1st Fleet (Imperial Japanese Navy)


The IJN 1st Fleet was the main battleship fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

History

First established on 28 December 1903, the IJN 1st Fleet was created during the Russo-Japanese War when the Imperial General Headquarters divided the Readiness Fleet into a mobile strike force of cruisers and destroyers to pursue the Imperial Russian Navy's Vladivostok-based cruiser squadron, while the remaining bulk of the Japanese fleet continued to blockade Port Arthur in hopes of luring the battleships 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 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. 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.
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

Chief of Staff
RankNameDate
1Fleet AdmiralBaron Hayao Shimamura28 December 1903 – 12 January 1905
2Fleet AdmiralViscount Tomosaburō Katō12 January 1905 – 20 December 1905
3AdmiralKoichi Fujii20 December 1905 – 22 November 1906
4Fleet AdmiralBaron Gentaro Yamashita22 November 1906 – 10 December 1908
5AdmiralTakeshi Takarabe10 December 1908 – 1 December 1909
6AdmiralKaneo Nomaguchi1 December 1909 – 11 March 1911
7Vice AdmiralSaneyuki Akiyama11 March 1911 – 1 December 1912
8AdmiralIsamu Takeshita1 December 1912 – 24 May 1913
xposition vacant24 May 1913 – 1 December 1913
9Vice AdmiralTetsutaro Sato1 December 1913 – 17 April 1914
10Vice AdmiralKazuyoshi Yamaji17 April 1914 – 1 December 1914
11Vice AdmiralShibakichi Yamanaka1 December 1914 – 13 December 1915
12Vice AdmiralSaburo Horiuchi13 December 1915 – 1 December 1917
13Vice AdmiralHanroku Saito1 December 1917 – 1 December 1918
14Vice AdmiralKajishiro Funakoshi1 December 1918 – 1 December 1919
15Vice AdmiralHansaku Yoshioka1 December 1919 – 1 December 1921
16Vice AdmiralKumazo Shirane1 December 1921 – 1 December 1923
17Rear AdmiralBekinari Kabayama1 December 1923 – 10 November 1924
18Vice AdmiralKanjiro Hara10 November 1924 – 1 December 1925
19Vice AdmiralNaotaro Ominato1 December 1925 – 1 November 1926
20AdmiralSankichi Takahashi1 November 1926 – 1 December 1927
21Vice AdmiralEijiro Hamano1 December 1927 – 10 December 1928
22Vice AdmiralKen Terajima10 December 1928 – 30 October 1929
23AdmiralKoichi Shiozawa30 October 1929 – 1 December 1930
24AdmiralShigetarō Shimada1 December 1930 – 1 December 1931
25AdmiralZengo Yoshida1 December 1931 – 15 September 1933
26AdmiralSoemu Toyoda15 September 1933 – 15 March 1935
27AdmiralNobutake Kondō15 March 1935 – 15 November 1935
28AdmiralNaokuni Nomura15 November 1935 – 16 November 1936
29Rear AdmiralYasutaro Iwashita16 November 1936 – 18 February 1937
30Vice AdmiralJisaburo Ozawa18 February 1937 – 15 November 1937
31Vice AdmiralIbo Takahashi15 November 1937 – 5 November 1939
32Vice AdmiralShigeru Fukudome5 November 1939 – 10 April 1941
33AdmiralSeiichi Ito10 April 1941 – 11 August 1941
34Vice AdmiralKengo Kobayashi11 August 1941 – 6 January 1943
35Vice AdmiralGihachi Takayanagi6 January 1943 – 25 February 1944

Books