Summary of John Winton's The Forgotten Fleet

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The attack on Force Z, which was the British battleship Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser Repulse, and four destroyers, was the end result of a train of unfortunate circumstances. By November 1944, when the British Pacific Fleet was formally in being, the United States Navy and Marine Corps had already won for the Allies nearly complete control of sea and air over most of the Pacific.

#2 The British Pacific and East Indies Fleets were a magnificent contribution by a nation 10,000 miles from the action who had already fought a war at sea for five years and over five oceans. But the American 3rd/5th and 7th Fleets were far larger and more powerful than both British fleets combined.

#3 The fall of Singapore was a dark and terrible episode for the Navy, but there were two gallant naval actions fought by Allied ships in the Java Sea on 27 and 28 February. Four cruisers and three destroyers were sunk in these actions.

#4 The Japanese raiders were Vice Admiral Nagumo’s formidable Striking Force, which included five of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbour. They attacked Colombo on Easter Sunday, 5 April, and sank the cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822547216

IRB Media

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Insights on John Winton's The Forgotten Fleet

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The attack on Force Z, which was the British battleship Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser Repulse, and four destroyers, was the end result of a train of unfortunate circumstances. By November 1944, when the British Pacific Fleet was formally in being, the United States Navy and Marine Corps had already won for the Allies nearly complete control of sea and air over most of the Pacific.

#2

The British Pacific and East Indies Fleets were a magnificent contribution by a nation 10,000 miles from the action who had already fought a war at sea for five years and over five oceans. But the American 3rd/5th and 7th Fleets were far larger and more powerful than both British fleets combined.

#3

The fall of Singapore was a dark and terrible episode for the Navy, but there were two gallant naval actions fought by Allied ships in the Java Sea on 27 and 28 February. Four cruisers and three destroyers were sunk in these actions.

#4

The Japanese raiders were Vice Admiral Nagumo’s formidable Striking Force, which included five of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbour. They attacked Colombo on Easter Sunday, 5 April, and sank the cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire.

#5

The Japanese had a choice of offensive strategies. They could strike in the west and invade southern India, or they could move south and invade Australia. The third choice was to strike in the east and destroy the American fleet.

#6

The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval engagement in history between aircraft carriers. The Japanese had seemingly gained another victory, but the strategically important defeat of the Port Moresby invasion force proved that their expansion in the Far East had been halted.

#7

The Battle of Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific. It was the Japanese Navy’s first clear defeat since the Korean Admiral Yi Sun Sin in his Kwi-Sun Tortoise ship sank 120 Japanese ships by fire and ram in 1592.

#8

The Battle of Savo Island was a defeat for the Allies comparable to the Italian fleet at Matapan. It also dispelled the legend that the Japanese were a myopic race with poor night vision.

#9

The battle for Guadalcanal was a race by both sides to build up their resources on the island. The sea-lights off Guadalcanal, when both sides sought to interrupt the flow of the other’s reinforcements, made some of the most stirring history of World War Two at sea.

#10

The Allied advance on Rabaul was sustained on two fronts in 1943 and was hastened by a brilliant success for Allied aircraft in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. In the three days from 2 to 4 March 1943, bombers of the US Army and Royal Australian air forces attacked a Japanese convoy, sinking four escorting destroyers and all the eight troop transports carrying an entire infantry division.

#11

The evolution, in 1943 and 1944, of the Allies’ strategy for the Far East was a long and a tortuous process. The disagreements between the Prime Minister and his Chiefs of Staff on the definition of the British role in the strategy became a dialogue of an almost Japanese complexity.

#12

The British Chiefs of Staff came away from the conference with the British future in the Pacific settled. They were eager to get to work. However, Mr Churchill disagreed with them, believing that the center of British strategy should be in the Indian Ocean