First established on 28 December 1903, the 3rd Fleet was created by the Imperial General Headquarters as an administrative unit to manage vessels considered obsolete for front-line combat service.
The buildup took the form of three separate expeditionary fleets, consisting primarily of cruisers and gunboats to patrol the Chinese coast and major riverways and to support the landings of Japanese ground forces.
It was disbanded on 15 November 1939; however, some of the organizational and command structures for ground forces under the First China Expeditionary Fleet remained in place until August 1943.
At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, its headquarters was in Palau and its mission expanded to include the invasions of Java, Borneo and other islands of the Netherlands East Indies.
It played an important role during the Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Santa Cruz, in which the American aircraft carrier Hornet was sunk, but at the cost of many of the best air crews in the Japanese Navy.
In October 1944, the 3rd Fleet was designated the "Northern Force" in a three-force plan to defeat the Allied invasion of the Japanese-held Philippines.