ADMIRAL TOGO

Many have wondered how a nation as small and poor as Japan managed to produce a fleet which, by 1941, stood ready to challenge the world to battle. Here, partially, is the answer. This biography of Japan's first naval hero of modern times is an account of her astonishingly swift industrialization as well. It begins with the insular, medieval world into which Togo was born in 1848, a world just beginning to collapse under the pressures of western expansion. Togo's training and early fights with the Chinese at sea are paralleled with his country's growth and change. When Togo, as chief of the fleet which destroyed Russian sea power off Port Arthur in 1904, returns to Japan a hero, he returns to a nation turned overnight into a major power. The account of all this is excellent, and should be read by any student of the Far East.