ABSTRACT
At first sight the Royal Navy is an unlikely candidate for inclusion in a volume dedicated to the exploration, examination and analysis of what is termed ‘Small Navies’. However, as the conference that gave birth to this book discussed at some length, ‘small’ is purely a relative term, it has no absolute measuring scale of tonnage or hull numbers. Indeed as this chapter will demonstrate, not even a reduced list of capabilities is a prerequisite for categorising a Small Navy. Small is a comparison to something else, in this case the United States Navy (USN) during the last eighteen months of the Second World War in the Pacific. As such the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) can in some ways be regarded as a prime example of a Small Navy. In tonnage and hull numbers it was clearly very small in comparison. Probably much more importantly, it is an excellent example of how to not only become a Small Navy but also wield influence as one.
