The was the main
battleship
A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
fleet of the
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, Potsdam Declaration, when it was dissolved followin ...
.
History
First established on 28 December 1903, the IJN 1st Fleet was created during the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
when the
Imperial General Headquarters divided the
Readiness Fleet into a mobile strike force of
cruisers and
destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...
s to pursue the
Imperial Russian Navy's
Vladivostok-based cruiser squadron (the Imperial Japanese Navys
2nd Fleet), while the remaining bulk of the Japanese fleet (the IJN 1st Fleet) continued to blockade
Port Arthur in hopes of luring the
battleship
A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
s of the Russian Pacific Fleet out into a classic
line-of-battle confrontation. The two fleets were combined into the
Combined Fleet for the final
Battle of Tsushima
The Battle of Tsushima (, ''Tsusimskoye srazheniye''), also known in Japan as the , was the final naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War, fought on 27–28 May 1905 in the Tsushima Strait. A devastating defeat for the Imperial Russian Navy, the ...
.
The decisive victory of the Japanese fleet over the
Imperial Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima validated the doctrine of the "decisive victory", or ''
kantai kessen'' as stipulated by naval theorists such as
Alfred Thayer Mahan and
Satō Tetsutarō in the eyes of the
Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, and future naval procurement and deployment was centered on refinements of this doctrine.
[Peattie & Evans, ''Kaigun''] The Mahanian objective was to build a
fleet in being, a naval force kept deliberately in
strategic reserve, as secondary forces based on cruisers and destroyers waged a
campaign of attrition against an approaching enemy, who would then be destroyed in a climactic final battle similar to the Battle of Tsushima.
[Willmont, ''After Midway: Japanese Naval Strategy 1942-45'', pp. 177–199][Evans, ''Kaigun'']
As a result of this doctrine, although individual ships and task forces were dispatched on occasion for specific combat operations, the main force in the Imperial Japanese Navy was mostly held in reserve from the time of its inception until near the end of World War II.
Commanders of the IJN 1st Fleet
[Wendel, Axis History Database]
Chief of Staff
References
Books
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External links
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{{Imperial Japanese Navy warship units
1
Military units and formations established in 1903
Military units and formations disestablished in 1944