Leo Marriott - Naval Battles of the Second World War: Pacific and Far East

The USS South Dakota (BB 57) was the first of a class of four battleships which were all completed and commissioned 1942. Although by then the aircraft carrier had replaced the battleship as the core of naval power, the new ships would assume valuable roles in protecting the fast carriers with their massive AA firepower and supporting amphibious assaults with their long-range 16in guns . (NARA)

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Pacific and Far East

Leo Marriott

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

PEN & SWORD MARITIME

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Leo Marriott, 2022

ISBN 978 1 39909 898 4

ePUB ISBN 978 1 39909 899 1

Mobi ISBN 978 1 39909 899 1

The right of Leo Marriott to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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T he following list explains terms and abbreviations used in the text and also gives the key to abbreviations relating to ship types and nationality in the list contained in the appendix.

CB Battlecruiser (US Navy designation)

CM Minelayer (US Navy designation)

CTF/G Carrier Task Force / Group

CVS Seaplane Carrier (US Navy designation)

Kts knots

TF/TG Task Force / Task Group

TT Torpedo Tubes

Ultra Intelligence information obtained by reading German messages originally encoded by an Enigma machine (cf. Magic)

T his is the second of two volumes covering the major naval engagements of the Second World War. The first of these included actions which mainly involved the Royal Navy in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. The United States Navy was also involved in the Atlantic and, later, in the Mediterranean. However, it was in the vast expanses of the Pacific, where for almost four years a great maritime campaign ebbed and flowed, that its greatest battles were fought and these are described in this volume. For convenience the battles are described in three sections. The first covers the period from Pearl Harbor to Midway during which the Navy and Royal Navy attempted to stem the seemingly inexorable advance of Japanese forces throughout the Pacific region and in South East Asia. The second describes the long and bloody campaign in the South West Pacific where the US Navy honed its skills in numerous hard-fought engagements and eventually turned a bloody defeat into a hard-won victory. The final section covers the great advance across the Central Pacific leading up to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the greatest naval battle ever fought.