Togo Heihachiro
Tōgō Heihachirō destroyed the Russian Baltic Fleet at Tsushima and became the first Asian admiral to defeat a European power at sea. Born in Satsuma in 1848 into a samurai family, he fought as a teenager in the bombardment of Kagoshima by the Royal Navy in 1863 and in the Boshin War. The new Meiji government sent him to England from 1871 for seven years. He trained on the merchant marine ship Worcester rather than at Dartmouth, which was closed to him, served aboard HMS Victor Emmanuel, studied mathematics at Cambridge, and sailed home around the world on a British-built warship. He absorbed Royal Navy practice completely. He commanded the cruiser Naniwa in the Sino-Japanese war, sinking a British-flagged transport carrying Chinese troops in an action he judged correctly under international law, and fought at the Yalu. He was given the Combined Fleet in 1903, over more senior officers. He opened the Russo-Japanese war with a night torpedo attack on Port Arthur in February 1904, blockaded the harbour, and destroyed the Russian squadron at the Yellow Sea. Russia sent its Baltic Fleet eighteen thousand miles around Africa. Tōgō waited in the Tsushima Strait, and on 27 May 1905 crossed the Russian line's T by turning his column in succession under fire — a manoeuvre that exposed him briefly and then let every gun bear. In two days the Russians lost most of their fleet and around five thousand men; Japan lost three torpedo boats. The victory ended the war and shocked Europe. He died in 1934.
- Lived: 1848 CE – 1934 CE
- Nationality: Japanese
- Roles: military_leader
