In 1905 Admiral Togo, the brilliant c-in-C of the Japanese navy, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. In 1944 in the climax of the naval war in the Pacific, the American Pacific Fleet broke the back of the Japanese Nave at Leyte Gulf. The years from 1902 to 1944 saw the supremacy at sea of the surface battle fleet. In the First World War, the battleship and the battle-cruisers, destroyers and torpedo-boats, held the key to naval strategy. In the Second World War, the aircraft carrier came into its own, cruelly revealing the helplessness of the great capital ships against determined attack from the air. In Sea Battle of the 20th Century, George Bruce covers eight cricial naval engagement from Tsushima to Leyte Gulf. They include Jutland, Coral Sea and Guadalcanal, which over several months saw a series of savage long and short range engagements and the final passing of the centuries old line-of-battle tactics. There are seven supplemanetary picture spreads which cover such episodes as the escape of the Goeben and the Breslau, the hunting of the raider Emden, the Battle of the River plate and the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repusle. 180 Illustrations