Battle of the Java Sea by Captain Rick Jacobs

Comments · 143

• MR

  @MrKen-wy5dk · 5 years ago

  My wife is Dutch-Indonesian. Her father was Dutch. When all this happened she was a very little girl in Java with her mother and four siblings. Her father was captured and became a slave laborer building airfields for the Japanese. They all survived the war. We live in Houston, TX and there is a huge wooden model of the USS Houston in one of the downtown courthouses. It's a beautiful model, under glass.

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• ST

  @stevelindstedt8858 · 5 years ago

  An excellent book on the USS Houston and the Sunda Strait battle and the survivors, captured and forced to work on the Thai railroads: "Ship Of Ghosts" (James Hornfischer)...My Dad was a Marine, served on the 2nd USS Houston (CL-81)

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• SO

  @sowelie1 · 10 years ago

  It is a little akward at first that he reads all the time from notes, but I guess that's the only way when there is so much informations like exact times and where shell fell. Great lecture, great illustrations.

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• SU

  @surfxx9685 · 4 years ago (edited)

  This is a story that needs to be told , thank you kind sir.<br>Greetings from a sailor of the current flagship of the dutch navy &quot; Zr.Ms. Karel Doorman.

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• CR

  @crystalodoms1280 · 11 months ago

  Both of my Grandfathers are World War 2 Veterans and I have visited The New Orleans World War 2 Museum several times. I attended all of the 2025 D-Day Commemoration events in person. Each event was an important reminder of the freedoms President Franklin D. Roosevelt taught us are the foundations of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/demcracy">#Demcracy</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/humanrights">#HumanRights</a>. The New Orleans World War 2 Museum staff are an incredibly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/smart">#smart</a> team of scholars who are doing an exceptional job educating the public about the strategic brilliance of The U.S. Government, U.S. Military and Ally Governments from across the globe who helped to win the war and establish the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/unitednations">#UnitedNations</a>. Thank you, from Crystal Odoms proud American Citizen born <a href="https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/free">#free</a> on American soil in New Orleans Louisiana!!

• OL

  @Oldfart2225 · 10 years ago

  Excellent presentation. The mention of Australian troops retaking parts of the (then) East Indies prompted some memories. Their two main targets were Tarakan and Balikpapan, using a reinforced brigade and reinforced division respectively. The operations were well run and successful, but often regarded as unnecessary. There was a plan for Australian forces to reform into new formations with experienced troops for the invasion of Japan, with all-US equipment and integrated into a US command structure. Some suggest the East Indies operations were rehearsals for this. After the war Australia supported Indonesia becoming independent at a political and UN level.

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• GN

  @gn019202492000 · 10 years ago

  really enjoy the lecture.

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• KI

  @KineticRhyme · 6 years ago

  Sorry for the 8 year late comment, I just watched this today. I read about this battle in the book &quot;Japanese Destroyer Captain,&quot; and one of the things that make me laugh is the fact that Adm. Takagi (the admiral that led his forces in this battle) was taken off command of surface ships after this battle, apparently because he ordered to open fire on extreme ranges and &quot;wasted&quot; so many torpedoes and ammo, among other things. This is despite the fact that, had Takagi not won this battle, the Army transports that he was tasked to escort would have been free for ABDACOM to intercept and the land battle would turn out vastly different. <br><br>Good lecture by the way.

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• IC

  @icewaterslim7260 · 4 years ago

  Excellent summation. Best YouTube video on the battle actually. Some of those survivors from Houston had to have realized it wasn&apos;t subs that launched those Long Lances but they spent the remainder of the war as POWs on the Thailand - Burma railway. We still didn&apos;t know much about the Type 93 torpedo at Tassafaronga in November &apos;42. They didn&apos;t know until they possessed a captured one intact. Well I should clarify they didn&apos;t realize it&apos;s range. They obviously knew the damned thing actually worked whether they were ready to realize, or not, that ours usually didn&apos;t..

• RO

  @rogerwilco2 · 11 years ago

  It&apos;s a very US-centric view on the story, but it seems to be the best video I can find of the engagement out there. Overall the speaker is giving a pretty thorough talk on this topic, even though he mispronounces most names and is clearly not up to speed on the pre-WWII Japanese history. The 1905 Battle of Tsushima Strait is one of the main sea battles of naval history.<br><br>This whole thing seems to have been forgotten by most documentary makers, nobody seems to have made a documentary about these fights. With how much TV there has been made about WWII, I always find that surprising.<br>Thanks for posting.

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• AN

  @AndreasDewatmoko1 · 11 years ago

  Balikpapan (East Borneo) is where the Royal Dutch Shell oil refinery located, Tarakan is where most of the oil rigs operates. &nbsp;Cilacap (South Java), is also an oil refinery town. Palembang (East of Sumatra) is another oil production center. The order to bring the fleet down from the Philippines to those sites, particularly after Singapore (where Shell bunker located on the Sambu island, now part of Batam) surrender, was intended to protect fuel supply from falling on the Japanese command. In short, these &quot;Battle of the Java Sea&quot; is a fight between ABDA and Japan for oil. Noting much have change since 1941.

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• MO

  @mountainmanws · 9 years ago

  Read John Toland&apos;s book: But Not in Shame. &nbsp;Thanks for posting.

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