during the russo-japanese war, the bulk of the russian baltic fleet was renamed the "second pacific squadron", and set sail under the command of admiral zinovy rozhestvensky on an epic journey to relieve the russian pacific fleet, trapped at the battle of port arthur by the imperial japanese navy. largely for political reasons, calls were made for a "third pacific squadron", consisting of mostly obsolete cruisers and coastal defence battleship to supplement the second pacific squadron. realizing that the ships were highly unsuited for the task, and faced with untrained crews, a number of russian admirals refused the command; however, nebogatov accepted the challenge. despite several incidents of sabotage by pro-revolutionary or anarchist elements within the crews, nebogatov sailed in february 1905 with the old battleship (as flagship), cruiser , and coastal-defense battleships , , and , as well as numerous transport ships. the squadron passed through the suez canal and crossed the indian ocean to rendezvous with the second pacific squadron at cam ranh bay, french indochina. rozhestvensky, who had opposed the sailing of the third pacific squadron from the beginning, did not share with him his future strategy and routing even at this late date, and also neglected to advise him of the death of admiral dmitry von fölkersam on may 24, an event which effectively made nebogatov second-in-command of the fleet after rozhestvensky.