Following Operation Cockpit, "Saratoga" was directed to return to the United States for a refit. The head of the US Navy, Admiral Ernest King, suggested to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the commander of South East Asia Command, that the carrier, accompanied by other vessels of the Eastern Fleet, strike Surabaya on her return voyage. King hoped that this would act as a diversion from the planned Allied landing at Wakde Island off New Guinea. Mountbatten agreed to this proposal.