The Naval Siege of Japan 1945: War Plan Orange Triumphant (Campaign)

A highly illustrated study of the last great campaign in the Pacific Theatre in World War II: the US Navy and Royal Navy’s air, surface, and submarine attacks on the Japanese Home Islands. The final months of Allied naval bombardments on the Home Islands during World War II have, for whatever reason, frequently been overlooked by historians.Yet the Allies’ final naval campaign against Japan involved the largest and arguably most successful wartime naval fleet ever assembled, and was the climax to the greatest naval war in history. Though suffering grievous losses during its early attacks, by July 1945 the United States Third Fleet wielded 1,400 aircraft just off the coast of Japan, while Task Force 37, the British Pacific Fleet’s carrier and battleship striking force, was the most powerful single formation ever assembled by the Royal Navy.In the final months of the war the Third Fleet’s 20 American and British aircraft carriers would hurl over 10,000 aerial sorties against the Home Isl