1942: The submarine HMS Torbay, under Commander Anthony Miers, followed an Axis convoy and succeeded in penetrating the heavily defended anchorage at Corfu.

Torbay proceeded to fire torpedoes at two large transports and a destroyer - both transports were reported sunk - then retreated out to sea under very heavy depth charge attack. Torbay escaped successfully, and Miers was awarded the Victoria Cross for the exploit. His citation reads:

Lieutenant Commander Anthony Cecil Chapel Miers DSO Royal Navy Whilst on patrol in HM Submarine Torbay off the Greek coast on the 4th March 1942. Lieutenant Commander Miers sighted a northbound convoy of four troopships entering the South Corfu Channel and since they had been too far distant for him to attack initially, he decided to follow in the hope of catching them in Corfu Harbour. During the night 4/5 March, Torbay approached undetected up the channel and remained on the surface charging her battery. Unfortunately the convoy passed straight through the channel but on the morning of the 5th March, in glassy sea conditions, Miers successfully attacked two store ships present in the roadstead and then brought Torbay safely back to the open sea. The submarine endured 40 depth charges and had been in closely patrolled enemy waters for seventeen hours

Miers later achieved the rank of Rear Admiral but remained a controversial figure after two incidents earlier in the war that took place while commanding HMS Torbay.

In November 1940 he was given command of HM Submarine Torbay. He sailed on his first offensive patrol in March 1941 to hunt for the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, then continued to Gibraltar, then Alexandria, to join 1st Flotilla. Miers' first patrol from Alexandria in July 1941 featured two incidents which gave rise to the accusation of war crimes.

The Admiralty then sent a strongly worded letter to Miers advising him not to repeat the practices of his last patrol

1943: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was fought with a Japanese convoy of 12 transports and 10 warships bound for New Guinea. The convoy was destroyed by Allied land based aircraft

The March 4, 1943, entry in the diary of Lowell Thomas, the famous radio newscaster, was typically succinct:

From the coast of New Britain to the coast of New Guinea, the waters are strewn with the wreckage of Japanese ships and airplanes. the battle of the Bismarck Sea was spectacular victory.

Japanese losses totalled:
8 transports and 4 destroyers sunk
20 fighters destroyed
3,000-5,000 troops killed

Allied losses in comparison were 2 bombers and 3 fighters lost.

The brilliantly conceived and executed operation had smashed Japanese hopes of regaining the initiative in New Guinea and eliminated any possibility Australia might be invaded. But there was still a 'terrible yet essential finale' to come.

For several days after the battle allied aircrews patrolled the Huon Gulf, searching for and strafing barges and rafts crowded with survivors. It was grim and bloody work which many found nauseating, but as one RAAF Beaufighter pilot said, every enemy they prevented from getting ashore was one less for their Army colleagues to face. And after fifteen months of Japanese brutality, the great immorality, it seemed to them, would have been to have ignored the rights of their soldiers