Following Japan’s surprise attack at Port Arthur, the Russo-Japanese war did not go well for Russia. Its surviving capital ships fought minimal sea engagements in the neighboring waters with only limited success. Japan invaded Korea and laid siege to Port Arthur. As Russia struggled to stay in the conflict, a major problem was supplying its ships and armies by rail across the expanse of Siberia. By January 1905, Port Arthur, along with the remaining ships of Russia’s First Pacific Squadron, fell to the Japanese. A horrific land battle followed at Mukden (now Shenyang), China, with upwards of 35,000 killed and 100,000 wounded on both sides. Another 20,000 Russian troops were captured as the Russian army abandoned the field and made a disorganized retreat northward.

Meanwhile, in October 1904, Tsar Nicholas II dispatched his prized Baltic Fleet—now renamed the Second Pacific Squadron—halfway around the world to reenforce Port Arthur. Rear Admiral Zinovi Rozhdestvenski was in port on Madagascar when word reached him that the outpost had fallen to the Japanese. Rozhdestvenski faced a crucial decision. Should he turn around, with his only loss being pride, and return to the Baltic, or should he continue on to Vladivostok?

Rozhdestvenski chose to continue and in doing so elected to take the most direct route. This led through the South China and East China Seas and the narrow Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan. These were hardly friendly waters. Before dawn on May 27, 1905, a heavy fog parted long enough for the Japanese to detect the Russian fleet nearing the southern entrance to the strait. Crude wireless flashed the news to Admiral Togo aboard his flagship Mikasa. His fleet was waiting at a secret anchorage at Masan Bay, Korea, just to the west.

Next came the tactics that every American naval officer would subsequently study at either Annapolis or the Naval War College. Choosing to fight one grand battle that he hoped would settle the conflict and establish complete naval superiority, Togo assembled a major force. In line astern of the Mikasa, his twelve capital ships steamed south to meet the approaching Russian fleet.

Rozhdestvenski had his ships deployed in two parallel lines, with eight lesser battleships and cruisers in the port column and his four principal battleships, including his flagship, Kniaz Suvarov, to their starboard. Togo might well have chosen simply to pass the Russian fleet on its weaker port side while going in the opposite direction and duke it out with broadsides right down the line. This may have caused some damage—quite probably to both sides—but it would have left the Japanese headed south and the Russians escaping north to Vladivostok.

Instead, Togo chose to cross the T, not once but twice. In this maneuver, the Japanese line first turned to starboard and passed across the bows of the advancing Russian columns mostly beyond gun range—the first crossing. Then Togo executed a hard U-turn to port back to the east—not in unison, which would have put his flagship in the rear instead of the van, but one ship at a time. For just a moment, the Russians thought that Fortune was smiling on them. As the Mikasa led the turn, it appeared momentarily stationary, and the Suvarov opened fire. Each of the following Japanese ships would also be sitting ducks as they made the turn.

But coming out of the turn, Togo increased speed and led his fleet back across the head of the Russian columns to cross the T again, this time at much closer range and with a withering effect on the oncoming Russian ships. In so doing, the Japanese ships could bring all of their guns to bear to starboard on the Russian lines, while the Russian ships, coming on at a right angle, could bring only their forward batteries to bear. Rozhdestvenski attempted to get his four main battleships into a line ahead of his weaker ships to protect them, but by then the damage had been done.

Of the twelve capital ships in the Russian battle line, eight were sunk and four captured. While several Japanese ships sustained major damage, Togo’s only losses were three torpedo boats and 110 sailors killed. The Russians lost nearly 12,000 men, 4,830 killed and almost 7,000 taken prisoner. The end result of the Battle of Tsushima Strait was that Tsar Nicholas II had little choice but to accept Theodore Roosevelt’s offer to broker a peace. The Japanese rejoiced in their newfound naval might, and Admiral Togo became a godlike hero.⁸

King was impressed with Japan’s naval performance, but he also noted the empire’s proficiency in putting out a steady stream of propaganda claiming victory at every turn. Despite the bitter end for the Russians, the Japanese had also suffered some setbacks over the course of the eighteen-month conflict, including the loss of two battleships to mines. It was a lesson in tactics and politics that King would remember.

Once more back in the Philippines, King had been away from the United States for three years, two and a half aboard Cincinnati. He was anxious to return stateside, particularly when he found officers a year his junior being rotated home. His request was granted, and in June 1905 he headed home. He had certainly crisscrossed that part of the globe, but despite his later involvement with events there, Ernest J. King would never again have permanent duty in the Far East.⁹