So too and even more was China, still fighting our common enemy, Japan, after five years and still almost with bare hands. They attacked the Ceylon ports, indeed, by air but their plan of sur­prise was forestalled and they found the fighters already in the sky await­ing them.

However, the plan was based on information provided by the Far East Combined Bureau (FECB), which identified only two carriers in the Japanese force. Worse was to come when the Japanese declared war in December 1941 and, after Pearl Harbor, the sinking by air attack of the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse, and the occupation of Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, there was an aggressive threat from the east. Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm’ list 899 squadron as conducting DLT on the Escort Carrier ARBITER on August 15th. Charles Stephenson's authoritative study should appeal to readers who have a special interest in the war with Japan, in naval history more generally and Royal Navy in particular. Somerville sailed on 30 March in expectation of an attack on 1 April, and deployed his fleet in a patrol area 100 miles (160 km) south of Ceylon.

Radar-based fighter direction would allow Force A to avoid surprise attack by neutralizing shadowing Japanese aircraft. The first three chapters (50 pages) provide a history of how the Royal Navy by 1939 ended up with aircraft carriers, air doctrine, and airplanes that were all inferior to those of Japan and the US. We are informed about a few naval actions, Japanese and British carrier strikes and about submarine operations. So overall a balanced, if occasionally wandering account of a Fleet that did perhaps clearly illustrate British 'overreach' in the mid 20th Century.

The form will be sent to our Collections Management Team who will use it to improve our object records. Once at sea, a fleet, or a con­voy, or a single ship must be self-supporting until its journey’s end.

The Japanese force, commanded by Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, had a core of five aircraft carriers; Akagi, Shōkaku and Zuikaku in Carrier Division 5, and Sōryū and Hiryū in Carrier Division 2. From Ceylon, Sunder­lands, Catalinas and Liberators ceaselessly patrolled the Bay of Bengal and far southward, while fighters scoured the coasts and creeks.

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. Hiryū launched Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters to intercept the scouts; one Albacore was damaged at 16:04, and the other shot down at 16:28 without reporting. The operations of the Royal Navy’s Eastern Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir James Somerville, which operated against the Japanese in the Indian Ocean, has received litLumped together in grotesque partnership these motley armadas crept down the China coasts and through the Malacca Straits towards Burma. Both German and British authorities anticipated Japanese capture of Ceylon to solidify control of the Bay of Bengal and disrupt British resupply for defence of India, Australia, and perhaps the Middle East.