Tsushima Strait
Categories: Straits | Geography of Japan
Tsushima Strait (対馬海峡, also known in Western historical reference works as the Tsu Shima Strait or Tsu-Shima Strait) is that part of the Korea Strait located east and south of the Tsushima Islands.
The Korea strait lies between Korea and Japan, connecting the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and the East China Sea. The Tsushima Strait is the broader eastern channel to the east and southeast of Tsushima Island, with the Japanese islands of Honshu to the east and northeast, and Kyushu and the Gotō-rettō Archipelago to the south and southeast. It is narrowest south-east of Shimono-shima, the south end of Tsushima Island proper, constricted there by nearby Iki Island, which lies wholly in the strait near the tip of Honshu. South of that point Japan's Inland Sea mingles its waters through the narrow Kanmon Strait between Honshu and Kyushu, with the those of the Tsushima Strait, making for some of the busiest sea lanes in the world.
Geography
The Strait measures approximately 60 miles (97 kilometres) along Tsushima Island and 40 miles (64 kilometres) wide at its narrowest. The strait has a depth of about 90 metres and is bounded by the Tsushima Islands to the west through north (of Gotō-rettō archipelago). Nearby Iki Island lies in the strait about 50 kilometres towards Kyushu from the southern tip of Kamino-shima (South Island).
The Tsushima Current, a warm branch of the Kuroshio (Japan Current) passes through the strait. Originating along the Japanese islands, this current passes through the Sea of Japan then divides along either shore of Sakhalin Island; eventually flowing into the Northern Pacific Ocean via the Strait north of Hokkaido and into the Sea of Okhotsk north of Sakhalin Island near Vladivostok.
A commercial ferry service operates between Shimonoseki at the western tip of Honshu and Busan (aka Pusan), South Korea. Another operates between Shimonoseki and Tsushima Island. The Cities of Kitakyushu (Kyushu) and Shimonoseki (Honshu) are joined by an ocean-spanning bridge across the Kanmon Strait joining those cities with Nagasaki, which latter city serves as prefecture-level capital and administers both Tsushima and Iki Island. Kanamon Strait lies approximately 85 miles (135 [[km]) due east of the center of Tsushima Island, while Nagasaki city proper lies about 100 miles (165 km) to the south-south-east of the southern tip of the island.
Historic Impact
Historically these narrows (i.e., the whole Korea Strait) served as a highway for high-risk voyages (Korea to the Tsushima Islands to Iki Island to the western tip of Honshu) for cultural exchange between Japan and Korea. Japan periodically sent year long embassies to the court of the Chinese, deliberately trying to learn from the great empire to the west (after the Americans and Europeans breached Japan's isolationism, they repeated this unusual and deliberate process to learn from western nations from about 1860). The straits also occasionally served as an invasion path, in both directions. For example, archeologists believe the first migrations of the Mongoloid race traveled across to Honshu around the 8th century BCE, and Buddhism was transmitted from Baekje to Japan over this strait long before sea going ships were available. Iki to Kamino-shima, the southern end of the large island of Tsushima is about 50 kilometres. Busan (Korea), to the Northern tip of Tsushima, about the same across the western side of the Korea Strait. These were tremendous distances to attempt in small boats over open seas.
The Mongolian invasion of Japan crossed this sea and ravaged the Tsushima Islands before the kamikaze (神風) – usually translated as "divine wind" – a typhoon that is said to have saved Japan from a Mongol invasion fleet led by Kublai Khan in 1281. The Japanese Armed Forces have attacked Korea and beyond through it on several occasions.
But the reason the strait is famous is that one of the most decisive naval battles of modern times, the Battle of Tsushima, fought on May 27 and May 28, 1905 took place there due east of the north part of Tsushima and due north of Iki Island (shown in red on the second map) between the Japanese and Russian navies in 1905; the Russian fleet was virtually destroyed by the Japanese. This decisive result was to affect Naval planners and Fleet Admirals for the next forty years with a type of tunnel vision such that national and naval leaders were continuallly looking for the chance or to create that set of circumstances which would lead to a similar decisive major fleet engagement— while ignoring objective realities such as the new and eventually overwhelming ability of air power to devestate and neutralize the big gun ship. Even brilliant strategests such as Britains Admiral Sir John Jelicoe (Battle of Jutland) and air power enthusiastists and supporters like Japans Combined Fleet Commanding Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Battle of Midway), or a tactician like American Vice-Admiral William 'Bull' Halsey (Battle of Leyte Gulf) fell prey to the 'Big Fleet Battle Theory', consequently ignoring other tactical realities with an over focus on 'The Big Score'; an idealization which eluded all.