Battle of the Java Sea: One Event, Multiple Sites, Values and Views

Journal of Maritime Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1007/s11457-020-09287-5 ORIGINAL PAPER Battle of the Java Sea: One Event, Multiple Sites, Values and Views M. R. Manders1,2 · R. W. de Hoop2 P. Syofiadisna3 · D. Haryanto4 · S. Adhityatama3 · D. S. Bismoko3 · Accepted: 21 December 2020 © The Author(s) 2021 Abstract Three Dutch naval ships, HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java and HNLMS Kortenaer, were lost during the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 1942, claiming the lives of 915 sailors. Although the ships were relocated in 2002, no official action was taken until 2016 when an international diving team from the Karel Doorman Foundation discovered that the warships had disappeared. This created tension between the government of Indonesia and those countries that had lost ships in the archipelago, especially the Netherlands. A three-track cooperation agreement was set up to investigate the disappearance of the three Dutch wrecks with the aim of understanding what had happened, in order to create a better basis for cooperation in the future. The management and protection of shipwrecks from WWII is very complicated, because of the different values that stakeholders attach to them. Only with the proper understanding and consideration of the different values or significance WWII shipwrecks hold for different stakeholders can new ways of managing these complex sites be developed that have long-term effectiveness. This paper argues that different stakeholder groups from both the flag and the coastal state must work together on this issue. Keywords WWII · Shipwrecks · Value · Management · Cooperation Introduction In November 2016, a group of technical divers discovered the disappearance of three Dutch WWII wrecks—HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java and HNLMS Kortenaer—that sank on the 27 February 1942 during what has become known as the Battle of the Java Sea in Indonesian territorial waters. The large metal shipwrecks had been obviously salvaged from the seabed. How had this happened? Who was to blame? The discovery lead to tensions between the governments of Indonesia and the Netherlands, reflecting the complications that can arise in the management and protection of shipwrecks from WWII because of the different values that stakeholders attach to them. This article discusses the results of a * M. R. Manders Extended author information available on the last page of the article 13 Vol.:(0123456789) Journal of Maritime Archaeology three-track investigation that was initiated to mitigate these tensions, taking into consideration different stakeholder values from both the flag and the coastal state. The cooperative investigation represents new ways of managing these complex sites, resulting in long-term effectiveness and a much brighter future in maritime archaeology and heritage management between the two countries (Fig. 1). Historical Background and Present Context On 27 February 1942, the first act of a decisive sea battle took place between the Allied forces of American–British–Dutch–Australian Command (ABDACOM) and the Imperial Japanese Navy. This battle on the Java Sea was the final attempt to prevent the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies. It was an unequal battle between a well-trained and superior Japanese battle fleet and a hastily assembled fleet of relatively ill-equipped and often dated ships of different nationalities. HNLMS De Ruyter, flagship of Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, HNLMS Java and HNLMS Kortenaer were torpedoed by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the battle. As a result, 915 men on board these ships died. The three Dutch ships were not the only ones lost: ships of several nationalities within the ABDACOM fleet were also sunk, along with a number of Japanese ships. In total, around 2300 lives were lost in the battle. Defeat in this WWII sea battle, the first in which the Netherlands had been involved in almost 150 years, and the engagements in the days that followed meant the loss of the last East-Asian barrier to Japanese dominance and a permanent change in the Kingdom’s relations with its overseas colonies in Asia (Dissel 2012, 30).1 For a very long time, the exact locations of the three Dutch sunken ships remained unknown. In general, little was said in the Netherlands about WWII in the ‘East’ (Huis 2019, 220). For Indonesia, the wrecks were a symbol of what had been a very different society under colonial rule. As a result, little was known except the rough locations as mentioned by survivors of the battle and written down in texts such as the memoirs of Lieutenant-Admiral Helfrich (1950). On 1 December 2002, an Australian tech-dive team discovered what they believed were the light cruisers HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java. These ships, approximately 170 m and 155 m in length, were identified on the basis of specific features and photographs were taken. Two years later, in 2004, the same team claimed to have also found the 98 m-long destroyer HNLMS Kortenaer (Fock 2016). Although the discovery of the sites had been publicly announced and information on the wrecks was available on the Internet, no official report was ever made to either the Dutch or the Indonesian authorities. This is an important issue, as for many years no action was taken by either government. A formal report could have triggered formal cooperation between various ministries in the two countries at that time. Given the circumstances, this did not occur, not least because for a long time the heritage component of these wrecks was not acknowledged. For several years, the locations were the site of technical dive trips (mainly involving tourists) and commemorative visits on the sea surface (Dissel 2007, 34). In 2008, a dive trip to De Ruyter and Java was recorded on film. The resulting footage showed two wellpreserved wrecks on the seabed. A small number of items were lifted from the wrecks 1 For a more detailed description of the Battle in the Java Sea see: Bezemer (1987), Bosscher (1986), Cox (2011), Cox (2014), Doedens/Mulder (2017), Helfrich (1950), Kroese (1945), Nater (1980). 13 Journal of Maritime Archaeology in the years that followed. Artefacts including four bells engraved with the names of De Ruyter and Java found their way to an auction house in Australia, and later to the Navy Museum in Den Helder, the Netherlands, and Kembang Kuning, the war cemetery in Surabaya, Indonesia.2 As far back as 2007, informal discussions took place between the Royal Netherlands Navy and the descendants of the victims about the future of the wrecks and it was hoped that through the signing of international agreements the locations would be protected as war graves (Dissel 2007). It was not until 2016 that an active field visit was proposed, in preparation for the 75-year commemoration of the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 2017. At this time, recently established channels of communication and cooperation between three Dutch ministries—Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Educ (...truncated)