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Dozens of people attended a memorial at the military cemetery in Surabaya to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea.
Some of them lost an uncle. Others a father.
My mother was listening to the news.
I was playing, and all of I sudden I heard my mother gasp.
I heard that all the ships had sunk.
That's what I remember of the Battle.
The Battle of the Java Sea was the beginning of the end of the Dutch East Indies.
On Feburary 27, 1942, American, British and Dutch naval vessels attempted...
to prevent Japanese invading Java. Their commander was Dutch admiral Karel Doorman.
They failed. Three Dutch vessels were sunk.
On paper, the two fleets were evenly matched.
But the Japanese had a big advantage. Their communication system was very good.
The Allies had little joint battle experience.
In addition, the Japanese had modern vessels, more munition and heavier artillery.
915 sailors were killed, including 200 Indonesians.
Some of the sailors knew in advance that they wouldn't survive, says Carel Bikkers. He lost his uncle in the Battle.
My father told me that on the night before they set sail...
his twin brother gave him his money and rings...
because the mission was doomed to fail. That's what my father always told me.
-They knew in advance that they would die. They weren't absolutely sure, but...
they had a strong suspicion that they would fail.
Jan Maarten Doorman is Karel Doorman's grandson. His father, who was Karel's oldest son, was living with his mother in the Netherlands.
My father always missed his father. He was close to his father when he was young.
as far as I can tell from the postcards they sent each other.
I have a letter he sent to my mother's mother..
in which he wrote that he found it terrible that he couldn't ask him some questions after the war.
He found it comforting that he died as a hero.
Today, people view the colonial period differently...
but the Battle of the Java Sea had a major impact on many people's lives.
It played a big role in my life.
My father was killed, and my mother was left behind with a tiny pension.
My father was only 36.
So it really had a big impact on our lives.