Invasion of the Dutch East indies
The Japanese invasion of java at the end of February 1942 was the culmination of the hostilities that began on 8 Dec 1941. Jakarta and Bandung on Java were the administrative centers for the Dutch East Indies and therefore the key to gaining access to the raw material wealth of that nation. So critical was this objective that within three weeks of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the army was told to revise its plans and bring forward the conquest of Java by thirty days. At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, the target date for capture of the NEI had been set at 7 April . This is outlined in the book ” The Invasion of the Dutch East Indies”, published by the Leiden University Press (2015), and the source of this illustration. The Battle of the Java Sea on 28 February 1942, was at the time the largest naval engagement since the Battle of Jutland during WWI
