The Eastern Fleet and the Indian Ocean, 1942-1944: The Fleet that Had to Hide

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Addu Atoll, southernmost of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, 600 miles southwest of Ceylon, met the requirements and it was secretly developed as a fleet anchorage. Preparations were put in hand for a more aggressive stance in the Indian Ocean and for British naval participation in the wide spaces of the Pacific Ocean. Operation C aimed to destroy the British Eastern Fleet, and disrupt British lines of communications in the Bay of Bengal in support of the Burma Campaign.

And what of the men of this Eastern Fleet who through the years endured heat and hardship, separation and routine and with little public recognition? The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. On 7 December 1941, air defences consisted of four obsolescent three-inch anti-aircraft guns - at Trincomalee - with neither fighters nor radar.The defending fighters - 17 Hurricanes and six Fulmars - took off in time, [48] and inflicted the first kills of the battle when a section of Hurricanes attacked three Zeroes and shot down two. Agreement had been reached, after objections from Admiral Ernest King USN, but new procedures would need to be learnt by naval crews and Fleet Air Arm (FAA) aircrew. Ceylon and the Eastern Fleet were required to safeguard the sea lines of communications through the Indian Ocean. MR 1) at Nowra, he was a member of the local RN dance band, and possibly the last member of MONAB I to leave Nowra after it paid off. The damaged Albacore landed at 17:45, less than a half-hour before sunset, and the crew was debriefed.

The bombers unloaded at 11,000 feet (3,353 m) [52] on Akagi; the bombs fell close to the target with no hits. Force A consisted of the battleship Warspite, the aircraft carriers HMS Indomitable, and HMS Formidable, and three cruisers. Somerville did not receive the damaged Albacore's sighting report until 16:55; the report gave the position of Carrier Division 2 with reasonable accuracy, placed the Japanese 125 miles (201 km) away, but contained no other data.Group issued a warning to subordinate units before midnight, and units went on alert at 04:00 on 5 April. On the morning of 5 April, six Swordfish from 788 Naval Air Squadron (788 NAS) began relocating from China Bay, near Trincomalee, to Colombo, in preparation for a strike on the Japanese fleet. It is rather short with just 218 pages of text and it covers not only naval warfare in the Indian Ocean 1942-44 but also the development of carrier warfare and naval air power of a larger area. Later in the war, once the fleet had been reinforced with an American aircraft carrier, it was strong enough to take more aggressive actions against the Japanese, and these are described in vivid detail. Japanese propaganda had an effect on some of the Sinhalese population, who now awaited their arrival.

Nagumo and officers such as Mitsuo Fuchida (commanding Akagi's air group) felt that the losses inflicted on the British did not justify the loss of experienced Japanese air crews. For the more-focused armchair historian, the text and notes will save significant time otherwise spent translating Japanese primary documents and references. Chapter 11 describes the German U-boat attacks in the Indian Ocean in 1943 and their use of the base at Penang off the coast of Malaya.

On 15–16 May 1945, the British fought the Battle of the Malacca Strait; the 26th Destroyer Flotilla (composed of Saumarez, Venus, Verulam, Vigilant and Virago) sank the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro in the Malacca Straits using torpedoes.