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The escort carrier or escort aircraft carrier, also called a "jeep carrier" or "baby flattop" in the United States Navy (USN) or "Woolworth Carrier" by the Royal Navy, was a small and slow type of aircraft carrier used by the Royal Navy, the United States Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in World War II. They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers, slower, more-lightly armed and armored, and carried fewer planes. Escort carriers were most often built upon a commercial ship hull, so they were cheaper and could be built quickly. This was their principal advantage as they could be completed in greater numbers as a stop-gap when fleet carriers were scarce. However, the lack of protection made escort carriers particularly vulnerable, and several were sunk with great loss of life. The light carrier was a similar concept to the escort carrier in most respects, but was fast enough to operate alongside fleet carriers.
The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war, and Germany's subsequent counter-blockade. The campaign peaked from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943.
RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was founded in 1936, when the RAF was restructured into Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands and played an important role during the Second World War. Maritime Aviation had been neglected in the inter-war period, due to disagreements between the Royal Navy (RN) and RAF over the ownership, roles and investment in maritime air power.
PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied Arctic convoy during the Second World War. On 27 June 1942, the ships sailed from Hvalfjörður, Iceland, for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. The convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, after which it was shadowed continuously and attacked. The First Sea Lord Admiral Dudley Pound, acting on information that German surface units, including the German battleship Tirpitz, were moving to intercept, ordered the covering force built around the Allied battleships HMS Duke of York and the USS Washington away from the convoy and told the convoy to scatter. Because of vacillation by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Tirpitz raid never materialised. The convoy was the first large joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command; in Churchill's view this encouraged a more careful approach to fleet movements.
Advanced Third Reich is a board wargame originally designed by Bruce Harper as a simulation of the European and African theatres of World War II. The game was published by Avalon Hill, who then sold the license to Hasbro, and was marketed as "the ultimate World War II strategy game". Advanced Third Reich is a rewrite of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (1974), incorporating and developing many suggestions which had been published in The General since the early 1980s, improving ease of play and historical realism.
Force H was a British naval formation during the Second World War. It was formed in 1940, to replace French naval power in the western Mediterranean removed by the French armistice with Nazi Germany. The force occupied an odd place within the naval chain of command. Normal British practice was to have naval stations and fleets around the world, whose commanders reported to the First Sea Lord via a flag officer. Force H was based at Gibraltar but there was already a flag officer at the base, Flag Officer Commanding, North Atlantic. The commanding officer of Force H did not report to this Flag Officer but directly to the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound.
In naval warfare, a "fleet in being" is a naval force that extends a controlling influence without ever leaving port. Were the fleet to leave port and face the enemy, it might lose in battle and no longer influence the enemy's actions, but while it remains safely in port, the enemy is forced to continually deploy forces to guard against it. A "fleet in being" can be part of a sea denial doctrine, but not one of sea control.
HMS Euryalus was a Dido-class cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was laid down at Chatham Dockyard on 21 October 1937, launched on 6 June 1939, and commissioned 30 June 1941. Euryalus was the last cruiser built at the dockyard.
Avalanche Press is an American company that publishes board wargames and has published some role-playing game supplements. They have produced The Great War at Sea and Panzer Grenadier series, as well as Red Parachutes, one of their earliest games and a detailed study of the Soviet crossing of the Dnepr River in 1943.
The Battle of the Mediterranean was the name given to the naval campaign fought in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, from 10 June 1940 to 2 May 1945.
HMS Charybdis was a Dido-class cruiser built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War and was sunk with heavy loss of life by German torpedo boats in an action in the English Channel in October 1943.
Tactical wargames are a type of wargame that models military conflict at a tactical level, i.e. units range from individual vehicles and squads to platoons or companies. These units are rated based on types and ranges of individual weaponry. The first tactical wargames were played as miniatures, extended to board games, and they are now also enjoyed as video games.
Shigure was the second of ten Shiratsuyu-class destroyers, and the first to be built for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the Circle One Program. Along with the destroyer Yukikaze, she developed a reputation within the Imperial Japanese Navy for being "lucky" or "unsinkable", emerging undamaged from several battles and as the sole surviving Japanese warship from two. As the flagship of Captain Tameichi Hara's Destroyer Division 27 Shigure received a prominent place in the memoirs of the only Japanese destroyer captain to survive the entire Pacific War. Shigure was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Blackfin in the Gulf of Siam on 24 January 1945.
The Great War at Seaseries of board wargames released by Avalanche Press features operational and tactical-level naval combat in the period of the early battleships and dreadnoughts. Each game in the series comes with a common rule book and tactical map, as well as game-specific operational map, counters and scenarios.
The Panzer Grenadier series of board wargames is Avalanche Press's series of World War II and The Korean War tactical land combat. The first game in the series was released in 2000.
809 Naval Air Squadron is a squadron of the Fleet Air Arm of the United Kingdom. It was first formed in 1941 and flew in the Soviet Union, the Mediterranean and the Far East during the Second World War. After active service during the Suez Crisis, 809 was disbanded in 1959. Reformed in 1963 to fly Blackburn Buccaneers, the squadron was disbanded briefly in 1965-66, and then again in 1978. A brief period during the Falklands War saw 809 reformed to bring Sea Harrier FRS.1 aircraft south to the UK task group and to fly from Illustrious.
825 Naval Air Squadron is a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Naval Air Squadron which was re-commissioned on 10 October 2014 and currently flies the AgustaWestland Wildcat HMA2.
Shirataka was a medium-sized minelayer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which was in service during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. She was the world's first purpose-built anti-submarine netlayer. Also, unlike any other warship in the Japanese Navy, she had two chrysanthemum crests due to her unusual bow configuration.
Aotaka was the second vessel in the Hatsutaka class of medium-sized minelayers of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which was in service during World War II. She was designed as an improved version of the netlayer Shirataka. However, during the Pacific War, due to the critical shortage of patrol ships for convoy escort duties, she was fitted with depth charge racks and her minelaying rails were removed.
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.