destroyers — part of the Asiatic Fleet, had put into the oil ports of Borneo. Ostensibly, they were there to refuel. Actually, the refueling process was prolonged and exaggerated by innumerable well-contrived complications which allowed our ships to linger in friendly Dutch waters until our Navy could see which way the little yellow men were going to jump.
When the Japs began to move and it was all too evident that we would lose the Philippines, these cruisers and destroyers steamed north to meet and convoy nearly fifty non-combatant ships, flying the flags of the United Nations, from the danger area of the Philippines southward.
Thus when Admiral Hart had to withdraw from Cavite, he went to Surabaya. Java became American naval headquarters in the South Pacific. From Surabaya our ships put out in forays to try to arrest Japan's march to the south. At the time ours were the only heavy ships in those waters, all the British and Dutch naval vessels being engaged guarding convoys.
All this was going on when Dr. Wassell arrived in Surabaya. He got there on January 27, just three days after one of the first engagements in Macassar Strait and when the injured from that meeting with the enemy were beginning to arrive in Java. Admiral Hart immediately appointed Dr. Wassell to his staff. There was a vacancy, as the medical officer who had been serving under Admiral Hart at Cavite had gone into Manila to help with the wounded there, was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and, consequently, left behind.
Wassell found plenty to do. All sorts of medical supplies were being dumped, helter-skelter, on the docks at Surabaya. Every sort of vessel the United Nations could commandeer was being outfitted for use against the enemy. Men, planes, guns, ammunition, and tanks were arriving hourly, as the United Nations scrambled to put up a last line of defense of the Dutch East Indies and Australia.
