Along with "Goulburn" the ship had left Singapore on 25 January assigned to sweep the southern half of Banka Strait arriving in Batavia 30 January and on finding the harbor congested were at Tanjong Priok by 2 February where "Burnie" and "Goulburn" began on 5 February a continuous anti-submarine patrol until the Japanese invasion of Java. By 12 February and a flood of ships fleeing the fall of Singapore and Japanese advances the ship was sent to Oosthaven in Sumatra for anti-submarine patrols at that port. On the 17th the ship entered the port with to assist in demolition of facilities covering a bridge to the wharf with her gun while a shore party worked through the night destroying ammunition, rail equipment and placing depth charges under the KPM wharf and a cargo shed as well as pouring sulphuric acid into the working parts and destroying propellers of four trucks of torpedoes before "Burnie" got underway and completed destruction with gunfire.