The destruction of the Force Z by the Japanese in 1941 marked the end of Britain's long career as a global naval power. Rob Hamlin, of Dunedin, writes.
Next Wednesday marks the anniversary of the destruction of the British Fleet Force Z by the Japanese air force in the South China Sea on December 10, 1941.
Two British battleships were overwhelmed and sunk in less than half an hour by Japanese aircraft, with the loss of more than 800 lives.
While this event was overshadowed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour three days earlier, Force Z has some strong New Zealand connections.
The story of Force Z starts in the last years of the 19th century.
After a century of comfortable naval supremacy, the British Empire was challenged by two great powers, both of whom were determined to supplant it as the predominant naval power.
The battleship-building race between Britain and Germany is well known, and is commonly identified as a major contributing factor to the start of World War 1.
What is less widely known is that this game of ''dreadnoughts and crosses'' involved a third equally aggressive participant, the United States.
The Battle of Jutland, which occurred when the British and German combined fleets eventually met in 1916, is often described as an indecisive battle.
It was not.
The Germans never again contributed significant resources to their battleship fleet.
However, the battleship building race was not over.
In the same year as Jutland, the supposedly peaceable United States president Woodrow Wilson authorised an even more aggressive programme of American battleship construction, and a new third party entered the race, as the Empire of Japan did likewise.
As World War 1 came to an end, the pace of this new three-cornered race accelerated.
New generations of gigantic battleships appeared on the naval drawing boards of all three nations, even as the elderly architects of the existing battleship fleets strenuously suggested that battleships of any size had been rendered obsolete by the new phenomenon of naval air power.
Eventually, the imminent danger of battle, bankruptcy or both, drove the three nations to the negotiating table.
The outcome was the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which restricted the size and number of battleships, and also settled the respective strengths of the British, American and Japanese fleets at a ratio of 5:5:3.
This outcome excused the British Empire from a programme of mass battleship construction, but left it with a serious problem.
The massive fabric and long sea lanes of the Empire meant the Royal Navy simply could not garrison the oceans as it had done in the days when British policy was to maintain the strength of the Royal Navy at double that of the next two largest fleets.
Something had to give, and that something was the Royal Navy's China Station, including the large permanent Far East fleet that had traditionally operated out of Hong Kong.
The two dominions of Australia and New Zealand were alarmed that there would be no effective Royal Navy force based permanently in the region, and that anxiety rapidly focused on the intentions and capability of the Japanese Empire.
The authorities in London alleviated this disquiet by announcing that a large new naval base would be built in the region.
If a threat emerged, the main British fleet would arrive at this base within 70 days, and would operate out of that base for the period that the threat remained.
The focus on Japan and the 70-day delay meant the naval base at Hong Kong was too exposed.
Sydney was briefly considered, but Singapore was eventually selected, and the ''impregnable fortress'' built there.
While Singapore had guns, and plenty of them, it was not these guns that assured its impregnability.
Those guns were mounted on the decks of the main British Fleet that would arrive to defend it within 70 days.
This system worked satisfactorily until the Washington Naval Treaty collapsed in the mid-1930s.
As large new battleships were laid down by many potentially aggressive nations, the British Empire's relative weakness rapidly became manifest.
By comparison with their potential adversaries, the British battleships were older, smaller and much slower.
The British commitment to Singapore and the two dominions was progressively watered down in the years preceding World War 2 - from ''the main fleet'' to ''a fleet'' and the arrival time was extended from 70 to 180 days.
The first two years of World War 2 went catastrophically for the British Empire.
By mid-1941, it faced Germany and Italy alone, with the USSR and Japan hovering on the borders as unfriendly neutral powers.
Britain possessed only four capital units that met the current required speed of 28 knots, and of these two were elderly and lightly armoured battlecruisers.
Against these, Germany could field three fast, well protected capital units and Italy a further four.
Vichy France possessed another two at or near operational status.
The Royal Navy was overstretched, but could cope.
However, in July 1941 another neutral power, the United States, precipitated a crisis by cutting off oil exports to Japan.
This meant Japan would have to secure new oil supplies before its reserves ran too low.
In practice, this meant the Japanese would have to occupy the oil-rich Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) by early 1942.
This occupation was not going to happen peacefully.
An attack on the Dutch East Indies also meant an attack on British possessions and allies in the area, and inevitably an attack on Singapore.
The British Empire's Singapore bluff had finally been called.
The question now was: What to do?
Suddenly, Sydney seemed like a much better option as a base for a smaller fleet, but the naval support infrastructure was all in Singapore.
A significant fleet could not be based in Sydney.
Then there was the issue of what to send.
The actual capabilities of the Japanese fleet were still unknown in London.
However, it was widely appreciated that the Japanese fleet was stronger than any of Britain's existing European adversaries, and was probably capable of speedily dispatching any force the Royal Navy chose to send against it in the South China Sea.
Not sending anything at all, or only sending it to bases in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was the analytical response to this new situation.
This option was not a politically acceptable solution, given the assurances that had been given to Australia, New Zealand and others.
As a result, the dispatch of a token force to Singapore was selected as the only available alternative.
The tokens selected for the sacrifice were eventually quite considerable.
Two of the four available high value capital units (HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse), and one precious modern aircraft carrier (HMS Indomitable) were included, along with four modern destroyers.
Luckily for HMS Indomitable, she ran aground in the Caribbean as Force Z was being put together, and could not be used.
It has been suggested that had this not occurred, Force Z might have survived.
Unfortunately, the abysmal quality of the British naval aircraft of the time would have rendered her just as helpless as her big-gun equipped consorts, had she been present when they were assailed by Japan's long-range air power.
Prince of Wales and Repulse arrived in Singapore on December 2, 1941.
Five days later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and simultaneously invaded Malaya by land and sea. Force Z now faced its own decision.
Should it retreat to Australia or Ceylon, or should it sortie to the north and attempt to engage both the Japanese seaborne invasion fleets, and the massed squadrons of land-based torpedo and bomber aircraft already based in French Indo-China (Vietnam)?
Eventually, the latter option was chosen.
It made no military sense to do so.
It could not hope to survive.
So why did it do it?
We will never know for sure, because the commanding Admiral, Tom Phillips, did not survive, but it is likely the aggressive tradition of the Royal Navy to engage at every opportunity, plus a sense of professional pride and obligation to those who had welcomed its arrival a few days previously played a significant part.
Initially, Force Z was lucky.
It came very close to the landing beaches and the vulnerable invasion fleets, despite being sighted and reported by Japanese aircraft and submarines.
However, on the morning of December 10, luck deserted it.
It was spotted at 10.15am by a Japanese reconnaissance plane at the limit of its range.
Within an hour, both ships were assailed by large forces of land-based Japanese bombers and torpedo planes.
Both ships were hit by bombs and torpedoes and sank within half an hour.
Casualties were heavy, but could have been heavier, had the accompanying destroyers not been allowed to pick up survivors and retreat to the south virtually unmolested.
The defeat of Force Z was a decisive event, and it did not disgrace itself by its conduct in defeat, so why has it been consigned to virtual oblivion?
There are a variety of reasons.
The sinking of Force Z is not remembered by the British because this action, more than any other, marked the end of Britain's long career as a global naval power.
It is not remembered by the Japanese because the ''proceedings'' that the attacks on Pearl Harbour and Force Z precipitated had not turned out as they expected when they were finally closed by General Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo Bay.
It is not remembered by the Americans because they were not directly involved.
It also raises uncomfortable questions about what would have happened had the Japanese chosen not to attack Pearl Harbour, and had instead concentrated all their military potential into a single thrust southwards towards Australasia.
It is not remembered by the Australians and New Zealanders, because the dead were predominantly not from these countries, and because the nation that attacked them and their ships is now an important trading partner.
The wrecks lie within waters that are now claimed by an even larger and touchier power which has no fond memories of the Royal Navy.
This is rather a pity.
Next year marks the centenary of Gallipoli, and this will no doubt be marked by much comment about young New Zealanders fighting bravely and dying far from home in a futile action at the behest of a distant imperial power.
Of course this is all true.
However, the 800 British seamen who lie in and around the rotting hulls of these two great ships also fought bravely and died far from home in a futile action at the behest of the same distant imperial power, but for entirely different reasons.
They died because a promise was made, and to the absolute limits that it was possible, that promise was kept.
We should not forget the fact that obligation and sacrifice did not run entirely in one direction during these great conflicts that hastened the end of British imperial power.
