Indeed, that is the case. Scharnhorst will be out of action for eight months, Gneisenau will never sail again, and Prinz Eugen gets torpedoed 10 days later, disabling all three. And the operation, ordered by Hitler, confirms his faith in his own intuition and genius, at the expense of his professional advisers. USS Enterprise is ordered to sea from Pearl Harbor as head of Task Force 13. Vice Adm. William Halsey avoids being Task Force 13 and leaving on Friday the 13th by re-naming the group Task Force 16 and sailing the following day.
Allied forces are in full retreat, with hordes of deserters causing chaos.
Troops on duty have had barely an hour's sleep in days, and are exhausted. The famed 15-inch guns have been destroyed or captured. Percival signals Wavell that he doesn't think he can fight for more than two days. Wavell orders Percival to fight on. Meanwhile, the advancing Japanese themselves are desperately short on ammunition, and Yamashita is down to his last rounds.