American - British - Dutch - Australian Command Although ABDACOM was only in existence for a few weeks , and it presided over one defeat after another , it did provide some useful lessons for combined Allied commands later in the war . History . Efforts to organise the ABDA Command began soon after war between the Allies and Japan commenced , on 7 December 1941 . It was finalized at the Arcadia Conference in Washington . On December 29 , Winston Churchill said that it had been agreed Wavell would be supreme commander . Wavell then held the position of British Commander - in - Chief , India . Churchill added : Following the declaration by the four nations on 1 January 1942 , the Allied governments formally appointed Wavell . The formation of ABDACOM meant that Wavell had control of a huge , but thinly - spread force , covering an area from Burma in the west , to Dutch New Guinea and the Philippines in the east . Other areas , including India and Hawaii remained officially under separate commands , and in practice General Douglas MacArthur was in complete control of Allied forces in The Philippines . At Wavell ' s insistence , the western half of northern Australia ( see map ) was added to the ABDA area . The rest of Australia was under Australian control , as were its territories of Papua and New Guinea . ABDA was charged with holding the Malay Barrier for as long as possible in order to retain Allied control of the Indian Ocean and the western sea approaches to Australia . This was a nearly hopeless task , given the Japanese supremacy in naval forces in the western Pacific . The task was further complicated by the addition of Burma to the command ; the difficulties of coordinating action between forces of four nationalities that used different equipment and had not trained together ; and the different priorities of the national governments . British leaders were primarily interested in retaining control of Singapore ; the military capacity of the Dutch East Indies had suffered as a result of the defeat of the Netherlands in 1940 , and the Dutch administration was focused on defending the island of Java ; the Australian government was heavily committed to the war in North Africa and Europe , and had few readily accessible military resources , and ; the U . S . was preoccupied with the Philippines , which at the time was a U . S . Commonwealth territory . Wavell arrived in Singapore , where the British Far East Command was based , on 7 January 1942 . ABDACOM absorbed this British command in its entirety . On 18 January , Wavell moved his headquarters to Lembang near Bandoeng on Java . On 1 February the airforce portion of ABDA moved its headquarters from Lembang to Bandoeng when it became clear that the former place lacked sufficient accommodation . This made cooperation between navy and airforce difficult . The first notable success for forces under ABDACOM was the U . S . Navy ' s attack at Balikpapan , Borneo on January 24 , which cost the Japanese six transport ships , but had little effect on them capturing the prized oil wells of Borneo . The governments of Australia , the Netherlands and New Zealand lobbied Winston Churchill for an Allied inter - governmental war council , with overall responsibility for the Allied war effort in Asia and the Pacific , based in Washington D . C . A Far Eastern Council ( later known as the Pacific War Council ) was established in London on February 9 , with a corresponding staff council in Washington . However , the smaller powers continued to push for a body based in the US . In the meantime , the rapid collapse of Allied resistance to Japanese attacks in Malaya , Singapore , the Dutch East Indies , the Philippines and other countries had soon overwhelmed the Malay Barrier . The fall of Singapore on 15 February dislocated the ABDA command , which was dissolved a week later . Wavell resigned as supreme commander on 25 February 1942 handing control of the ABDA Area to local commanders . He also recommended the establishment of two Allied commands to replace ABDACOM : a south west Pacific command , and one based in India . In anticipation of this , Wavell had handed control of Burma to the British Indian Army and reassumed his previous position , as Commander - in - Chief India . Following the destruction of the main ABDA naval force under Rear - Admiral Karel Doorman , at the Battle of the Java Sea , in February – March 1942 , ABDA effectively ceased to exist . As the Japanese closed in on the remaining Allied forces in the Philippines , MacArthur was ordered to re - locate to Australia . On 17 March , the US Government appointed him as Supreme Allied Commander South West Pacific Area , a command which included Australia and New Guinea in addition to Japanese - held areas . The rest of the geographic area of the Pacific Theater of Operations remained under the Pacific Ocean Areas command , led by Commander - in - Chief Admiral Chester Nimitz of the US Navy . The inter - governmental Pacific War Council was established in Washington on 1 April , but remained largely ineffectual due to the overwhelming predominance of US forces in the Pacific theater throughout the war . Perhaps the most notable success for ABDA forces was the guerilla campaign in Timor , waged by Australian and Dutch infantry for almost 12 months after Japanese landings there on February 19 . Official command structure . General Sir Archibald Wavell , British Army ( BA ) — Supreme Commander Land forces ( ABDARM ) ( " MacArthur was technically subordinate to Wavell , but in reality many of the chains of command shown here operated independently of ABDACOM and / or existed only on paper . " ) Air forces ( ABDAIR ) Naval forces ( ABDAFLOAT )