Malaya & Dutch East Indies 1941–42

The Japanese advance into Southeast Asia was the key operation in the series of Japanese attacks in the opening months of the War in the Pacific, and the entire plan was based on the successful application of airpower. Their attack on Malaya was supported primarily by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF), which planned to destroy British airpower in northern Malaya in a classic offensive counter air campaign lasting only two days. The defending Royal Air Force in the Far East was not prepared for war, lacking sufficient aircraft to perform its missions of defending the naval base at Singapore, and the inability of the British Army to hold the air bases in Malaya exacerbated the situation. Their quick capture by the Japanese allowed the IJAAF to support the advance of Japanese grounds troops and to increase the pressure on Singapore.

The Japanese campaign to occupy the North East Indies was even more dependent on airpower since the Japanese would have to seize a series of airfields on various islands to support their leapfrog advance. This campaign was supported almost exclusively by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force. Facing the Japanese was a mixed bag of Allied air units, including the Dutch East Indies Air Squadron with a mix of Dutch, German, and American designed and supplied aircraft. The RAF fell back to airfields on Sumatra, NEI, in the last stages of the Malaya campaign, and was involved in the last stages of the campaign to defend the NEI. For the same reason the Allied air campaign failed in Malaya, the effort to defend the NEI was also futile.

For the first time, this illustrated study explores the Malaya North East Indies campaigns from an air power perspective, explaining how and why air forces played such a key role in the success of the Japanese invasions and what this meant for Allied forces.