Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 26. Chapters: British Pacific Fleet, List of Eastern Fleet ships, Mediterranean Fleet, Pacific Station, List of fleets and major commands of the Royal Navy, Home Fleet, List of ships assigned to the Australian Squadron, Channel Fleet, Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, Australia Station, Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, Commander-in-Chief Fleet, West Africa Squadron, China Station, Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, Western Approaches Command, South Atlantic Station, East Indies Station, Cape of Good Hope Station, Atlantic Fleet, Grand Fleet, Western Fleet, East Indies and China Station. Excerpt: The British Pacific Fleet (BPF) was a British Commonwealth naval force which saw action against Japan during World War II. The fleet was composed of British Commonwealth naval vessels. The BPF formally came into being on 22 November 1944. Its main base was at Sydney, Australia, with a forward base at Manus Island. The British Pacific Fleet was, and remains, the most powerful conventional war fleet assembled by the Royal Navy. By VJ Day it included four battleships, eighteen aircraft carriers, eleven cruisers and many smaller warships and support vessels. Despite this, it was dwarfed by the forces that the United States had in action against Japan. While the British fleet was not critical to the war in the Pacific, it did participate in and protect the flank of the final Allied drive against Japan in 1945. Following their retreat to the western side of the Indian Ocean in 1942, British naval forces did not return to the South West Pacific theatre until 17 May 1944, when an Anglo-American carrier task force implemented Operation Transom, a joint raid on Surabaya, Java. The U.S. was liberating British territories in the Pacific and extending its influence. It was therefore seen as a political and military imperative to restore a British presence in...