Few events have ever shaken a country in the way that the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor affected the United States. After the devastating
attack, Japanese forces continued to overwhelm the Allies, attacking
Malaya with its fortress of Singapore, and taking resource-rich islands
in the Pacific - Borneo, Sumatra, and Java - in their own blitzkrieg
offensive. Allied losses in these early months after America's entry
into the war were great, and among the most devastating were those
suffered during the Java Sea Campaign, where a small group of Americans,
British, Dutch, and Australians were isolated in the Far East - and
directly in the path of the Japanese onslaught. It was to be the first
major sea battle of World War II in the Pacific.