Japanese evaluation of the Dutch armed forces in the Dutch East Indies according to the Dutch newspaper Nieuwe Venlosche Courant daily edition dated 16 January 1942

Japan attacked on 7 December 1941 with success the American naval base at Pearl Harbour and as a result declared the Netherlands the war to Japan. The news item is published after the start of the successful Japanese attack on the Dutch East Indies on 10 January that same year. Japan valued the Dutch forces as consisting of 72,000 regular troops and 25,000 volunteers. The air force consisted of 100 fighters, 80 bombers, 90 scouts and 100 floating planes. The navy was to consist of 6 cruisers, 10 destroyers, 15 submarines, 5 minelayers, 8 minesweepers, 7 torpedo boats, 1 gunboat and 5 smaller units. (1)

Tromp

Note
1. These figures are not reliable, for instance in the Dutch East Indies were at that moment just 3 Dutch cruisers available namely the Hr. Ms. Java, De Ruyter and the Tromp. The Sumatra was since October 1940 lying decommissioned at Surabaya needing modernisation and was commissioned on 27 January 1942 not suited for battle was she with a maximum speed of 15 knots send to Colombo. The fifth cruiser the Jacob van Heemskerck (fitted out as an anti aircraft cruiser) was in January 1942 sent with all possible haste towards the Dutch East Indies but arrived to late to play a roll in the defence and in March added to the Eastern Fleet. The Dutch navy never numbered 6 cruisers but perhaps the former coastal defence ship De Zeven Provincien of 1910 (since the mutiny in 1933 called Soerabaja) was considered as a cruiser.