Naval History
“The Rise and Fall of Imperial Japan Depends on This One Battle” Part I
IJN Junyo IJN Shokaku Movement of opposing forces, 16—17 June 1944. Movement of opposing forces, 18 June 1944. On the morning of 11 June Admiral Ozawa received the first reports of TF 58’s strikes on the Marianas. At first he thought these raids were nothing more than diversionary attacks meant to take the heat off the Biak landings. The next…
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Navarino, 1827 Part II
The Naval Battle of Navarino, Ambroise Louis Garneray Unlike the Spartans, the Ottomans only had to guard the southern entrance. Almost daily reconnaissance reports meant that Codrington was aware that their fleet numbered just over a hundred ships, forty of which were non-combatant. Letellier had positioned the warships at anchor…
ROYAL NAVY BALTIC OPERATIONS WWI
4th June 1919 – British submarine ‘L.55’ (1918, 960t, 6-21in tt, 2-4in). With the British Baltic Squadron blockading the Bolshevik naval base of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island laying off Petrograd, warships on both sides were lost. On the 4th (some accounts say the 9th) ‘L-55’ was in action with Russian…
Malta Convoys and Torch
The main island of Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean, 60 miles south of Sicily, is only 95 square miles. It is just 17 miles long by 9 miles wide. The landscape of this rocky island is almost Biblical with flat-topped houses in honey-coloured limestone set against stony hills.…
Task Force 77: Korea II
Throughout the winter of 1951/52, the war in Korea reached stalemate on the ground. In the air, the navy and USMC squadrons continued their interdiction and close air support strikes against North Korean targets. At sea, eight carriers took their turn in the Sea of Japan and normally four US…
1813
As 1813 began, Britain was revitalized by Napoleon’s debacle in Russia. Sensing a historic turn in events, the British stripped their country of troops and reinforced Wellington’s army, with the intention of not only driving the French from Spain but also of crossing the Pyrenees to invade France. The Baltic…
1814
On September 11, 1814, at the Battle of Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain in New York, during the War of 1812. Like Hitler, Napoleon saw the hope of a reversal of fortune in the possibility that his enemies, all deeply suspicious of each other, would fall out. Several times before, European…