‘The Best Laid Plans’: The Development of British Battle-Fleet Tactics, 1919–1942

Abstract

7 December 1941 at Pearl Harbor, Japanese carrier aircraft sank five out of eight US battleships. Within days, Japanese shore-based planes destroyed two British capital ships off Malaya and, in April 1942, Japanese carrier aircraft inflicted heavy losses on British surface units in the Indian Ocean. In May and June 1942, the course of the Pacific war was reversed by the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in which the opposing Japanese and American main combatants were aircraft carriers. The successes of naval air