Second Battle of the Java Sea

1 March 1942, Java Sea, south of Borneo

Japanese victory

Exeter, patched up at Surabaya but able to make only 23 knots, tried to slip out to Ceylon through Sunda Strait with the destroyers Encounter and Pope. On the morning of 1 March they were trapped between two groups of Japanese heavy cruisers, Nachi and Haguro, Myōkō and Ashigara, and their destroyers. Exeter fought for about two hours, losing all power, before she was torpedoed and sank; Encounter was sunk soon after. Pope escaped into a rain squall, only to be found by aircraft from the carrier Ryūjō and sunk. Most of the crews were picked up by the Japanese and spent the rest of the war as prisoners. The Allied fleet in the East Indies had ceased to exist.