In the first six months of the Pacific War Japanese forces overran the Dutch East Indies. Rabaul was captured on 23 January 1942, Singapore fell on 15 February, Lae and Salamaua were occupied on 8 March, and Java surrendered on 9 March. Lieutenant General George Brett, the American commander in Australia, feared that the Japanese would invade north western Australia. The Australian Chiefs of Staff disagreed. In an appreciation drafted by Major General Sydney Rowell, then the Australian Deputy Chief of the General Staff, on 5 March they argued that the Japanese would attempt to cut Australia's communications with the United States by moving against Port Moresby, New Caledonia and Fiji. By mid-April, Allied intelligence was warning of an imminent Japanese seaborne attack on Port Moresby, which was repulsed in the Battle of the Coral Sea on 5–8 May.