Japan did manage to secure the rich oil and mineral resources in Indonesia that she went to war over. However, not long after the Japanese suffered one of those blows of bad luck they got to be famous for. On 8 May, 1942 the US sub
Grenadier torpedoed and sank one of her most important kills of the war, the transport
Taiyo Maru. Post-war examination of Japanese records showed
Taiyo Maru to be more than just an ordinary transport; she was en route to the East Indies with a group of 1,000 Japanese scientists, economists, and oil industry technicians bent on restoring the Dutch oil fields in Sumatra to full capacity. Such a large loss of so many experts at once was a painful setback to Japan's war effort.
I guess the moral is...never put all your eggheads in one basket.
