1.
Japanese name
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Japanese names in modern times usually consist of a family name, followed by a given name. More than one name is not generally used. Japanese names are written in kanji, which are characters usually Chinese in origin. The kanji for a name may have a variety of possible Japanese pronunciations, Names written in hiragana or katakana are phonetic renderings, and so lack the visual meaning of names expressed in the logographic kanji. Japanese family names are extremely varied, according to estimates, there are over 100,000 different surnames in use today in Japan, the three most common family names in Japan are Satō, Suzuki, and Takahashi. Many Japanese family names derive from features of the landscape, for example, Ishikawa means stone river, Yamamoto means the base of the mountain. While family names follow relatively consistent rules, given names are more diverse in pronunciation. Unusual pronunciations have especially become common, with this trend having increased significantly since the 1990s, male names often end in -rō or -ta, or contain ichi, kazu, ji, or dai while female names often end in -ko or -mi. Other popular endings for female names include -ka and -na, the majority of Japanese people have one surname and one given name with no other names, except for the Japanese imperial family, whose members bear no surname. The family name – myōji, uji or sei – precedes the given name, the given name may be referred to as the lower name because, in vertically written Japanese, the given name appears under the family name. People with mixed Japanese and foreign parentage may have middle names, historically, myōji, uji and sei had different meanings. Sei was originally the patrilineal surname which is why up till now it has granted only by the emperor as a title of male rank. The lower form of the name sei being tei which is a name in Japanese men. Although there was an ancestor in ancient Japan from whom the name Sei originally came. There were relatively few sei, and most of the noble clans trace their lineage either directly to these sei or to the courtiers of these sei. Uji was another name used to designate patrilineal descent, but later merged with myōji around the same time, myōji was, simply, what a family chooses to call itself, as opposed to the sei granted by the emperor. While it was passed on patrilineally in male ancestors including in male ancestors called haku, multiple Japanese characters have the same pronunciations, so several Japanese names have multiple meanings. A particular kanji itself can have multiple meanings and pronunciations, in some names, Japanese characters phonetically spell a name and have no intended meaning behind them
2.
Nagara, Chiba
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Nagara is a town located in Chōsei District, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. As of April 2012, the town had an population of 7,870. The total area is 47.20 km², located in the mountainous area that divides the center of Bōsō Peninsula, Nagara has little flat terrain. The town consists primarily of rolling, sometimes steep, hills, while the town has no major rivers, several dams, including the Nagara Dam, have been constructed to support the water sources of the Bōsō Peninsula. The primary economic activities are agriculture and golf courses, Nagara is not served by a train line. The closest train station to Nagara is the Sotobō Line at Mobara Station, Kominato Bus, a service of the Kominato Railway Company
3.
Empire of Japan
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The Empire of Japan was the historical Japanese nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan. Imperial Japans rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei led to its emergence as a world power, after several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, the Empire also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples it conquered. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, Occupation and reconstruction continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose full title is the State of Japan or simply rendered Japan in English. The historical state is referred to as the Empire of Japan or the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan in English. In Japanese it is referred to as Dai Nippon Teikoku, which translates to Greater Japanese Empire and this is analogous to Großdeutsches Reich, a term that translates to Greater German Empire in English and Dai Doitsu Teikoku in Japanese. This meaning is significant in terms of geography, encompassing Japan, due to its name in kanji characters and its flag, it was also given the exonym Empire of the Sun. After two centuries, the policy, or Sakoku, under the shoguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was forced open to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. The following years saw increased trade and interaction, commercial treaties between the Tokugawa shogunate and Western countries were signed. In large part due to the terms of these Unequal Treaties, the Shogunate soon faced internal hostility, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement. In March 1863, the Emperor issued the order to expel barbarians, although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan. The Namamugi Incident during 1862 led to the murder of an Englishman, Charles Lennox Richardson, the British demanded reparations but were denied. While attempting to exact payment, the Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima and they responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863. For Richardsons death, the Tokugawa government agreed to pay an indemnity, shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki and attacks against foreign property led to the Bombardment of Shimonoseki by a multinational force in 1864. The Chōshū clan also launched the coup known as the Kinmon incident. The Satsuma-Chōshū alliance was established in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, in early 1867, Emperor Kōmei died of smallpox and was replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mutsuhito. On November 9,1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned from his post and authorities to the Emperor, however, while Yoshinobus resignation had created a nominal void at the highest level of government, his apparatus of state continued to exist. On January 3,1868, Satsuma-Chōshū forces seized the palace in Kyoto. On January 17,1868, Yoshinobu declared that he would not be bound by the proclamation of the Restoration, on January 24, Yoshinobu decided to prepare an attack on Kyoto, occupied by Satsuma and Chōshū forces
4.
Okinawa Prefecture
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The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller ones are mostly coral islands. The largest of the islands is Okinawa, the climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate in the north to tropical rainforest climate in the south. Precipitation is very high, and is affected by the rainy season, the islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs. The Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama Islands have a native population collectively called the Ryukyuan people, the varied Ryukyuan languages are traditionally spoken on these islands, and the major islands have their own distinct languages. In modern times, the Japanese language is the language of the islands. The northern islands are called the Satsunan Islands, while the southern part of the chain are called the Ryukyu Islands in Japanese. Following are the grouping and names used by the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department of the Japan Coast Guard, the islands are listed from north to south where possible. Nansei Islands Satsunan Islands Ōsumi Islands with, Tanegashima, Yaku, Kuchinoerabu, Mageshima in the North-Eastern Group and they agreed on February 15,2010, to use Amami-guntō for the Amami Islands, prior to that, Amami-shotō had also been used. The English and Japanese uses of the term Ryukyu differ, in English, the term Ryukyu may apply to the entire chain of islands, while in Japanese Ryukyu usually refers only to the islands that were previously part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom after 1624. Nansei-shotō is the name for the whole island chain in Japanese. Japan has used the name on nautical charts since 1907, based on the Japanese charts, the international chart series uses Nansei Shoto. Nansei literally means southwest, the direction of the chain from mainland Japan. Some humanities scholars prefer the uncommon term Ryūkyū-ko for the island chain. In geology, however, the Ryukyu Arc includes subsurface structures such as the Okinawa Trough, the name of Ryūkyū is strongly associated with the Ryūkyū Kingdom, a kingdom that originated from the Okinawa Islands and subjected the Sakishima and Amami Islands. The name is considered outdated in Japanese although some entities of Okinawa still bear the name. In Japanese, the Ryukyu Islands cover only the Okinawa, Miyako, the northern half of the island chain is referred to as the Satsunan Islands in Japanese, as opposed to Northern Ryukyu Islands in English. Humanities scholars generally agree that the Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, there is, however, no good name for the group. The native population do not have their own name, since they do not recognize themselves as a group this size, Ryukyu is the principal candidate because it roughly corresponds to the maximum extent of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
5.
Imperial Japanese Navy
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The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 until 1945, when it was dissolved following Japans defeat and surrender in World War II. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force was formed after the dissolution of the IJN, the Japanese Navy was the third largest navy in the world by 1920, behind the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. It was supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service for aircraft and it was the primary opponent of the Western Allies in the Pacific War. This eventually led to the Meiji Restoration, accompanying the re-ascendance of the Emperor came a period of frantic modernization and industrialization. Following the attempts at Mongol invasions of Japan by Kubilai Khan in 1274 and 1281, Japan undertook major naval building efforts in the 16th century, during the Warring States period, when feudal rulers vying for supremacy built vast coastal navies of several hundred ships. Around that time Japan may have developed one of the first ironclad warships when Oda Nobunaga, in 1588 Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued a ban on Wakō piracy, the pirates then became vassals of Hideyoshi, and comprised the naval force used in the Japanese invasion of Korea. Japan built her first large ocean-going warships in the beginning of the 17th century, from 1604 the Bakufu also commissioned about 350 Red seal ships, usually armed and incorporating some Western technologies, mainly for Southeast Asian trade. For more than 200 years, beginning in the 1640s, the Japanese policy of seclusion forbade contacts with the outside world and prohibited the construction of ocean-going ships on pain of death. Contacts were maintained, however, with the Dutch through the port of Nagasaki, the Chinese also through Nagasaki and the Ryukyus and Korea through intermediaries with Tsushima. Apart from Dutch trade ships no other Western vessels were allowed to enter Japanese ports, an exception was during the Napoleonic wars. However frictions with foreign ships started from the beginning of the 19th century, the Nagasaki Harbour Incident involving the HMS Phaeton in 1808 and other subsequent incidents in the following decades led to the Shogunate to enact an edict to repel foreign vessels. Western ships which were increasing their presence around Japan due to whaling, the shogunate also began to strengthen the nations coastal defenses. Numerous attempts to open Japan ended in failure in part to Japanese resistance, during 1853 and 1854, American warships under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry entered Edo Bay and made demonstrations of force requesting trade negotiations. After two hundred years of seclusion the 1854 Convention of Kanagawa led to the opening of Japan to international trade and this was soon followed by the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce and treaties with other powers. In 1855, with Dutch assistance, the Shogunate acquired its first steam warship, Kankō Maru, samurai such as the future Admiral Enomoto Takeaki were sent by the Shogunate to study in the Netherlands for several years. In 1859 the Naval Training Center relocated to Tsukiji in Tokyo, in 1857 the Shogunate acquired its first screw-driven steam warship Kanrin Maru and used it as an escort for the 1860 Japanese delegation to the United States. In 1865 the French naval engineer Léonce Verny was hired to build Japans first modern naval arsenals, at Yokosuka, in 1867–1868 a British Naval mission headed by Commander Richard Tracey went to Japan to assist the development of the Japanese Navy and to organize the naval school of Tsukiji. The Shogunate also allowed and then ordered various domains to purchase warships and to develop naval fleets, Satsuma, a naval center had been set up by the Satsuma domain in Kagoshima, students were sent abroad for training and a number of ships were acquired
6.
Vice admiral
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Vice admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to lieutenant general and air marshal. A vice admiral is typically senior to an admiral and junior to an admiral. The rank insignia for a vice admiral often involves three stars, but this is not always the case, in the navy of Iraq, vice admiral insignia involves one star. Vice admiral is the equivalent of air marshal in the Royal Australian Air Force, in the Royal Canadian Navy, the rank of vice-admiral is equivalent to lieutenant-general of the Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force. A vice-admiral is an officer, the naval equivalent of a general officer. A vice-admiral is senior to a rear-admiral and major general, two rows of gold oak leaves are located on the black visor of the white service cap. Vice-admirals are addressed by rank and name, thereafter by subordinates as Sir or Maam, vice-admirals are normally entitled to a staff car, the car will normally bear a flag, dark blue with three gold maple leaves arranged one over two. A vice-admiral generally holds only the most senior command or administrative appointments, barring only Chief of Defence Staff, charles, Prince of Wales holds the honorary rank of vice admiral in the Royal Canadian Navy. The vice-amiral rank used to be an OF-8 rank in NATO charts, the rank of vice-amiral descadre equals a NATO OF-8 rank. In the ancien régime Navy, between 1669 and 1791, the office of Vice-Admiral of France was the highest rank, the supreme office of Admiral of France being purely ceremonial. Distinct offices were, 1669-1791 Vice-admiral of the West, 1778-1791 Vice-admiral of the Asian and American Seas. 1784-1788 Vice-admiral of the Indian Seas, vizeadmiral is an OF-8 three-star rank equivalent to the German Heer and Luftwaffe rank of Generalleutnant. In India, vice admiral is a three star admiral, in Italy, the equivalent to vice admiral is the ammiraglio di squadra or squadron admiral. In the Philippines, the vice admiral is the highest-ranking official of the Philippine Navy. He is recognized as the flag officer in-charge of the Navy, the rank vice-admiral in the Philippines, has the same ranking in the U. S Navy. In Vietnam, the equivalent to vice admiral is the phó đô đốc
7.
Second Sino-Japanese War
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The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from July 7,1937 to September 9,1945. The First Sino-Japanese War was fought from 1894 to 1895, China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged into the conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. Many scholars consider the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to have been the beginning of World War II, the Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy to expand its influence politically and militarily in order to access to raw material reserves, food. The period after World War One brought about increasing stress on the Japanese polity, leftists sought universal suffrage and greater rights for workers. Increasing textile production from Chinese mills was adversely affecting Japanese production, the Depression brought about a large slowdown in exports. All of this contributed to militant nationalism, culminating in the rise to power of a militarist fascist faction and this faction was led at its height by the Imperial Rule Assistance Associations Hideki Tojo cabinet under the edict from Emperor Shōwa. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, the last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, which is traditionally seen as the beginning of total war between the two countries. Since 2017 the Chinese Government has regarded the invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army in 1931, initially the Japanese scored major victories, such as the Battle of Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanjing. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior, by 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with Japans lines of communications stretched deep into the Chinese interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, on December 7,1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day the United States declared war on Japan. The United States began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road, in 1944 Japan launched the invasion, Operation Ichi-Go, that conquered Henan and Changsha. However, this failed to bring about the surrender of Chinese forces, in 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo Road linking India to China. At the same time, China launched large counteroffensives in South China and retook the west Hunan, the remaining Japanese occupation forces formally surrendered on September 9,1945 with the following International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened on April 29,1946. China was recognized as one of the Big Four of Allies during the war, in the Chinese language, the war is most commonly known as the War of Resistance Against Japan, and also known as the Eight Years War of Resistance, simply War of Resistance. It is also referred to as part of the Global Anti-Fascist War, which is how World War 2 is perceived by the Communist Party of China, in Japan, nowadays, the name Japan–China War is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. In Japan today, it is written as 日中戦争 in shinjitai, the word incident was used by Japan, as neither country had made a formal declaration of war
8.
Battle of Okinawa
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The 82-day-long battle lasted from 1 April until 22 June 1945. The Tenth was unique in that it had its own air force. The battle has been referred to as the typhoon of steel in English, the nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of Japanese kamikaze attacks, and the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with an total of over 82,000 direct casualties on both sides,14,009 Allied deaths and 77,417 Japanese soldiers. Allied grave registration forces counted 110,071 dead bodies of Japanese soldiers,149,425 Okinawans were killed, committed suicide or went missing, a significant proportion of the estimated pre-war 300,000 local population. As part of the operations surrounding the battle, the Japanese battleship Yamato was sunk. After the battle, Okinawa provided an anchorage, troop staging areas. Expeditionary Troops under Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. with Tenth Army, TF56 was the largest force within TF50 and was built around the 10th Army. The army had two corps under its command, III Amphibious Corps, consisting of 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, the 2nd Marine Division was an afloat reserve, and Tenth Army also controlled the 27th Infantry Division, earmarked as a garrison, and 77th Infantry Divisions. In all, the Army had over 102,000 soldiers, at the start of Battle of Okinawa 10th Army had 182,821 men under its command. It was planned that General Buckner would report to Turner until the phase was completed. Although Allied land forces were composed of U. S. units. Although all the carriers were provided by Britain, the carrier group was a combined British Commonwealth fleet with British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian ships. Their mission was to neutralize Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, most of the air-to-air fighters and the small dive bombers and strike aircraft were U. S. Navy carrier-based airplanes. The Japanese land campaign was conducted by the 67, 000-strong regular 32nd Army and some 9,000 Imperial Japanese Navy troops at Oroku naval base, supported by 39,000 drafted local Ryukyuan people. The Japanese had used kamikaze tactics since the Battle of Leyte Gulf, between the American landing on 1 April and 25 May, seven major kamikaze attacks were attempted, involving more than 1,500 planes. The 32nd Army initially consisted of the 9th, 24th, and 62nd Divisions, the 9th Division was moved to Taiwan prior to the invasion, resulting in shuffling of Japanese defensive plans. Primary resistance was to be led in the south by Lt. General Mitsuru Ushijima, his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Isamu Chō and his chief of operations, Yahara advocated a defensive strategy, whilst Chō advocated an offensive one
9.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
10.
Imperial Japanese Naval Academy
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The Imperial Japanese Naval Academy was a school established to train officers for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was originally located in Nagasaki, moved to Yokohama in 1866 and it moved to Etajima, Hiroshima in 1888. Students studied for three or four years, and upon graduation were commissioned as midshipmen, attaining the rank of ensign after a period of active duty and an overseas cruise. In 1943, a school for naval aviation was opened in Iwakuni. The Academy was closed in 1945, when the Imperial Japanese Navy was abolished, the Naval Academy Etajima opened in 1956 and the site now serves as the location for Officer Candidate School of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
11.
Midshipman
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A midshipman is an officer cadet or a commissioned officer candidate of the junior-most rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada, Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. Beginning in the 18th century, an officer candidate was rated as a midshipman. After serving at least three years as a midshipman or masters mate, he was eligible to take the examination for lieutenant, promotion to lieutenant was not automatic, and many midshipmen took positions as masters mates for an increase in pay and responsibility aboard ship. Midshipman began to mean an officer cadet at a naval college, trainees now spent around four years in a college and two years at sea prior to promotion to commissioned officer rank. Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, time at sea declined to less than a year as the age was increased from 12 to 18. Ranks equivalent to midshipman exist in other navies. Using US midshipman or pre-fleet board UK midshipman as the basis for comparison, using post-fleet board UK midshipman for comparison, the rank would be the most junior commissioned officer in the rank structure, and similar to a US ensign in role and responsibility. Today, these ranks all refer to cadets, but historically they were selected by the monarchy. The first published use of the term midshipman was in 1662, the word derives from an area aboard a ship, amidships, but it refers either to the location where midshipmen worked on the ship, or the location where midshipmen were berthed. By the 18th century, four types of midshipman existed, midshipman, midshipman extraordinary, midshipman, by 1794, all midshipmen were considered officer candidates, and the original rating was phased out. Beginning in 1661, boys who aspired to become officers were sent by their families to serve on ships with a letter of service from the crown, and were paid at the same rate as midshipmen. Their official rating was volunteer-per-order, but they were known as Kings letter boys. Beginning in 1677, Royal Navy regulations for promotion to lieutenant required service as a midshipman, by the Napoleonic era, the regulations required at least three years of services as a midshipman or masters mate and six years of total sea time. Sea time was earned in various ways, most boys served this period at sea in any lower rating, either as a servant of one of the ships officers, a volunteer, or a seaman. By the 1730s, the rating volunteer-per-order was phased out and replaced with a system where prospective midshipmen served as servants for officers. For example, a captain was allowed four servants for every 100 men aboard his ship, the school was unpopular in the Navy, because officers enjoyed the privilege of having servants and preferred the traditional method of training officers via apprenticeship. Volunteers were paid £6 per year, by 1816, the rating of midshipman ordinary was phased out, and all apprentice officers were rated as midshipmen
12.
Cruiser
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A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundred years, and has had different meanings throughout this period. In the middle of the 19th century, cruiser came to be a classification for the intended for cruising distant waters, commerce raiding. Cruisers came in a variety of sizes, from the medium-sized protected cruiser to large armored cruisers that were nearly as big as a pre-dreadnought battleship. With the advent of the battleship before World War I. The very large battlecruisers of the World War I era that succeeded armored cruisers were now classified, along with dreadnought battleships, in the later 20th century, the obsolescence of the battleship left the cruiser as the largest and most powerful surface combatant after the aircraft carrier. The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy, often including air defense, during the Cold War, the Soviet Navys cruisers had heavy anti-ship missile armament designed to sink NATO carrier task forces via saturation attack. The U. S. Adams guided-missile destroyers tasked with the air defense role. Indeed, the newest U. S. Navy destroyers are more heavily-armed than some of the cruisers that they succeeded, currently only three nations operate cruisers, the United States, Russia, and Peru. The term cruiser or cruizer was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship, Cruiser meant the purpose or mission of a ship, rather than a category of vessel. However, the term was used to mean a smaller, faster warship suitable for such a role. The Dutch navy was noted for its cruisers in the 17th century, while the Royal Navy—and later French and Spanish navies—subsequently caught up in terms of their numbers, during the 18th century the frigate became the preeminent type of cruiser. A frigate was a small, fast, long range, lightly armed ship used for scouting, carrying dispatches, the other principal type of cruiser was the sloop, but many other miscellaneous types of ship were used as well. During the 19th century, navies began to use steam power for their fleets, the 1840s saw the construction of experimental steam-powered frigates and sloops. By the middle of the 1850s, the British and U. S. Navies were both building steam frigates with very long hulls and a gun armament, for instance USS Merrimack or Mersey. The 1860s saw the introduction of the ironclad, the first ironclads were frigates, in the sense of having one gun deck, however, they were also clearly the most powerful ships in the navy, and were principally to serve in the line of battle. In spite of their speed, they would have been wasted in a cruising role. The French constructed a number of smaller ironclads for overseas cruising duties, starting with the Belliqueuse and these station ironclads were the beginning of the development of the armored cruisers, a type of ironclad specifically for the traditional cruiser missions of fast, independent raiding and patrol
13.
Japanese cruiser Azuma
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Azuma was an armored cruiser built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the capacity to build such warships herself. She participated in most of the battles of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and was lightly damaged during the Battle off Ulsan. Azuma began the first of five training cruises in 1912 and saw no combat during World War I and she was never formally reclassified as a training ship although she exclusively served in that role from 1921 until she was disarmed and hulked in 1941. Azuma was badly damaged in an American carrier raid in 1945, further consideration of the Russian building program caused the IJN to believe that the battleships ordered under the original plan would not be sufficient to counter the Imperial Russian Navy. The revised plan is known as the Six-Six Fleet. The first four ships were built by Armstrong Whitworth in the United Kingdom, to ensure ammunition compatibility, the IJN required their builders to use the same British guns as the other four ships. In general, the IJN provided only a design and specifications that each builder had to comply with. The ship was 137.9 meters long overall and 131.56 meters between perpendiculars and she had a beam of 17.74 meters and had an average draft of 7.18 meters. Azuma displaced 9,278 metric tons at load and 9,953 metric tons at deep load. The ship had a height of 0.85 meters. She had a bottom and her hull was subdivided into 213 watertight compartments. Her crew consisted of 670 officers and enlisted men, Azuma had two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller shaft. Steam for the engines was provided by 24 Belleville boilers and the engines were rated at a total of 18,000 indicated horsepower, the ship had a designed speed of 21 knots. She carried up to 1,200 metric tons of coal, the main armament for all of the Six-Six Fleet armored cruisers was four Armstrong Whitworth-built 45-caliber eight-inch guns in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure. The electrically operated turrets were capable of 130° rotation left and right, the guns were manually loaded and had a rate of fire about 1.2 rounds per minute. The 203-millimeter gun fired 113. 5-kilogram armor-piercing projectiles at a velocity of 760 meters per second to a range of 18,000 meters. The secondary armament consisted of a dozen Elswick Ordnance Company Pattern Z quick-firing, 40-caliber, All but four of these guns were mounted in armored casemates on the main and upper decks, and their mounts on the upper deck were protected by gun shields
14.
Honolulu
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Honolulu is the capital and largest city of the U. S. state of Hawaii. It is an part of and the county seat of the City and County of Honolulu on the island of Oahu. The city is the gateway to Hawaii and a major portal into the United States. The city is also a hub for international business, military defense, as well as famously being host to a diverse variety of east-west and Pacific culture, cuisine. Honolulu is the most remote city of its size in the world and is both the westernmost and the southernmost major U. S. city. For statistical purposes, the U. S. Census Bureau recognizes the area commonly referred to as City of Honolulu as a census county division. Honolulu is a financial center of the islands and of the Pacific Ocean. The population of the city of Honolulu was 337,256 as of the 2010 census, while the Honolulu CCD was 390,738, Honolulu means sheltered harbor or calm port. The old name is said to be Kou, a district encompassing the area from Nuuanu Avenue to Alakea Street. The city has been the capital of the Hawaiian Islands since 1845, as of 2015, Honolulu was ranked high on world livability rankings, and was also ranked as the 2nd safest city in the U. S. It is also the most populated Oceanian city outside Australasia and ranks second to Auckland as the most populous city in Polynesia, evidence of the first settlement of Honolulu by the original Polynesian migrants to the archipelago comes from oral histories and artifacts. These indicate that there was a settlement where Honolulu now stands in the 11th century, however, after Kamehameha I conquered Oʻahu in the Battle of Nuʻuanu at Nuʻuanu Pali, he moved his royal court from the Island of Hawaiʻi to Waikīkī in 1804. His court relocated in 1809 to what is now downtown Honolulu, the capital was moved back to Kailua-Kona in 1812. In 1794, Captain William Brown of Great Britain was the first foreigner to sail into what is now Honolulu Harbor, more foreign ships followed, making the port of Honolulu a focal point for merchant ships traveling between North America and Asia. In 1845, Kamehameha III moved the permanent capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom from Lahaina on Maui to Honolulu and he and the kings that followed him transformed Honolulu into a modern capital, erecting buildings such as St. Andrews Cathedral, ʻIolani Palace, and Aliʻiōlani Hale. At the same time, Honolulu became the center of commerce in the islands, an economic and tourism boom following statehood brought rapid economic growth to Honolulu and Hawaiʻi. Modern air travel brings, as of 2007,7.6 million visitors annually to the islands, today, Honolulu is a modern city with numerous high-rise buildings, and Waikīkī is the center of the tourism industry in Hawaiʻi, with thousands of hotel rooms. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has an area of 68.4 square miles
15.
San Pedro, Los Angeles
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San Pedro is a community within the city of Los Angeles, California. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909, the Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located within San Pedro. The district has grown from being dominated by the industry to become primarily a working class community within the city of Los Angeles. The site, at the end of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The peninsula, including all of San Pedro, was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieleño Native American people for thousands of years, in other areas of the Los Angeles Basin archeological sites date back 8, 000–15,000 years. The Tongva believe they have been here since the beginning of time, once called the lords of the ocean, due to their mastery of oceangoing canoes, many Tongva villages covered the coastline. Their first contact with Europeans in 1542 with João Cabrilho, the Portuguese explorer who also was the first to write of them, chowigna and Suangna were two Tongva settlements of many in the peninsula area, which was also a departure point for their rancherias on the Channel Islands. Legend has it that the Native Americans blessed the land of Palos Verdes, the Tongva called the San Pedro area Chaaw. San Pedro was named for St. Peter of Alexandria, a bishop in Alexandria. His feast day is November 24 on the ecclesiastical calendar of Spain. Santa Catalina Island, named after Catherine of Alexandria, was claimed for the Spanish Empire the next day, on her feast day, in 1602–1603, Sebastián Vizcaíno officially surveyed and mapped the California coastline, including San Pedro Bay, for New Spain. The anglicized pronunciation, popularized by the English-speaking people of Midwestern America, is san-PEE-dro, european settlement began in 1769 as part of an effort to populate California, although trade restrictions encouraged more smuggling than regular business. Rancho San Pedro is the site of the first Spanish land grant in Alta California, the land was granted in 1784 by King Carlos III to Juan Jose Dominguez, a retired Spanish soldier who came to California with the Gaspar de Portolà expedition. When New Spain won its independence from the Spanish Empire and Alta California became part of Mexico, the restrictions were lifted. In 1888, the War Department took control of a tract of land next to the bay and this became Fort MacArthur in 1914 and was a coastal defense site for many years. Woodrow Wilson transferred 200 United States Navy ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1919 when tension arose between the United States and Japan over the fate of China. San Diego Bay was considered too shallow for the largest ships, local availability of fuel oil minimized transportation costs, and consistently good weather allowed frequent gunnery exercises off the nearby Channel Islands of California. The heavy cruisers of the Scouting Force were transferred from the Atlantic to San Pedro in response to the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, by 1934,14 battleships, two aircraft carriers,14 cruisers, and 16 support ships were based at San Pedro
16.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
17.
Vancouver
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Vancouver is a coastal seaport city in Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2016 census recorded 631,486 people in the city, the Greater Vancouver area had a population of 2,463,431 in 2016, making it the third largest metropolitan area in Canada. Vancouver has the highest population density in Canada with over 5,400 people per square kilometre. With over 250,000 residents, Vancouver municipality is the fourth most densely populated city in North America behind New York City, San Francisco, and Mexico City according to the 2011 census. In that census, Vancouver was one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada, Vancouver is classed as a Beta global city. In 2014, following thirty years in California, the annual TED conference made Vancouver its indefinite home, several matches of the 2015 FIFA Womens World Cup were played in Vancouver, including the final at BC Place Stadium. From that first enterprise, other stores and some hotels quickly appeared along the waterfront to the west, Gastown became formally laid out as a registered townsite dubbed Granville, B. I. As of 2014, Port Metro Vancouver is the third largest port by tonnage in the Americas, 27th in the world, the busiest and largest in Canada, and the most diversified port in North America. While forestry remains its largest industry, Vancouver is well known as an urban centre surrounded by nature, archaeological records indicate the presence of Aboriginal people in the Vancouver area from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. The city is located in the territories of the Squamish, Musqueam. They had villages in various parts of present-day Vancouver, such as Stanley Park, False Creek, Kitsilano, Point Grey, the city takes its name from George Vancouver, who explored the inner harbour of Burrard Inlet in 1792 and gave various places British names. The explorer and North West Company trader Simon Fraser and his became the first known Europeans to set foot on the site of the present-day city. In 1808, they travelled from the east down the Fraser River, perhaps as far as Point Grey. The Fraser Gold Rush of 1858 brought over 25,000 men, mainly from California, to nearby New Westminster on the Fraser River, on their way to the Fraser Canyon, a sawmill established at Moodyville in 1863, began the citys long relationship with logging. It was quickly followed by mills owned by Captain Edward Stamp on the shore of the inlet. This mill, known as the Hastings Mill, became the nucleus around which Vancouver formed, the mills central role in the city waned after the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. It nevertheless remained important to the economy until it closed in the 1920s. The settlement which came to be called Gastown grew up quickly around the original makeshift tavern established by Gassy Jack Deighton in 1867 on the edge of the Hastings Mill property
18.
Victoria, British Columbia
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Victoria /vɪkˈtɔːriə/ is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canadas Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 85,792, while the area of Greater Victoria, has a population of 367,770. Victoria is the southernmost major city in Western Canada, and is located about 100 kilometres from BCs largest city of Vancouver on the mainland. Named after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and, at the time, British North America, Victoria is one of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest, with British settlement beginning in 1843. The city has retained a number of its historic buildings. The citys Chinatown is the second oldest in North America after San Franciscos, known as the The Garden City, Victoria is an attractive city and a popular tourism destination with a thriving technology sector that has risen to be its largest revenue-generating private industry. Victoria is in the top twenty of world cities for quality-of-life, Victoria is very popular with boaters with its beautiful and rugged shorelines and beaches. Victoria is also popular with retirees, who come to enjoy the temperate, prior to the arrival of European navigators in the late 1700s, the Victoria area was home to several communities of Coast Salish peoples, including the Songhees. The Spanish and British took up the exploration of the northwest coast, beginning with the visits of Juan Pérez in 1774 and of James Cook. In 1778, although the Victoria area of the Strait of Juan de Fuca was not penetrated until 1790, Spanish sailors visited Esquimalt Harbour in 1790,1791, the Songhees established a village across the harbour from the fort. The Songhees village was moved north of Esquimalt. When the crown colony was established in 1849, a town was out on the site. Victoria was incorporated as a city in 1862, in 1865, Esquimalt was made the North Pacific home of the Royal Navy, and remains Canadas Pacific coast naval base. In the latter half of the 19th century, the Port of Victoria became one of North Americas largest importers of opium, serving the opium trade from Hong Kong and distribution into North America. Opium trade was legal and unregulated until 1865, then the legislature issued licences and levied duties on its import, the opium trade was banned in 1908. In 1886, with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway terminus on Burrard Inlet and his son James Dunsmuir became premier and subsequently lieutenant-governor of the province and built his own grand residence at Hatley Park in the present City of Colwood. With the economic crash and a surplus of men, Victoria became a target-rich environment for recruiting. Two militia infantry battalions, the 88th Victoria Fusiliers and the 50th Gordon Highlanders, Victoria was the home of Sir Arthur Currie
19.
Tacoma, Washington
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Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city in and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washingtons Puget Sound,32 miles southwest of Seattle,31 miles northeast of the capital, Olympia. The population was 198,397, according to the 2010 census, Tacoma is the second-largest city in the Puget Sound area and the third largest in the state. Tacoma also serves as the center of activity for the South Sound region. Tacoma adopted its name after the nearby Mount Rainier, originally called Takhoma or Tahoma and it is locally known as the City of Destiny because the area was chosen to be the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the late 19th century. The decision of the railroad was influenced by Tacomas neighboring deep-water harbor, by connecting the bay with the railroad, Tacomas motto became When rails meet sails. Today, Commencement Bay serves the Port of Tacoma, a center of trade on the Pacific Coast. Like most central cities, Tacoma suffered a decline in the mid-20th century as a result of suburbanization. Neighborhoods such as the 6th Avenue District have become revitalized, tacoma-Pierce County has been named one of the most livable areas in the United States. In 2006, Tacoma was listed as one of the most walkable cities in the country and that same year, the womens magazine Self named Tacoma the Most Sexually Healthy City in the United States. In contrast, Tacoma was also ranked as the most stressed-out city in the country in a 2004 survey, Tacoma gained notoriety in 1940 for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which earned the nickname Galloping Gertie. The city of Tacoma and surrounding areas were inhabited for thousands of years by American Indians, predominantly the Puyallup people, mcCarver, who named his project Tacoma City, derived from the indigenous name for the mountain. Tacoma was incorporated on November 12,1875, following the merger of Old Tacoma, the transcontinental link was effected in 1887, but the railroad built its depot on New Tacoma, two miles south of the Carr-McCarver development. The two communities together and joined. The population grew from 1,098 in 1880 to 36,006 in 1890, rudyard Kipling visited Tacoma in 1889 and said it was literally staggering under a boom of the boomiest. George Francis Train was a resident for a few years in the late 19th century, in 1890, he staged a global circumnavigation starting and ending in Tacoma to promote the city. A plaque in downtown Tacoma marks the start and finish line, in November 1885, white citizens led by then-mayor Jacob Weisbach expelled several hundred Chinese residents peacefully living in the city. The next day two Chinese settlements were burned to the ground, the discovery of gold in the Klondike in 1898 led Tacomas prominence in the region to be eclipsed by the booming development of Seattle
20.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city
21.
Hakodate, Hokkaido
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Hakodate is a city and port located in Oshima Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the city of Oshima Subprefecture. As of July 31,2011, the city has an population of 279,851 with 143,221 households. The total area is 677.77 km2, the city is now the third biggest in Hokkaido after Sapporo and Asahikawa. Hakodate was Japans first city whose port was opened to trade in 1854 as a result of Convention of Kanagawa. Also, the city had been the biggest city in Hokkaido before the Great Hakodate Fire of 1934, Hakodate was founded in 1454, when Kono Kaganokami Masamichi constructed a large manor house in the Ainu fishing village of Usukeshi. There was constant low level conflict in the Oshima peninsula at the time with the Ainu as armed merchants like the Kono family established bases to trade in the region. This conflict culminated in an uprising from 1669 to 1672, led by Ainu warrior Shakushain after which the Ainu in the region were suppressed, Hakodate flourished during the Hoei period and many new temples were founded in the area. In 1779, the Tokugawa shogunate took direct control over Hakodate, merchant Takadaya Kahei, who is honoured as the founder of Hakodate port, set up trading operations, which included opening the northern Etorofu sea route to the Kuril island fisheries. He is credited with turning Hakodate from a trading outpost into a thriving city, a Hakodate magistracy was established in 1802. The port of Hakodate was surveyed by a fleet of five U. S. ships in 1854 under the conditions of the Convention of Kanagawa, as negotiated by Commodore Matthew Perry. S. A mariner in Perrys fleet died during a visit to the area and he stayed in Hakodate until 1884, during which time he documented the local natural environment, equipped the local meteorological station and ran guns to the Boshin War rebels. As one of few points of Japanese contact with the outside world, the Russian consulate included a chapel from where Nicholas of Japan is credited with introducing Eastern Orthodox Christianity to Japan in 1861. The Orthodox church is neighbored by several other historical missionary churches, including Anglican, Hakodate also played a central role in the Boshin War between the Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Emperor which followed Perrys opening of Japan. Shogunate rebel Enomoto Takeaki fled to Hakodate with the remnants of his navy and his handful of French advisers in winter 1868 and they formally established the Republic of Ezo on December 25. The republic tried unsuccessfully to gather international recognition to foreign legations in Hakodate, including the Americans, French, the rebels occupied Hakodates famous European-style Goryōkaku fort and used it as the centre of their defences in southern Hokkaido. Government forces defeated the secessionists in the Battle of Hakodate in 1869, military leader, Hijikata Toshizō, was one of those slain in the fighting. In 1878, Isabella Bird reported of the city in her travelogue, The streets are wide and clean
22.
Aomori, Aomori
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Aomori is the capital city of Aomori Prefecture, in the northern Tōhoku region of northern Japan. As of September 2015, the city had an population of 288,029. The total area of the city was 824.61 square kilometres, Aomori literally means blue forest, although it could possibly be translated as green forest. The name is considered to refer to a small forest on a hill which existed near the town. This forest was used by fishermen as a landmark. A different theory suggests the name might have derived from the Ainu language. The large scale of these settlements revolutionized theories on Jōmon period civilization, during the Heian period, the area was part of the holdings of the Northern Fujiwara clan, but remained inhabited by the Emishi people well into the historic period. After the start of the Edo period, Aomori was a port settlement for Hirosaki Domain called Utō. The town was rebuilt in 1626 by Moriyama Yashichirō, under orders of the daimyō, Tsugaru Nobuhira and renamed Aomori, after the Meiji Restoration the various domains were abolished and replaced with prefectures, a total of six in the territory of modern Aomori Prefecture. These were merged into the short-lived Hirosaki Prefecture in July 1871, however, Aomori was not given town status within Higashitsugaru District until April 1,1889, and was not designated a city until April 1,1898. The Hokkaidō Colonization Office began operations of a service from Aomori to Hakodate in Hokkaido from 1872. In September 1891, Aomori was connected with Tokyo by rail with the opening of the Tōhoku Main Line, the Ōu Main Line running along the Sea of Japan coast opened in December 1894. The 8th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army were stationed in Aomori from 1896, much of the town burned down in a large fire on May 3,1910. The port facilities were expanded in 1924, and the city received its first bus services in 1926, Japan Air Transport began scheduled air services from 1937. The July 28–29 bombing claimed 1,767 lives and destroyed 88% of the city, in the post war period, Aomori rebuilt as the local political and commercial center. The Tsugaru Line railway opened in 1951, and Aomori Airport in 1964, the city was connected to Tokyo by highway in 1979 with the opening of the Tōhoku Expressway. Aomori’s landmark pyramidal Aomori Prefectural Tourist Center opened in 1986, on October 1,2002, Aomori was proclaimed a core city with increased autonomy from the central government. On April 1,2005, the town of Namioka was merged into Aomori, Aomori is located in central Aomori Prefecture, between the southern end of Mutsu Bay, which it faces to the north and the Hakkōda Mountains to the south
23.
Battleship
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A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship, the word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. The term came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as dreadnoughts. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, the launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the war, the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday, there were few of the decisive fleet battles that battleship proponents expected, and used to justify the vast resources spent on building battlefleets. Battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War for fire support purposes before being stricken from the U. S. Naval Vessel Register in the 2000s. A ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns, from 1794, the alternative term line of battle ship was contracted to battle ship or battleship. The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a sail battleship could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull, knocking down masts, wrecking her rigging, and killing her crew. However, the range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards. The first major change to the ship of the concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. Steam power was introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft. The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850—the first true steam battleship, Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots, regardless of the wind condition. This was a decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships, the adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad, powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells. In the Crimean War, six ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853
24.
Japanese battleship Kawachi
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Kawachi was the lead ship of the two-ship Kawachi-class dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. Following the Japanese ship-naming conventions, Kawachi was named after Kawachi Province, during World War I she bombarded German fortifications at Tsingtao during the Battle of Tsingtao in 1914, but saw no other combat. She sank in 1918 after an explosion in her ammunition magazine with the loss of over 600 officers and their design was based on the Aki with a uniform 12-inch main-gun armament, although cost considerations prevented all the guns from having the same barrel length. The ship had a length of 526 feet, a beam of 84 feet 3 inches. She displaced 20,823 long tons at normal load and her crew ranged from 999 to 1100 officers and enlisted men. Kawachi was fitted with a pair of license-built Curtis steam turbine sets, each set driving one propeller, the turbines were rated at a total of 25,000 shaft horsepower for a design speed of 21 knots. She carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 2,700 nautical miles at a speed of 18 knots. Kawachis secondary armament was ten 45-caliber 6-inch 41st Year Type guns, mounted in casemates in the sides of the hull, the ship was also equipped with a dozen 40-caliber 3-inch 4th Year Type guns and four others were used as saluting guns. In addition, the battleship was fitted with five submerged 18-inch torpedo tubes, the waterline main belt of the ship had a maximum thickness of 12 inches amidships. It tapered to a thickness of 5 inches at the ends of the ship, a 6-inch strake of armor protected the casemates. The barbettes for the guns were 9–11 inches thick. The armor of Kawachis main gun turrets had a thickness of 11 inches. The deck armor was 1.1 inches thick and the tower was protected by 6 to 10 inches of armor. Kawachi was laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on 1 April 1909 and she was launched on 15 October 1910 in a ceremony attended by Emperor Meiji and completed on 31 March 1912 at a cost of ¥11,130,000. On 3 October 1912, the ship was present when the battleship Mikasa had a fire that was started by a sailor in the forward magazine. It was flooded before the fire could get out of control, when World War I began in August 1914, Kawachi was at Yokosuka. Together with her ship, Settsu, she bombarded German fortifications in October–November 1914 during the final stage of the Battle of Tsingtao. The ship was present in Yokosuka on 8 January 1915 when the victorious Second Squadron returned to Japan after the Battle of Tsingtao and she was assigned to the First Squadron from 1915–1917 and refitted that latter year
25.
Ensign (rank)
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Ensign is a junior rank of a commissioned officer in the armed forces of some countries, normally in the infantry or navy. As the junior officer in a regiment was traditionally the carrier of the ensign flag. This rank has generally replaced in army ranks by second lieutenant. Ensigns were generally the lowest ranking commissioned officer, except where the rank of subaltern existed. In contrast, the Arab rank of ensign, لواء, liwa, derives from the command of units with an ensign, not the carrier of such a units ensign, and is today the equivalent of a major general. Ensign is enseigne in French, and chorąży in Polish, each of which derives from a term for a flag, the Spanish alférez and Portuguese alferes is a junior officer rank below lieutenant associated with carrying the flag, and so is often translated as ensign. Unlike the rank in other languages, its etymology has nothing to do with flags, in the German Landsknecht armies, the equivalent rank of a Cornet existed for those men who carried the troop standard. It is still used in the artillery and cavalry divisions of the Netherlands, the NATO rank code is OF-1. In Argentina, the rank of ensign is used by both the air force and the gendarmerie and it is, however, used differently in the two services. The air force uses the rank for newly qualified officers, while the gendarmerie uses ensign ranks as an equivalent for the armys lieutenant ranks, the other armed forces of Argentina have ranks equivalent to ensign, subteniente in the army and guardiamarina in the navy. In the army, the most junior sublieutenant in a regiment is also the flag carrier, during the Ancien Régime in France, as in other countries, the ensign was the banner of an infantry regiment. As in other countries, the name began to be used for the officers who carried the ensign and it was renamed sub-lieutenant at the end of the 18th century. The Navy used a rank of ensign, which was the first officer rank. It was briefly renamed ship-of-the-line sub-lieutenant in the end of the 18th century, nowadays, the rank is still used in the Marine Nationale, Ship-of-the-line ensign is the name of the two lowest officer ranks Both ranks of ensign use the style lieutenant. However, French-Canadian sub-lieutenants use the form of enseigne instead of lieutenant. The rank ensign is used to refer to second lieutenants in household regiments of the Canadian Army. Fähnrich which has a parallel etymology to ensign, containing the corresponding German word stem of flag in it, is a German, the word Fähnrich comes from an older German military title, Fahnenträger, and first became a distinct military rank on 1 January 1899. The German Fähnrich is a non-commissioned officer promoted from the rank of Fahnenjunker or Seekadett, Fähnrich is equivalent to Feldwebel, but with additional responsibilities as an officer cadet
26.
Lieutenant
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A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations armed forces, fire service or police. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different military formations, but is often subdivided into senior and junior ranks, in navies it is often equivalent to the army rank of captain, it may also indicate a particular post rather than a rank. The rank is used in fire services, emergency medical services, security services. Lieutenant may also appear as part of a used in various other organisations with a codified command structure. It often designates someone who is second-in-command, and as such, for example, a lieutenant master is likely to be second-in-command to the master in an organisation using both ranks. Political uses include lieutenant governor in various governments, and Quebec lieutenant in Canadian politics, in the United Kingdom, a lord lieutenant is the sovereigns representative in a county or lieutenancy area, while a deputy lieutenant is one of the lord lieutenants deputies. However, their efforts failed, and the French word is used, along with its many variations. The early history of the pronunciation is unclear, Middle English spellings suggest that the /luː-/ and /lɛf-/ pronunciations may have existed even then. The rare Old French variant spelling luef for Modern French lieu supports the suggestion that a final of the Old French word was in certain environments perceived as an, in Royal Naval tradition—and other English-speaking navies outside the United States—a reduced pronunciation /ləˈtɛnənt/ is used. This is not recognised as current by recent editions of the OED, conventionally, armies and other services or branches which use army-style rank titles have two grades of lieutenant, but a few also use a third, more junior, rank. Where more junior officers were employed as deputies to the lieutenant, they went by names, including second lieutenant, sub-lieutenant, ensign. The senior grade of lieutenant is known as first lieutenant in the United States, and as lieutenant in the United Kingdom, in countries which do not speak English, the rank title usually translates as lieutenant, but may also translate as first lieutenant or senior lieutenant. The Israel Defense Forces rank segen literally translates as deputy, which is equivalent to a lieutenant, there is great variation in the insignia used worldwide. In most English-speaking and Arabic-speaking countries, as well as a number of European and South American nations, an example of an exception is the United States, whose armed forces distinguish their lieutenant ranks with one silver bar for first lieutenant and one gold bar for second lieutenant. Second lieutenant is usually the most junior grade of commissioned officer, in non-English-speaking countries, the equivalent rank title may translate as second lieutenant, lieutenant, sub-lieutenant or junior lieutenant. Non-English terms include alferes, alférez, fänrik, ensign, Leutnant, letnan, poručík, a few non-English-speaking militaries maintain a lower rank, frequently translated as third lieutenant OF1c. The rank title may translate as second lieutenant, junior lieutenant, sub-lieutenant or ensign. Warsaw Pact countries standardised their ranking systems on the Soviet system, some of the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations have now discarded the third rank while many retain it like Bulgaria
27.
Naval artillery
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Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare, later also for naval gunfire support against targets on land, and for anti-aircraft use. The idea of artillery dates back to the classical era. Julius Caesar indicates the use of ship-borne catapults against Britons ashore in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, the dromons of the Byzantine Empire carried catapults and fire-throwers. From the late Middle Ages onwards, warships began to carry cannon of various calibres, the Battle of Arnemuiden, fought between England and France in 1338 at the start of the Hundred Years War, was the first recorded European naval battle using artillery. The English ship Christopher was armed with three cannons and one hand gun, by the 15th century most Mediterranean powers were utilising heavy cannon mounted on the bow or stern of a vessel and designed to bombard fortresses on shore. By mid-century some vessels also carried smaller broadside cannons for bombarding other vessels immediately prior to an attempted boarding and these small guns were anti-personnel weapons and were fired at point blank range to accompany engagement with muskets or bows. From the 1470s both the Portuguese and Venetian navies were experimenting with cannons as anti-ship weapons, in 1489 John of Portugal further contributed to the development of naval artillery by establishing the first standardized teams of trained naval gunners. The 16th century was an era of transition in naval warfare, since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much like that on land, with melee weapons and bows and arrows, but on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. As guns became heavier and able to more powerful gunpowder charges, they needed to be placed lower in the ship. Although some 16th-century galleys mounted broadside cannon, they did so at the expense of rowing positions which sacrificed speed, most early cannon were still placed in the forecastle and aftercastle of a ship where they might be conveniently pointed in any direction. Early naval artillery was a weapon to deter boarders, because cannon powerful enough to damage ships were heavy enough to destabilize any ship mounting them in an elevated castle. Being a crown industry, cost considerations did not curb the pursuit of the best quality, best innovations, the crown paid wage premiums and bonuses to lure the best European artisans and gunners to advance the industry in Portugal. This made broadsides, coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship, possible for the first time in history, at least in theory. Ships, such as Mary Rose, carried a mixture of cannon of different types and sizes, many designed for land use, and using incompatible ammunition at different ranges and rates of fire. The Mary Rose, like other ships of the time, was built during a period of development of heavy artillery. The heavy armament was a mix of older-type wrought iron and cast bronze guns, the bronze guns were cast in one piece and rested on four-wheel carriages which were essentially the same as those used until the 19th century. The breech-loaders were cheaper to produce and both easier and faster to reload, but could take less powerful charges than cast bronze guns, the majority of the guns were small iron guns with short range that could be aimed and fired by a single person
28.
Torpedo
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Historically, it was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive or fish torpedo, colloquially called a fish. The term torpedo was originally employed for a variety of devices, from about 1900, torpedo has been used strictly to designate an underwater self-propelled weapon. Todays torpedoes can be divided into lightweight and heavyweight classes, and into straight-running, autonomous homers and they can be launched from a variety of platforms. The word torpedo comes from the name of a genus of rays in the order Torpediniformes. In naval usage, the American Robert Fulton introduced the name to refer to a gunpowder charge used by his French submarine Nautilus to demonstrate that it could sink warships. The concept of a torpedo existed many centuries before it was successfully developed. In 1275, Hasan al-Rammah described. an egg which moves itself, in modern language, a torpedo is an underwater self-propelled explosive, —but historically, the term also applied to primitive naval mines. These were used on an ad hoc basis during the modern period up to the late 19th century. An early submarine, the Turtle, attempted to lay a bomb with a fuse on the hull of HMS Eagle during the American Revolutionary War. In the early 1800s, the American inventor Robert Fulton, while in France and he coined the term torpedo in reference to the explosive charges he outfitted his submarine Nautilus. However, both the French and the Dutch governments were uninterested in the submarine, Fulton then concentrated on developing the torpedo independent of a submarine deployment. However, the British government refused to purchase the invention, stating they did not wish to introduce into naval warfare a system that would give advantage to weaker maritime nations. Fulton carried out a demonstration for the US government on 20 July 1807. Further development languished as Fulton focused on his steam-boat matters, during the War of 1812, torpedoes were employed in attempts to destroy British vessels and protect American harbors. In fact a submarine deployed torpedo was used in an attempt to destroy HMS Ramillies while in New Londons harbor. Hardy to warn the Americans to cease efforts with the use of any boat in this cruel and unheard-of warfare. Torpedoes were used by the Russian Empire during the Crimean War in 1855 against British warships in the Gulf of Finland and they used an early form of chemical detonator. During the American Civil War, the torpedo was used for what is today called a contact mine
29.
Japanese battleship Hiei
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Hiei was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I and World War II. Designed by British naval architect George Thurston, she was the launched of four Kongō-class battlecruisers. Laid down in 1911 at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Hiei was formally commissioned in 1914 and she patrolled off the Chinese coast on several occasions during World War I, and helped with rescue efforts following the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. Starting in 1929, Hiei was converted to a training ship to avoid being scrapped under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. She served as Emperor Hirohitos transport in the mid-1930s, starting in 1937, she underwent a full-scale reconstruction that completely rebuilt her superstructure, upgraded her powerplant, and equipped her with launch catapults for floatplanes. Now fast enough to accompany Japans growing fleet of aircraft carriers, on the eve of the US entry into World War II, she sailed as part of Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumos Combined Fleet, escorting the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. During the Battle of Midway, she sailed in the Invasion Force under Admiral Nobutake Kondō, on the evening of 13 November 1942, Hiei engaged American cruisers and destroyers alongside her sister ship Kirishima. After inflicting heavy damage on American cruisers and destroyers, Hiei was crippled by enemy vessels, subjected to continuous air attack, she sank on the evening of 14 November 1942. Hiei was the second of the Imperial Japanese Navys Kongō-class battlecruisers, the class was ordered in 1910 in the Japanese Emergency Naval Expansion Bill after the commissioning of HMS Invincible in 1908. With their heavy armament and armor protection, Hiei and her ships were vastly superior to any other Japanese capital ship afloat at the time. The keel of Hiei was laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on 4 November 1911 and she was launched on 21 November 1912, and fitting-out began in December 1913. On 15 December 1913, Captain Takagi Shichitaro was assigned as her chief equipping officer and she was completed on 4 August 1914. Hieis main battery consisted of eight 14-inch heavy-caliber main guns in four twin turrets, the turrets were noted by the US Office of Naval Intelligence to be similar to the British 15-inch turrets, with improvements made in flash-tightness in the gun chambers. Each of her guns could fire high-explosive or armor-piercing shells 38,770 yards at a rate of two shells per minute. In keeping with the Japanese doctrine of deploying more powerful vessels than their opponents, Hiei, the main guns carried ammunition for ninety shots and had an approximate gun-life of 250–280 shots. Her secondary battery was originally sixteen 6-inch 50-caliber medium guns in casemates, eight 3-inch guns. The sixteen 6-inch/50 caliber guns were capable of firing between 5 and 6 rounds per minute, with a life of 500 rounds. The 6-inch/50 caliber gun was capable of firing both antiaircraft and antiship shells, though the positioning of the guns on Hiei made antiaircraft firing impractical, the eight 5-inch/40 caliber guns added later could fire between 8 and 14 rounds per minute, with a barrel life of 800–1500 rounds
30.
Special Naval Landing Forces
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The Special Naval Landing Forces, were the marine troops of the Imperial Japanese Navy and were a part of the IJN Land Forces. They saw extensive service in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific theatre of World War II, in the late 1920s the navy began to form Special Naval Landing Forces as standing regiments. These forces were raised at — and took their names from — the four main naval districts/bases in Japan, Kure, Maizuru, Sasebo, soon, they became involved in successful Japanese seaborne assaults throughout South East Asia. Other SNLF were later raised from IJN personnel in China, at Hankow, on 7 December 1941 there were 16 SNLF units, this increased to 21 units during the war. The strengths of each SNLF ranged from the peak of 1,200 to a later 650 personnel. There was also a detachment in the Kwantung area, garrisoning the ports of Dairen. Initially, the SNLF were not a force, but was instead sailors who had basic infantry training and were employed in landings during the Russo-Japanese War. Soon their training and equipment were improved upon drastically, and their forces were given a variety of operations as well. In 1941, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Yokosuka SNLF were converted to parachute units and they conducted more combat drops than Japanese Army parachute units during World War II. The SNLF paratroopers were used during the attack on Celebes and the Battle of Manado, aside from the paratroopers, there were also elite squads who conducted reconnaissance and raid operations. Since then, the Landing Forces has been influential in Japans expansion of territories, the original SNLF personnel were well-trained, high quality troops with good morale and they performed well against opposition across Southeast Asia. However, like all landing forces they often experienced heavy casualties when faced with determined resistance, such as at the invasion of Timor and the Battle of Milne Bay. This is due to their unwillingness to surrender, and when out of ammunition, they would often resort to hand-to-hand fighting with their swords. In a well known last stand in 1943,2,619 men of the 7th Sasebo SNLF and 2,000 base personnel at the Battle of Tarawa accounted for over 3,000 U. S. Marine Corps casualties. Shanghai SNLF, special naval guard based in Shanghai port, China belonged in China Theater Fleet, later merged into Canton Special Base Force based in Guangzhou area. Yangtze SNLF, special river squadron detached along the Yangtze river area inside of 1st China Fleet, Hankow SNLF, special naval guard based in Hankow and Wuchang ports, belonged to Middle River Division, inside Yangtze River Fleet and 1st China Fleet. Canton SNLF, special naval guard detached in Guangzhou port, Kwangtung belonged inside of Canton Special Base Force, see article, Japanese marine paratroopers of World War II Yokosuka Naval Base 1st Yokosuka SNLF the 1st was disbanded after its operations in Celebes were completed. 3rd Yokosuka SNLF Made a drop on Timor, later taken into the 1st Yokosuka SNLF
31.
Royal Marines
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The Corps of Royal Marines is the United Kingdoms amphibious light infantry force, forming part of the Naval Service, along with the Royal Navy. The Royal Marines were formed in 1755 as the Royal Navys infantry troops, as a highly specialised and adaptable light infantry force, the Royal Marines are trained for rapid deployment worldwide and capable of dealing with a wide range of threats. The Royal Marines have close ties with allied marine forces, particularly the United States Marine Corps. Today, the Royal Marines are a fighting force within the British Armed forces. The Royal Marines can trace its origins back as far as 28 October 1664 when at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company the Duke of York and Albanys maritime regiment of foot was first formed. On 5 April 1755, His Majestys Marine Forces, fifty Companies in three Divisions, headquartered at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, were formed by Order of Council under Admiralty control. Initially all field officers were Royal Navy officers as the Royal Navy felt that the ranks of Marine field officers were largely honorary and this meant that the furthest a Marine officer could advance was to lieutenant colonel. It was not until 1771 that the first Marine was promoted to colonel and this attitude persisted well into the 1800s. During the rest of the 18th century, they served in numerous landings all over the world and they also served in the American War of Independence, being particularly courageous in the Battle of Bunker Hill led by Major John Pitcairn. In 1788 a detachment of four companies of marines, under Major Robert Ross, due to an error the Fleet left Portsmouth without its main supply of ammunition, and were not resupplied until the Fleet docked in Rio de Janeiro midway through the voyage. In 1802, largely at the instigation of Admiral the Earl St. Vincent, the Royal Marines Artillery was formed as a separate unit in 1804 to man the artillery in bomb ketches. These had been manned by the Armys Royal Regiment of Artillery, during the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Marines participated in every notable naval battle on board the Royal Navys ships and also took part in multiple amphibious actions. In the Caribbean theatre volunteers from freed French slaves on Marie-Galante were used to form Sir Alexander Cochranes first Corps of Colonial Marines and these men bolstered the ranks, helping the British to hold the island until reinforcements arrived. This practice was repeated during the War of 1812, where escaped American slaves were formed into Cochranes second Corps of Colonial Marines and these men were commanded by Royal Marines officers and fought alongside their regular Royal Marines counterparts at the Battle of Bladensburg. Throughout the war Royal Marines units raided up and down the east coast of America including up the Penobscot River and they fought in the Battle of New Orleans and later helped capture Fort Bowyer in Mobile Bay in what was the last action of the war. In 1855 the Infantry forces were renamed the Royal Marines Light Infantry, during the Crimean War in 1854 and 1855, three Royal Marines earned the Victoria Cross, two in the Crimea and one in the Baltic. In 1862 the name was altered to Royal Marine Light Infantry. The Royal Navy did not fight any other ships after 1850, in these Naval Brigades, the function of the Royal Marines was to land first and act as skimishers ahead of the sailor Infantry and Artillery
32.
January 28 Incident
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The January 28 Incident or Shanghai Incident was a conflict between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, before official hostilities of the Second Sino-Japanese War commenced in 1937. In Chinese literature it is known as the January 28 Incident, after the Mukden Incident, Japan had acquired the vast northeastern region of China and would eventually establish the puppet government of Manchukuo. However, the Japanese military planned to increase Japanese influence further, especially into Shanghai where Japan, in order to provide a casus belli to justify further military action in China, the Japanese military instigated seemingly anti-Japanese incidents. On January 18, five Japanese Buddhist monks, members of an ardently nationalist sect, were beaten near Shanghais Sanyou Factory by agitated Chinese civilians, two were seriously injured, and one died. Over the next few hours, a burnt down the factory. One policeman was killed and several more hurt when they arrived to quell the disorder, the situation continued to deteriorate over the next week. The militarys justification was that it had to defend its concession, during the afternoon of January 28, the Shanghai Municipal Council agreed to these demands. Throughout this period, the Chinese 19th Route Army had been massing outside the city, causing consternation to the civil Chinese administration of Shanghai and the foreign-run Concessions. The 19th Route Army was generally viewed as more than a warlord force. In the end, Shanghai donated a substantial bribe to the 19th Route Army, hoping that it would leave, however, at midnight on January 28, Japanese carrier aircraft bombed Shanghai in the first major aircraft carrier action in East Asia. In what was a surprising about-face for many, the 19th Route Army, though the opening battles took place in the Hongkew district of the International Settlement, the conflict soon spread outwards to much of Chinese-controlled Shanghai. The majority of the Concessions remained untouched by the conflict and it was often the case that those in the Shanghai International Settlement would watch the war from the banks of Suzhou Creek and they could even visit the battle lines by virtue of their extraterritoriality. On January 30, Chiang Kai-shek decided to relocate the capital from Nanjing to Luoyang as an emergency measure. However, Japan refused, instead continuing to mobilize troops in the region, on February 12, American, British and French representatives brokered a half-day cease fire for humanitarian relief to civilians caught in the crossfire. The same day, the Japanese issued another ultimatum, demanding that the Chinese Army retreat 20 km from the border of Shanghai Concessions and this only intensified fighting in Hongkew. The Japanese were unable to take the city by the middle of February, subsequently, the number of Japanese troops was increased to nearly 90,000 with the arrival of the 9th Infantry Division and the IJA 24th Mixed Brigade, supported by 80 warships and 300 airplanes. On February 14, Chiang Kai-shek sent his 5th Army, including his 87th and 88th divisions, on February 20, Japanese bombardments were increased to force the Chinese away from their defensive positions near Miaohang, while commercial and residential districts of the city were set on fire. The Chinese defensive positions deteriorated rapidly without naval and armored support, Japanese forces increased to over a 100,000 troops, backed by aerial and naval bombardments
33.
Japanese battleship Yamashiro
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Yamashiro was the second of two Fusō-class dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Launched in 1915 and commissioned in 1917, she patrolled off the coast of China. In 1923, she assisted survivors of the Great Kantō earthquake, Yamashiro was modernized between 1930 and 1935, with improvements to her armor and machinery and a rebuilt superstructure in the pagoda mast style. Nevertheless, with only 14-inch guns, she was outclassed by other Japanese battleships at the beginning of World War II, during fierce night fighting in the early hours of 25 October against a superior American force, Yamashiro was sunk by torpedoes and naval gunfire. Nishimura went down with his ship, and only 10 crewmembers survived, the ship had a length of 192.024 meters between perpendiculars and 202.7 meters overall. She had a beam of 28.7 meters and a draft of 8.7 meters, Yamashiro displaced 29,326 long tons at standard load and 35,900 long tons at full load. Her crew consisted of 1,198 officers and enlisted men in 1915, during the ships modernization during 1930–35, her forward superstructure was enlarged with multiple platforms added to her tripod foremast. Her rear superstructure was rebuilt to accommodate mounts for 127-millimeter anti-aircraft guns, Yamashiro was also given torpedo bulges to improve her underwater protection and to compensate for the weight of the additional armor. In addition, her stern was lengthened by 7.62 meters and these changes increased her overall length to 212.75 m, her beam to 33.1 m and her draft to 9.69 meters. Her displacement increased nearly 4,000 long tons to 39,154 long tons at deep load, the ship had two sets of Brown-Curtis direct-drive steam turbines, each of which drove two propeller shafts. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 40,000 shaft horsepower, using steam provided by 24 Miyahara-type water-tube boilers, each of which consumed a mixture of coal and oil. Yamashiro had a capacity of 4,000 long tons of coal and 1,000 long tons of fuel oil. The ship exceeded her designed speed of 22.5 knots during her sea trials, during her modernization, the Miyahara boilers were replaced by six new Kanpon oil-fired boilers fitted in the former aft boiler room, and the forward funnel was removed. The Brown-Curtis turbines were replaced by four geared Kanpon turbines with an output of 75,000 shp. On her trials, Yamashiros sister ship Fusō reached a top speed of 24.7 knots from 76,889 shp. The fuel storage of the ship was increased to a total of 5,100 long tons of oil that gave her a range of 11,800 nautical miles at a speed of 16 knots. The twelve 45-calibre 14-inch guns of Yamashiro were mounted in six turrets, numbered one through six from front to rear. The turrets were arranged in an unorthodox 2-1-1-2 style with superfiring pairs of turrets fore and aft, the turrets were not superfiring
34.
Replenishment oiler
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A replenishment oiler is a naval auxiliary ship with fuel tanks and dry cargo holds, which can conduct underway replenishment on the high seas. Several countries have used replenishment oilers, the US Navy hull classification symbol for this type of ship was AOR. Replenishment oilers are slower and carry fewer dry stores than the US Navys fast combat support ships, the development of the oiler paralleled the change from coal- to oil-fired boilers in warships. Though arguments related to fuel security were made against such a change, one of the first generation of blue-water navy oiler support vessels was the British RFA Kharki, active 1911 in the run-up to the First World War. Such vessels heralded the transition from coal to oil as the fuel of warships and removed the need to rely on, modern examples of the fast combat support ship include the large British Fort-Class, displacing and 669 ft in length, and the Australian HMAS Sirius. For smaller navies, such as the Royal New Zealand Navy, such ships are designed to carry large amounts of fuel and dry stores for the support of naval operations far away from port. Replenishment oilers are also equipped with extensive medical and dental facilities than smaller ships can provide. Such ships are equipped with multiple refueling gantries to refuel and resupply ships at a time. The process of refueling and supplying ships at sea is called underway replenishment, furthermore, such ships often are designed with helicopter decks and hangars. This allows the operation of rotary-wing aircraft, which allows the resupply of ships by helicopter and this process is called vertical replenishment. They may also carry man-portable air-defense systems for air defense capability. Kaiser-class oiler (United States Navy and Chilean Navy ex-USNS Andrew J
35.
Captain (naval)
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Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The rank is equal to the rank of colonel. Equivalent ranks worldwide include ship-of-the-line captain, captain of sea and war, captain at sea, the NATO rank code is OF-5, although the United States of America uses the code O-6 for the equivalent rank. O. The naval rank should not be confused with the army, air force, or marine ranks of captain, on large US ships, the executive officer may be a captain in rank, in which case it would be proper to address him by rank. Often the XO prefers to be called XO to avoid confusion with the CO, who is also a captain in rank and the captain of the ship. Captains with sea commands generally command ships of size or larger, the more senior the officer, the larger the ship. Even when an officer who is in the ships captains chain of command is present. The following articles deal with the rank of captain as it is used in various navies, Captain Captain Captain Capitaine de vaisseau Kapitän zur See Komandor Kapitan of the 1st rank Sea captain Post captain
36.
Wuhan
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Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain at the intersection of the reaches of the Yangtze. Because of its key role in transportation, Wuhan was sometimes referred to as the Chicago of China by foreign sources. Holding sub-provincial status, Wuhan is recognized as the political, economic, financial, cultural, educational, the city of Wuhan, first termed as such in 1927, has a population of 10,607,700 people as of 2015. In the 1920s, Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. At the 2010 census, its built-up area made of 8 out of 10 urban districts was home to 8,821,658 inhabitants, with a 3, 500-year-long history, Wuhan is one of the most ancient and civilized metropolitan cities in China. During the Han dynasty, Hanyang became a busy port. Around that time, walls were built to protect Hanyang and Wuchang, the latter event marks the foundation of Wuhan. In AD223, the Yellow Crane Tower was constructed on the Wuchang side of the Yangtze River, cui Hao, a celebrated poet of the Tang dynasty, visited the building in the early 8th century, his poem made it the most celebrated building in southern China. The city has long been renowned as a center for the arts, under the Mongol rulers, Wuchang was promoted to the status of provincial capital, by the dawn of the 18th century, Hankou had become one of Chinas top four most important towns of trade. In the late 19th century, railroads were extended on an axis through the city. Also during this period foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions, with the riverfront of Hankou being divided up into foreign-controlled merchant districts and these districts contained trading firm offices, warehouses, and docking facilities. On October 10,1911, Sun Yat-sens followers launched the Wuchang Uprising, Wuhan was the capital of a leftist Kuomintang government led by Wang Jingwei, in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek during the 1920s. S. As the battle raged on through 1938, Wuhan and the region had become the site of the Battle of Wuhan. After being taken by the Japanese in late 1938, Wuhan became a major Japanese logistics center for operations in southern China, in December 1944, the city was largely destroyed by U. S. firebombing raids conducted by the Fourteenth Air Force. In 1967, civil strife struck the city in the Wuhan Incident as a result of tensions arising out of the Cultural Revolution. The city has been subject to devastating floods, which are now supposed to be controlled by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam, a project which was completed in 2008. In December 1858, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, High Commissioner to China, and in the spring of 1861, Counselor Harry Parkes and Admiral Herbert were sent to Wuhan to open a trading port
37.
United States Navy
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The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U. S. Navy is the largest, most capable navy in the world, the U. S. Navy has the worlds largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two in the reserve fleet, and three new carriers under construction. The service has 323,792 personnel on duty and 108,515 in the Navy Reserve. It has 274 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of October 2016, the U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. It played a role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy. It played the role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, which is headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is an admiral and the senior naval officer of the Department of the Navy. The CNO may not be the highest ranking officer in the armed forces if the Chairman or the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, the United States Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States. The Navys three primary areas of responsibility, The preparation of naval forces necessary for the prosecution of war. The development of aircraft, weapons, tactics, technique, organization, U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is to prepare and conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest, as part of that establishment, the U. S. Navys functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to sealift duties. It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, the Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors, captains, and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia, the establishment of a national navy was an issue of debate among the members of the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy, then the worlds preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships, and reported the captures to the Congress
38.
Battle of Midway
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The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Military historian John Keegan called it the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare, the Japanese hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U. S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific. Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall strategy to extend Japans defensive perimeter. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, the plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. Most significantly, American cryptographers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, the Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal Campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War. Because of this, preliminary planning for a phase of operations commenced as early as January 1942. Admiral Yamamoto finally succeeded in winning the struggle with a thinly veiled threat to resign. Yamamotos primary strategic goal was the elimination of Americas carrier forces and this, and other successful hit-and-run raids by American carriers in the South Pacific, showed that they were still a threat, although seemingly reluctant to be drawn into an all-out battle. Yamamoto reasoned that another air attack on the main U. S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor would induce all of the American fleet to sail out to fight, including the carriers. Instead, Yamamoto selected Midway, a tiny atoll at the extreme northwest end of the Hawaiian Island chain and this meant that Midway was outside the effective range of almost all of the American aircraft stationed on the main Hawaiian islands. In addition to serving as a base, Midways airstrips also served as a forward staging point for bomber attacks on Wake Island. Typical of Japanese naval planning during World War II, Yamamotos battle plan for taking Midway was exceedingly complex and it required the careful and timely coordination of multiple battle groups over hundreds of miles of open sea. His design was predicated on optimistic intelligence suggesting that USS Enterprise and USS Hornet. During the Battle of the Coral Sea one month earlier, USS Lexington had been sunk, however, following hasty repairs at Pearl Harbor, Yorktown sortied and would go on to play a critical role in the discovery and eventual destruction of the Japanese fleet carriers at Midway. Yamamoto felt deception would be required to lure the U. S. fleet into a compromised situation. To this end, he dispersed his forces so that their full extent would be concealed from the Americans prior to battle, critically, Yamamotos supporting battleships and cruisers trailed Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumos carrier force by several hundred miles. What Yamamoto did not know was that the U. S. had broken the main Japanese naval code and his emphasis on dispersal also meant none of his formations were in a position to support each other. By contrast, Yamamoto and Kondo had between two light carriers, five battleships, four heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers, none of which would see action at Midway
39.
Rear admiral
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Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the admiral ranks, in many navies it is referred to as a two-star rank. It originated from the days of naval sailing squadrons and can trace its origins to the Royal Navy, each naval squadron would be assigned an admiral as its head, who would command from the centre vessel and direct the activities of the squadron. The admiral would in turn be assisted by a vice admiral and this has survived into the modern age, with the rank of rear admiral the most-junior of the admiralty ranks of many navies. In some European navies, and in the Canadian Forces French rank translations, in the German Navy the rank is known as Konteradmiral, superior to the flotilla admiral. In the Royal Netherlands Navy, this rank is known as schout-bij-nacht, denoting the role junior to the squadron admiral, the Royal Australian Navy maintains a rank of rear admiral, refer to Australian Defence Force ranks and insignia. Since the mid-1990s, the insignia of a Royal Australian Navy rear admiral is the Crown of St. Edward above a crossed sword and baton, like the Royal Navy version, the sword is a traditional naval cutlass. The stars have eight points, unlike the four pointed Order of the Bath stars used by the army, prior to 1995, the RAN shoulder board was identical to the Royal Navy shoulder board. The Royal Navy shoulder board changed again in 2001 and the Australian, rear Admiral Robyn Walker AM, RAN became the first female admiral in the Royal Australian Navy when she was appointed Surgeon-General of the Australian Defence Force on 16 December 2011. In the Royal Canadian Navy, the rank of rear-admiral is the Navy rank equivalent to major-general of the Army, a rear-admiral is a flag officer, the naval equivalent of a general officer. A rear-admiral is senior to a commodore and brigadier-general, and junior to a vice-admiral and lieutenant-general, the service dress features a wide strip of gold braid around the cuff and, since June 2010, above it a narrower strip of gold braid embellished with the executive curl. On the visor of the cap are two rows of gold oak leaves. Konteradmiral is an OF-7 two-star rank equivalent to the Generalmajor in the German Army, see also The Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard is the naval component of the Military of Guyana. As such, the ranks of the Coast Guard are naval ranks similar to the practice in the respective Coast Guards of Jamaica and Trinidad, the rank of rear admiral was first awarded to chief of staff commodore Gary Best on August 19,2013. The rank insignia consists of two silver pips with green highlights, beneath a crossed sword and baton, all surmounted by the gold-colored Caciques crown with red, the Indian Navy also maintains a rear admiral rank senior to commodore and captain ranks and junior to vice admiral ranks. The rank insignia for a rear-admiral is two stars beneath crossed sword and baton, all surmounted by Emblem of India, worn on shoulder boards, before Islamic Revolution The Iranian Imperial Navy. After Islamic Revolution The Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, also known as the Iranian Navy, a rear admiral in the Pakistani Navy is a senior and two-star rank naval officer, appointed in higher naval commands. Like most Commonwealth navies, the rear admiral rank is superior to commodore, however, the rank is junior to the three-star rank vice-admiral and four-star rank admiral, who is generally a Chief of Naval Staff of the Navy
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New Georgia
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New Georgia is the largest island of the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. With an area of 2,037 km2, it is the 200th largest island in the world, New Georgia island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most of the other larger islands in the province. About 72 km long, it part of the southern boundary of the New Georgia Sound. Kolombangara lies across the Kula Gulf to the west, Vangunu is to the east, the island is rugged and heavily forested. The central part of New Georgia is the cradle of Roviana culture, a large complex of Bao megalithic shrines and other structures was developed in the 13th century AD. Later, between the 15th and 17th centuries Roviana people moved over to smaller islands at New Georgia with a hub in Nusa Roviana. Through trade and head hunting expeditions, Nusa Roviana turned into the centre of power. In the late 19th century the rule of the last chief of head hunters, the Methodist Mission in New Georgia was established by Rev. John Frances Goldie in 1902. He dominated the mission and gained the loyalty of Solomon Islander members of his church, from 1927 to 1934 Dr Edward Sayers worked at the Methodist mission where he established a hospital at Munda and carried out fieldwork in the treatment of malaria. During Pacific War, the United States New Georgia Campaign opened with landings on New Georgia, New Georgia was secured by American forces on 23 August, after weeks of difficult and bloody jungle fighting, although fighting continued on some nearby islands until October 1943. Munda, the Japanese base on New Georgia Island, was the objective of the assault on the island. This base was not overrun until 5 August 1943, the Japanese port at Bairoko Harbor,13 km north of Munda, was not taken until 25 August. Donald Gilbert Kennedy was a Coast watcher stationed at Segi on New Georgia during the Solomon Islands campaign during the Pacific War, toto isu/NguzuNguzu, War Canoe Prow Figureheads from the Western District, Solomon Islands
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Marine Raiders
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However, despite the original intent for Raiders to serve in a special operations capacity, most combat operations saw the Raiders employed as conventional infantry. This, combined with the resentment within the rest of the Marine Corps that the Raiders were a force within an elite force. Four Raider battalions served operationally but all were disbanded on 8 January 1944 when the Corps made the decision that the Raiders had outlived their original mission. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th Raider Battalions became respectively the 1st, 3rd, the 2nd Raider Battalion filled out the regimental weapons company. Personnel in the Raider Training Center transferred to the newly formed 5th Marine Division, leavened with new men, the 4th Marines went on to earn additional distinctions in the assaults on Guam and Okinawa. At the close of the war, the regiment joined the forces in Japan. In 2014, the Marine Special Operations Regiment, serving under the United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, was renamed the Marine Raider Regiment. This change was implemented to show that modern Marine special operations forces trace their lineage and heritage back to the World War II Raiders. Individual marines of the Marine Raider Regiment are once again called Marine Raiders, One of the deficiencies of the Fleet Marine Force was a lack of fast transport ships that could keep up with a Naval fleet. With the start of World War II in 1939, a group was formed to come up with a solution that could be rapidly implemented, the group found a large number of destroyers built for the First World War that were in the mothball fleet. These destroyers had four boilers and four smoke stacks and were fast enough to keep up with the fleet, the group discovered that by removing two boilers and smoke stacks room could be found to quarter a company of 130 Marines who would be landed by inflatable boats. These high speed transports were named APDs by the Navy, the APDs later had four Higgins boats attached to them. In February 1941 one company from each battalion of the recently formed 7th Marines were designated Provisional Rubber Boat Companies, after the exercise, General Holland Smith assigned the APDs and rubber boat function to the 1st Battalion 5th Marines. With America thrust into the war, the President became interested in creating an American counterpart to the British Commandos, indeed, the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division initially proposed the name Marine Commandos. General Holcomb redesignated the 1st Battalion 5th Marines as the 1st Separate Battalion, the commandant selected the term Raiders and created two battalions. The 1st Raider Battalion was activated on 16 February 1942, followed by the 2nd Raider Battalion on February 19, Carlson was given a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and placed in command of the 2nd Raiders, and Lt. Col. Merritt A. Red Mike Edson, command of the 1st, the Raiders were created by an order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, acting on proposals from Colonel William J. Donovan and Major Evans F. Carlson. Carlson resigned from the Marines to speak to American businessmen to warn them against providing materials to Japan, Carlson rejoined the Marines in April 1941, gaining a commission from the Commandant as a reserve major
42.
Allies of World War II
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The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese, at the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, and dependent states, such as the British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland was a minor factor after its defeat in 1939, France was a minor factor after its defeat in 1940. China had already been into a war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942, however, the name United Nations was rarely used to describe the Allies during the war. The leaders of the Big Three – the UK, the Soviet Union, in 1945, the Allied nations became the basis of the United Nations. The origins of the Allied powers stem from the Allies of World War I, Germany resented signing Treaty of Versailles. The new Weimar republics legitimacy became shaken, by the early 1930s, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the dominant revanchist movement in Germany and Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933. The Nazi regime demanded the cancellation of the Treaty of Versailles and made claims to German-populated Austria. The likelihood of war was high, and the question was whether it could be avoided through strategies such as appeasement, in Asia, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, the League of Nations condemned it for aggression against China. Japan responded by leaving the League of Nations in March 1933, after four quiet years, the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japanese forces invading China. The League of Nations condemned Japans actions and initiated sanctions on Japan, the United States, in particular, was angered at Japan and sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement signed six months before, Britain and France decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war. On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert a German attack on the country, also, the French had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921. The Soviet Union sought an alliance with the powers. The agreement secretly divided the independent nations of eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for the German war machine, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Then, on 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, a Polish government-in-exile was set up and it continued to be one of the Allies, a model followed by other occupied countries. After a quiet winter, Germany in April 1940 invaded and quickly defeated Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Britain and its Empire stood alone against Hitler and Mussolini
43.
6th Marine Division (United States)
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The 6th Marine Division was a United States Marine Corps World War II infantry division formed in September 1944. During the invasion of Okinawa it saw combat at Yae-Take and Sugar Loaf Hill and was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, the 6th Division had also prepared for the invasion of Japan before the war ended. The 6th Marine Division was formed on Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands on September 7,1944, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 29th Marines disembarked from the United States on 1 August 1944, and landed on Guadalcanal on 7 September 1944 to further stand-up the Division. The Divisions initial objectives in the landing was the capture of Yontan Airfield while protecting the left Flank. Despite a Japanese battalion in their zone the Division met only light resistance and by the 3rd day was approaching Iskhikawa, by 14 April, the division had swept all through the northern Ishikawa Isthmus –55 miles from the original landings. The divisions rapid advance continued until eventually they encountered prepared and dug-in defenders at Yae-Take, after heavy fighting in the south, the division was ordered to replace the Army 27th Infantry Division on the western flank. The 6th division advanced south to partake in the assault against the strong Japanese defense line, called the Shuri Line, the Shuri Line was located in hills that were honeycombed with caves and passages, and the Marines had to traverse the hills to cross the line. The division was ordered to capture the Sugar Loaf Hill Complex,3 hills which formed the anchor of the Shuri Line defense. The Marines that had assaulted the line were attacked by heavy Japanese mortar and artillery fire, after a week of fighting, the hill had been taken. The battle on Okinawa ended on 21 June 1945, for its actions at Okinawa, the 6th Marine Division earned a Presidential Unit Citation. The citation reads, For extraordinary heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces during the assault and capture of Okinawa, the 6th Division had 2 commanders during its short existence, Major General Lemuel C. McQueen, Nov.1944 -1 Apr, colonel McQueen, also known as JG bought a jaguar kitten in the market of Nicaragua and named him Bill. Bill sat on JGs satttle as he lead the troops on horseback through the jungles of Nicaragua and he slept at the foot of JGs bed until he met his demise whe he was caught hunting the neighbors chickens at night. Washington DC, United States Army Center of Military History, full text online Cass, Bevan G. ed. History of the Sixth Marine Division, 1st Edition published by Infantry Journal Press, Washington, DC. 1987 reprint published by Battery Press, Nashville, TN Fisch Jr, United States Army Center of Military History. Huber, Thomas M. Japans Battle of Okinawa, April–June 1945, United States Army Command and General Staff College. Archived from the original on April 30,2008, stay off the Skyline, The Sixth Marine Division on Okinawa, An Oral History
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Thirty-Second Army (Japan)
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The Japanese 32nd Army was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army during the final stages of World War II. It was annihilated during the Battle of Okinawa, the Japanese 32nd Army had 77,000 men plus the 10,000 man Okinawa Naval Base Force and 42,000 Okinawan conscripts. However, many of its personnel were poorly trained reservists, conscripted students and it was annihilated during the Battle of Okinawa from April to June,1945. Gugeler, Russel A. and Stevens, John, Gerald, washington DC, United States Army Center of Military History. CS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Astor, Gerald, operation Iceberg, The Invasion and Conquest of Okinawa in World War II. The Battle of Okinawa, The Blood and the Bomb, downfall, The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945, the Pacific War Companion, From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima
45.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
Empire of Japan
Imperial Japanese Navy
