With a worldwide shipping crisis and SWPA being at the end of a very long supply line, as well as being a region without well developed transportation nets, regional logistics were almost entirely dependent on water transport. No one fleet composed the assets available to the Commander in Chief, SWPA as the U. S. Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, Netherlands East Indies Navy were under his operational command while being maintained under their respective organizations. Those assets were inadequate resulting in the creation of a large Army fleet unique to SWPA, the Permanent Local Fleet, under first USFIA, later USASOS and finally Army Forces, Western Pacific (AFWESPAC), starting with the retention of the , and from the convoy diverted to Brisbane in December 1941.