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A US destroyer intercepted a hijacked Israeli-managed oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden earlier today, freed the crew, and took the Houthi pirates into custody. My colleague Jeff Charles covered the piracy in this post, High Seas Drama: Another Israeli Tanker Seized by Unidentified Attackers Near Yemen.Shortly after dawn local time, the Central Park, a small Liberian-flagged oil and chemical tanker managed by an Israeli company registered in London, sent a distress call saying it was being boarded by armed men. The USS Mason, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was operating in the area. According to reports, the Mason directed...

Japan is back in the business of operating a fixed-wing aircraft carrier, with the first embarkation of short takeoff and vertical-landing F-35B stealth jets from the U.S. Marine Corps on the modified helicopter carrier Izumo. It is the first instance of the country operating fixed-wing aircraft from ships since the end of World War II. The trials are set to kickstart a new era for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, or JMSDF, which has long harbored ambitions to adapt its two 24,000-ton Izumo class helicopter carriers for fixed-wing operations. The Japanese Ministry of Defense announced today that the Marine Corps...

The world's deepest known shipwreck, a World War II US Navy destroyer, has been fully mapped and filmed by a US-based crew. The Johnston was captained by Cmdr. Ernest Evans, a Native American from Oklahoma. Along with two other US destroyers and four smaller destroyer escorts, Evans led the Johnston in attacking a far superior Japanese force ... ...After two-and-a-half hours of fighting, the Johnston was without power and surrounded by Japanese ships....

Japan on Tuesday unveiled its biggest warship since World War II, a huge flat-top destroyer that has raised eyebrows in China and elsewhere because it bears a strong resemblance to a conventional aircraft carrier. The ship, which has a flight deck that is nearly 250 meters (820 feet) long, is designed to carry up to 14 helicopters. Japanese officials say it will be used in national defense — particularly in anti-submarine warfare and border-area surveillance missions — and to bolster the nation’s ability to transport personnel and supplies in response to large-scale natural disasters, like the devastating earthquake and tsunami...

North Korea seems to have put its missiles away for now, but Japan’s conservative government wants the option to blast them away the next time they’re pointed in Tokyo’s direction. It’s a satisfying idea, but maybe not a good one. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is compiling a new set of defense guidelines that would allow Japan’s armed forces, for the first time, to develop offensive capability, and to strike first if an attack appears imminent. Under Japan’s strictly pacifist constitution, the Self Defense Force is restricted to weaponry and tactics that are deemed defensive in nature. That means no...

In late December 1941, Navy Secretary Frank Knox and FDR met and selected Chester Nimitz to command the Pacific Fleet now mostly at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt said, “Tell Nimitz to get the hell out to Pearl and stay there until the war is won”. Knox informed Nimitz by saying, “You’re going to take command of the Pacific Fleet, and I think you will be gone a long time”. On Christmas Day 1941 Admiral Chester Nimitz arrived by Catalina flying boat to take command. When the door opened he was assailed by a poisonous atmosphere from black oil,...

On Sunday near Okinawa, the Japanese navy spotted two Chinese warships sailing south into the Pacific. The Chinese vessels were in international waters, but their proximity to Okinawa, which hosts a preponderance of U.S. and Japanese military forces, alarmed Tokyo. As a courtesy, navies traditionally announce their routine cruises in advance, particularly when one nation's ships might pass close to another's territory. Sunday's infraction of that protocol was not the first for China. Just three months prior, two Japanese warships patrolling around Okinawa had discovered an unannounced flotilla of at least 10 Chinese vessels, including two submarines. During the encounter,...

Rumors that the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's third "aircraft carrying destroyer" would mark a major improvement in size and capability over the Hyuga class ships now entering service have been confirmed. The new 22DDH will be 248 meters long and 39 meters in beam, and displace more than 24,000 tons. This makes her almost 50 percent larger than the Hyuga class and places an unbearable semantic strain on the use of the term "destroyer" to describe these ships. To put the size of the ship into context, she is comparable with a World War II Essex-class fleet carrier. Illustrations of...

Japan plans to establish a $40 million strategic naval base in the Horn of Africa state of Djibouti, where U.S. and French forces are deployed to combat al-Qaida jihadists. The facility, intended to boost the fight against Somali pirates preying on vital shipping lanes, will be Japan's first foreign military base since World War II. "This will be the only Japanese base outside our country and the first in Africa," said Japanese navy Capt. Keizo Kitagawa, commander of the Japanese flotilla deployed with the international anti-piracy task force in the Gulf of Aden. He will oversee establishment of the base....

The government believes the Chinese fleet that sailed between Okinawa Island and Miyakojima island last week indicated once again that the Chinese Navy is increasing its efforts to expand the range of its operations. On Saturday, a fleet of 10 Chinese vessels, including two submarines, was spotted in international waters sailing between the two islands. As a result, the government is closely monitoring China's maritime activities in the area. In the PLA Daily, the Chinese People's Liberation Army described the navy's latest action as an exercise designed to deploy its warships in distant waters. According to the Self-Defense Forces' Joint...

A salvage team has just weeks left to find wrecked turtle ships deep in the mud It was probably Korea’s greatest ever naval disaster. Ten thousand Korean sailors were killed on July 16, 1597 in the seas around Chilcheon Island off the coast of South Gyeongsang when 500 Japanese warships launched a surprise attack. Korea also lost five to seven geobukseon, or turtle ships, ironclad vessels shaped like a turtle, and 160 panokseon, another type of battleship. It was Korea’s only recorded naval defeat during its seven-year-long war with the Japanese between 1592 and 1598. No authentic examples of geobukseon...

Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold bloodBy NIGEL BLUNDELL - More by this author » Last updated at 17:53pm on 3rd November 2007  The perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War remain alive and unpunished in Japan, according to a damning new book.  Painstaking research by British historian Mark Felton reveals that the wartime behaviour of the Japanese Navy was far worse than their counterparts in Hitler's Kriegsmarine. According to Felton, officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than 20,000...

Rattled by China's development of the Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea, the government is setting up a task force to ensure Japan's vast ocean interests are protected. The task force comprising officials from various ministries and agencies will be in place this month and operate with a focus on Okinotorishima island, Japan's southernmost point. Located more than 1,600 kilometers south of the capital, the island is part of the Ogasawara chain and comes under the jurisdiction of Tokyo. Actually, the island is two tiny islets: but its location gives Japan a huge advantage. The exclusive economic zone...