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In the 1920s and 1930s, three important visions of future naval war in the Pacific were extant: the American ORANGE war plans, the Japanese "Attrition/Interception" concept, and the British "Singapore strategy." This chapter by Evan Mawdsleyexamines what relevance these expectations had to the situation after the outbreak of full-scale war in China (1937) and Europe (1939), and especially after the fall of France in May-June 1940. It discusses how the war planning of the USA, Japan, and Britain dovetailed, and how it developed in the light of geopolitical and technological changes in the two years preceding the attacks on Malaya and Hawaii; June-July 1941 marked a second significant turning point. Finally, the chapter considers the relationship between the two actions of the Imperial Navy planned for December 1941, the "Southern Operation" and the "Hawaiian Operation," and the connection between those two Japanese strikes and the American-British "ABC-1" strategy of March 1941.

This chapter by David Kohnen examines the Allied response to the initial German submarine operations in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War. Roughly forty German submarines sailed for East Asian waters after 1942; U-188 was among the few to navigate the Allied gauntlet in the Atlantic to reach the Indian Ocean. Only three German submarines, including U-188, returned to Europe from operations in the Indian Ocean before the Allied victory in May of 1945. The discussions between key British and American commanders regarding the presence of German submarines in the Indian Ocean provide unique insight into the operations and intelligence organizations of the Admiralty and Navy Department and are examined in detail. The chapter also looks at the Allied submarine tracking rooms, which assisted the Special Operations Executive and Office of Strategic Services in the capture of the skipper of U-188 – thereby securing information on the Imperial Japanese during a critical period in the closing months of the Second World War.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 saw the introduction of game-changing naval strike technologies, among them the first Japanese introduction of aircraft voice radios, shallow-running torpedoes, armor-piercing bombs, advanced fuzes, and the use of dive bombers against fleet units in port. The attack was the first instance of a multi-carrier strike, with over 350 aircraft participating. Instead of amplifying success, these technologies contributed to a very poor performance: with sufficient firepower to sink all the accessible battleships and cruisers in the harbor, with overkill, they applied killing levels of ordnance to only three. The attack is an exemplar of what can go wrong when introducing new naval technologies and doctrine. This chapter by Alan D. Zimm examines the errors made by the Japanese, the impact of these errors on strike performance, and the ultimate source of the errors. Examined are bombsights, general-purpose and armor-piercing bombs, radios and command and control, and torpedoes and anti-torpedo defenses. Much of the Japanese performance shortfall can be attributed to improper assimilation of new technologies, along with poor testing, manufacturing, and installation of new technologies.

This chapter overviews the origins of the Russo-Japanese War and the objectives of the two belligerents, the developments in the naval arena up to the battle, the Baltic Fleet’s voyage to East Asia, and the balance of power on the eve of the battle.

This chapter evaluates the way the battle affected the Japanese actions in the following years and the way it has been commemorated ever since. The battle established Japan’s naval supremacy in East Asian waters and brought it dramatically closer to its desired goal since the outbreak of hostilities: peace negotiations with Russia following their military triumph on sea and land. More importantly, the Battle of Tsushima became a prominent landmark in the rise of the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was celebrated throughout the country and instantly made Admiral Togo a national hero. Thereafter, this doctrine called for the use of a strong battleship force which would destroy an invading fleet in a single stroke as it approached Japan after suffering losses by attrition as it penetrated the nation’s perimeter defences. This chapter shows how the battle remained a reference point for the navy’s Decisive Battle Doctrine in subsequent years and discusses its implications. In addition, the chapter explores the three stages that mark the battle’s memory in Japan during the subsequent century: jubilation, amnesia, and pride.

This chapter provides a detailed account and analysis of the battle from the interception of the Russian armada until the arrival of its surviving ships to Vladivostok three days later. Of special attention are the opening stage of the battle and the final one, in which the Russian commander, Vice Admiral Zinovii Rozhestvenskii fell prisoner while unconscious. In tactical terms, the initial engagement between the Japanese 1st Battle Division (comprising battleships and armoured cruisers) with the life of Russian battleships was unprecedented. This chapter concludes with a detailed analysis of the reasons for the Japanese victory and the Russian fiasco.