Date
12-11-2024
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)
Chair
David M. Valladares
Keywords
British Pacific Fleet, Admiral Bruce Fraser, Prime Minister Churchill, British Navy
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Streit, J Robert John, "Task Force 57: The British Struggle of Implementing a Pacific Fleet" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 6281.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/6281
Abstract
By the Fall of 1941, the British were struggling to fight the German and the Axis powers in the European theater. The Royal Navy was occupied in the home, Atlantic, and Mediterranean waters and did not have the available ships to send to the Pacific. In December of 1941, the Japanese had not only attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbor, but also attacked Singapore and other British possessions, to include a small naval task force sent by the British as a deterrent to the Japanese. From December 1941 on, the British struggled to have enough forces to fight against the Axis Powers in Europe, and happily relieved themselves from protecting their possessions in the Pacific and handed the task over to the United States.
In the Spring of 1942, the United States would learn that it was a different type of fighting in the Pacific, and they would learn from their mistakes to identify themselves as the superior navy by the end of the War. As the Americans grew stronger, the British Admiralty would begin to fight to create a British Pacific Fleet to enter the Pacific before the end of the war.
Though the American Naval Chief of Staff, Admiral Ernest King and British logistical concerns in Australia were believed to be the key arguments in keeping the British out of the Pacific, research indicates that King and logistics played a partial role, but ultimately, it was Prime Minister Churchill who wanted to have the Americans bring the war to an end with Japan in the Pacific, while the British regained their possessions in the Bay of Bengal through the use of the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean.
The Admiralty’s fight did not stop with Churchill, but upon the American approval of the implementation of the British Pacific Fleet (BPF), the Admiralty had to continue to overcome the British Government, specifically the Ministry of Transportation to have enough merchant vessels to support the BPF. Overcoming all the obstacles, the BPF, led by Sir Admiral Bruce Fraser to not only demonstrate the competence and necessity of the fleet in the Pacific, but lay the foundation for the role of a permanent British Carrier Fleet in the Pacific Operations at the completion of World War II.
