The United States Asiatic Fleet was a fleet of the United States Navy during much of the first half of the 20th century. Before World War II, the fleet patrolled the Philippine Islands. Much of the fleet was destroyed by the Japanese by February 1942, after which it was dissolved, and the remnants incorporated into the naval component of the South West Pacific Area command, which eventually became the Seventh Fleet.
The USS Panay incident was a Japanese bombing attack on the U.S. Navy river gunboat Panay and three Standard Oil Company tankers on the Yangtze River near the Chinese capital of Nanjing on December 12, 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The boats were part of the American naval operation called the Yangtze Patrol, which began following the joint British, French, and American victory in The Second Opium War. Public reaction was mixed in the U.S., with the president weighing various diplomatic and military responses only to settle for an apology and compensation. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the U.S. flags painted on the deck of the gunboat. Tokyo officially apologized and paid a cash indemnity. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed.
The Far East Fleet was a fleet of the Royal Navy which existed between 1952 and 1971.
The South-East Asian Theatre of World War II consisted of the campaigns of the Pacific War in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Indochina, Burma, India, Malaya and Singapore between 1941 and 1945.
The American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command, or ABDACOM, was the short-lived supreme command for all Allied forces in South East Asia in early 1942, during the Pacific War in World War II. The command consisted of the forces of Australia, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States. The main objective of the command, led by General Sir Archibald Wavell, was to maintain control of the "Malay Barrier", a notional line running down the Malay Peninsula, through Singapore and the southernmost islands of the Dutch East Indies. ABDACOM was also known in British military circles as the "South West Pacific Command", although it should not be confused with the later South West Pacific Area command.
A river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried more than one cannon, one might be a howitzer, for shore bombardment. They were usually not armoured. The fictional USS San Pablo described in Richard McKenna's The Sand Pebbles is an example of this class of vessel, serving on the US Navy's Yangtze Patrol. Stronger river warships with larger guns were river monitors.
Admiral of the Fleet Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, 1st Baron Chatfield, was a Royal Navy officer. During the First World War he was present as Sir David Beatty's Flag-Captain at the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914, at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915 and at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. After the war he became Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet and then Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet before serving as First Sea Lord in the mid-1930s in which role he won arguments that the Royal Navy should have 70 cruisers rather than the 50 cruisers that had been agreed at the Naval Conference of 1930, that the battleship still had an important role to play despite the development of the bomber and that the Fleet Air Arm should be part of the Royal Navy rather than the Royal Air Force. He subsequently served as Minister for Coordination of Defence in the early years of the Second World War.
The second USS Panay (PR–5) of the United States Navy was a Panay-class river gunboat that served on the Yangtze Patrol in China until being sunk by Japanese aircraft on 12 December 1937 on the Yangtze River.
The Yangtze Patrol, also known as the Yangtze River Patrol Force, Yangtze River Patrol, YangPat, and ComYangPat, was a prolonged naval operation from 1854 to 1949 to protect American interests in the Yangtze River's treaty ports. The Yangtze Patrol also patrolled the coastal waters of China where they protected U.S. citizens, their property, and Christian missionaries.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Fownes Somerville, was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the First World War as fleet wireless officer for the Mediterranean Fleet where he was involved in providing naval support for the Gallipoli Campaign. He also served in the Second World War as commander of the newly formed Force H: after the French armistice with Germany, Winston Churchill gave Somerville and Force H the task of neutralizing the main element of the French battle fleet, then at Mers El Kébir in Algeria. After he had destroyed the French Battle fleet, Somerville played an important role in the pursuit and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.
The German East Asia Squadron was an Imperial German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the mid-1890s until 1914, when it was destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. It was based at Germany's Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Hope, GCB was a Royal Navy officer. As a captain he was present at the Battle of Vuelta de Obligado during the Uruguayan Civil War and then in the Baltic Sea during the Crimean War.
HMS Ladybird was an Insect-class gunboat of the Royal Navy, launched in 1916. This class are also referred to as "large China gunboats". Originally built to patrol the River Danube during the First World War, she sailed for China from Malta in February 1927 to serve on the Yangtze River.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Singapore, also Her Majesty's Naval Base, Singapore, alternatively known as the Singapore Naval Base, Sembawang Naval Base and HMS Sembawang, was situated in Sembawang at the northern tip of Singapore and was both a Royal Navy shore establishment and a cornerstone of British defence policy in the Far East between the World Wars. From 1921 to 1941 it was a China Station base, from 1941 to 1945 a repair facility for the Imperial Japanese Navy and from 1945 to 1958 a Far East Fleet base. Today, it is a commercial dockyard but British military activity still exists at the British Defence Singapore Support Unit (BDSSU).
The Insect-class gunboats were a class of small but well-armed Royal Navy ships designed for use in shallow rivers or inshore. They were intended for use on the Danube against Austria-Hungary. The first four ships—Gnat, Mantis, Moth and Tarantula—were first employed during the Mesopotamian Campaign of the First World War on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
The East Indies Station was a formation and command of the British Royal Navy. Created in 1744 by the Admiralty, it was under the command of the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies.
Captain George Francis Arthur Mulock, DSO, RN, FRGS was an Anglo-Irish Royal Navy officer, cartographer and polar explorer who participated in an expedition to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04. After compiling the reports, logs and maps of the expedition, Mulock returned to full-time service, seeing action on the beaches of Gallipoli and later as the most senior naval officer to be captured at Singapore in 1942.
The Eastern Fleet, later called the East Indies Fleet, was a fleet of the Royal Navy which existed between 1941 and 1952.
The Red Sea Station was a military formation of the Royal Navy. At various times it has also been referred to as Egypt Division and Red Sea and later the Red Sea and Canal Area. The Royal Navy had distinct formations for the Red Sea at intervals from 1846 until circa 1944-45.
United Kingdom 
Royal Navy 
