the British surrendered at Singapore, the Japanese pincers closed on Java. A fleet of 41 transports originating at Jolo in the Philippines were heading straight down the Makassar Strait and, after a single stop at Balikpapan, moved out across the Java Sea. A second fleet, even larger, was coming down out of the China Sea around the western curve of Borneo against Batavia and Western Java. The men on the bomber fields in Java received the news of Singapore's surrender as forewarning of their own defeat. Attacks were flown against the fleets heading towards Java, but the Joint Army-Navy Assessment Commission credited the Army airplanes of all Allied Air forces in the theater with no more than three minesweepers, four passenger or cargo vessels, and one converted salvage vessel sunk, and a part in the sinking of two other cargo vessels. With the Japanese ground forces heading south, plans were made to evacuate the bombers back to Australia. Between the 20th and 23d Malang alone suffered twelve separate attacks, and in the four days following the disastrous 20th eight more planes were lost on the ground. On 24 February 24 six B-17s attacked a Japanese convoy forming in the Makassar Strait for the final thrust across the Java Sea and again in the closing hours during the night of 28 February – 1 March, when six B-17s and one LB-30 bombed the same convoy as it moved towards the Java beaches. Their work was notable more as a gesture than for any worthwhile results and did nothing to halt or even delay the Japanese. To Fifth Bomber Command it became obvious that to continue operations on the present basis, without fighter protection and with their only three practicable airdromes under constant enemy observation, would mean the certain loss of all their planes. It was time to pull out and the remaining forces were withdrawn to Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. India B-17 operations The squadron re-equipped in Australia during February the unit prepared to move to a new secret station. Arriving in Karachi, India, on 12 March 1942, they established headquarters at the dirigible hangar seven miles east of Karachi and became one of the initial units of what became Tenth Air Force. Almost at once the 7th Group, already veterans of battle with the Japanese in Java, proceeded to hit the enemy which was at that time