Neglected Skies: The Demise of British Naval Power in the Far East, 1922-42

by Angus Britts

Neglected Skies uses a reconsideration of the clash between the British Eastern Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy's First Air Fleet in the Indian Ocean in April 1942 to draw a larger conclusion about declining British military power in the era. In this book, Angus Britts explores the end of British naval supremacy from an operational perspective. By primarily analyzing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period, as well as the challenges that the peacetime Royal Navy was forced to confront, a picture emerges of a battle fleet that entered the war in September 1939 unready for combat. By examining the development of Japan's first-strike carrier battle group, the Kido Butai, Britts charts both the rise of Japan as a wartime power as well as the demise of the Royal Navy. Japan, by concentrating their six largest aircraft-carriers into a single strike force with state-of-the-art aircraft, had taken a quantum leap forward in warfighting at sea. Simultaneously, British forces found themselves outmatched in this Eastern theatre and Britts makes the case, by looking at a set of key battles, that this is where the global supremacy of Britain's naval power ended.

242 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters instead. Andrew Boyd's book is a far better work in every respect.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping this book would be an in-depth look at the Royal Navy decision making process between World War 1 and 2; but instead this book is a mostly superficial look at most every detail. The author does cover a lot of issues, but nothing is really great detail and other stuff, like a chapter on European battles seem out of place.