British Pacific Fleet

Product Description

In August 1944 the British Pacific Fleet did not exist. Six months later it was strong enough to launch air attacks on Japanese territory & by the end of the war it constituted the most powerful force in the history of the Royal Navy fighting as professional equals alongside the US Navy in the thick of the action. How this was achieved by a nation nearing exhaustion after five years of conflict is a story of epic proportions in which ingenuity diplomacy & dogged persistence all played a part. As much a political as a technical triumph the BPF was uniquely complex in its make-up: its C-in-C was responsible to the Admiralty for the general direction of his Fleet; took operational orders from the American Admiral Nimitz; answered to the Government of Australia for the construction & maintenance of a vast base infrastructure & to other Commonwealth Governments for the ships & men that formed his fully-integrated multi-national fleet. This ground-breaking new work by David Hobbs describes the background creation & expansion of the BPF from its first tentative strikes through operations off the coast of Japan to its impact on the immediate post-war period including the opinions of USN liaison officers attached to the British flagships. The book is the first to demonstrate the real scope & scale of the BPFs impressive achievement.