Jeffrey R. Cox is a litigation attorney and an independent military historian specializing in World War II, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome, as well as a contributor to Military History Online (www.militaryhistoryonline.com). He holds a bachelor's degree in National Security Policy Studies from The Ohio State University and has studied the Pacific War since 1981.

Few events have ever shaken a country in the way that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor affected the United States. The Japanese forces then continued to overwhelm the Allies, attacking Malaya with its fortress of Singapore, and taking resource-rich islands in the Pacific in their own blitzkrieg offensive. Allied losses in these early months after America's entry into the war were great, and among the most devastating were those suffered during the Java Sea Campaign, where a small group of Americans, British, Dutch, and Australians were isolated in the Far East - directly in the path of the Japanese onslaught. It would be the first major sea battle of World War II in the Pacific.