Nachi (那智) was the second vessel completed of the four-member Myōkō class of heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which were active in World War II. The other ships of the class were Myōkō, Ashigara, and Haguro. She was named after a mountain in Wakayama Prefecture.
Shigetarō Shimada was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. He also served as Minister of the Navy. He was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Gunichi Mikawa was a vice-admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. Mikawa was the commander of a heavy cruiser force that won a spectacular IJN victory over the U.S. Navy and the Royal Australian Navy at the Battle of Savo Island in Ironbottom Sound on the night of 8–9 August 1942.
The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with the opposing superpower, the United States, during the Cold War period between the two countries. The Soviet Navy played a large role during the Cold War (1945-1991), either confronting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in western Europe or power projection to maintain its sphere of influence in eastern Europe.
Myōkō (妙高) was the lead ship of the four-member Myōkō class of heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which were active in World War II. She was named after Mount Myōkō in Niigata Prefecture. The other ships of the class were Nachi, Ashigara, and Haguro.
In Japanese, sentai (戦隊) is a military unit and may be literally translated as "squadron", "task force", "division ", "group" or "wing". The terms "regiment" and "flotilla", while sometimes used as translations of sentai, are also used to refer to larger formations.
The Regia Marina was the navy of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1946. In 1946, with the birth of the Italian Republic, the Regia Marina changed its name to Marina Militare.
Tatsuta (龍田) was the second ship in the two ship Tenryū class of light cruisers in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). She was named after the Tatsuta River in Nara Prefecture, Japan.
Operation Ke was the largely successful withdrawal of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, concluding the Guadalcanal Campaign of World War II. The operation took place between 14 January and 7 February 1943, and involved both Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) forces under the overall direction of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters (IGH). Commanders of the operation included Isoroku Yamamoto and Hitoshi Imamura.
Naka (那珂) was a Sendai-class light cruiser in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), named after the Naka River in the Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures of eastern Japan. Naka was the third vessel completed in the Sendai class of light cruisers, and like other vessels of her class, she was intended for use as the flagship of a destroyer flotilla.
Maya (摩耶) was one of four Takao-class heavy cruisers, active in World War II with the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). These were the largest and most modern cruisers in the Japanese fleet, and were intended to form the backbone of a multipurpose long-range strike force. These ships were fast, powerful and heavily armed, with enough firepower to hold their own against any cruiser in any other navy in the world. Her sister ships were Takao, Atago and Chōkai.
Takeo Takagi was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.
Nagara (長良) was the lead ship of her class of light cruiser in the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was named after the Nagara River in the Chūbu region of Japan.
Kashii was the third and final vessel completed of the three light cruisers in the Katori class, which served with the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. The ship was named after a noted Shinto shrine in Fukuoka, Japan.
Hatsukaze was the seventh vessel to be commissioned in the 19-vessel Kagerō-class destroyers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late-1930s under the Circle Three Supplementary Naval Expansion Program. She survived four major fleet actions against the Allies, but was finally sunk in November 1943 after being damaged through collision with Japanese cruiser Myōkō.
Ōi (大井) was the fourth of five Kuma-class light cruiser, which served in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She was named after the Ōi River in Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. Designed as a command vessel for a destroyer squadron, she was converted into a torpedo cruiser with forty torpedo launch tubes in a plan abandoned by the Japanese Navy in 1942. During most of the Pacific War, she was used primarily as a fast troop transport and was sunk by a United States Navy submarine in 1944.
Mitsumi Shimizu was a vice admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II.
At the beginning of World War II, the Royal Navy was the strongest navy in the world, with the largest number of warships built and with naval bases across the globe. It had over 15 battleships and battlecruisers, 7 aircraft carriers, 66 cruisers, 164 destroyers and 66 submarines. With a massive merchant navy, about a third of the world total, it also dominated shipping. The Royal Navy fought in every theatre from the Atlantic, Mediterranean, freezing Northern routes to Russia and the Pacific ocean.
Chōgei, was the second and final vessel of the Jingei-class submarine tenders operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy, from the 1920s through World War II. Along with her sister ship Jingei, she was the first purpose-built submarine tender in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The IJA Amphibious Brigades were marines brigades of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. They were established in 1943. Although the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia had been completed at the time of their founding, the Imperial General Headquarters saw the need for flexible countermeasures to defend strategic islands in the Pacific Ocean from impending Allied invasion as the war situation deteriorated for the Japanese Empire.