the engagement and preserve his ships for the looming decisive battle of Java.