Admiral King requested that, during April, the Eastern Fleet should engage Japanese forces in their area and hold them there to reduce the opposition to an American seaborne assault on Hollandia (now Jayapura) and Aitape on the north coast of Netherlands New Guinea.
On May 15-16, 1945, the British carried out Operation Dukedom; the 26th Destroyer Flotilla (composed of , , , and ) sank the Japanese heavy cruiser in the Malacca Straits using torpedoes [REF].