Rising Sun, Falling Skies ─ The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II

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.

Jeffrey R. Cox is a litigation attorney and an independent military historian specializing in World War II, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome, as well as a contributor to Military History Online (www.militaryhistoryonline.com). He holds a bachelor's degree in National Security Policy Studies from the Ohio State University and has studied the Pacific War since 1981. The author lives in Indianapolis, IN.