Entering service between 1937 and 1939, the ten British “Town” class cruisers were the most modern vessels of their type in the Royal Navy when World War II began. Built in response to large 6-inch gunned cruisers in the U.S. and Japanese navies and primarily designed for the defense of trade, they saw arduous service in a wide range of ...
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British Town Class Cruisers
"Southampton and Belfast Classes: Design, Development and Performance"
Available Formats: Hardcover
Cruiser Birmingham
Detailed in the Original Builders' Plans
The technical details of British warships were recorded in a set of plans produced by the builders on completion of every ship. Known as the “as fitted” general arrangements, these drawings documented the exact appearance and fitting of the ship as it entered service.
Today these plans form part of the incomparable collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
In the Teeth of the Wind
Memoir of the Royal Naval Air Service in the First World War
The dawning of aerial warfare is fully recounted in this dramatic memoir of the first bomber squadron mission of the Royal Navy Air Service over the Western Front. The author recounts his own extraordinary 101 missions, including the operation that very nearly decided the war.
Available Formats: Hardcover
Strategic Theories
Admiral Raoul Castex is France’s most important modern naval strategist. Military historian Eugenia Kiesling offers the essence of Castex’s original five volume study, Théories Stratégiques, in a useful one-volume abridgment and a very readable translation. It emphasizes the admiral’s method of strategic analysis while omitting most of the historical narrative. Included are chapters defining strategy and relating it to policy ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Atlantic Escorts
"Ships, Weapons and Tactics in World War II"
Winston Churchill famously claimed that the submarine war in the Atlantic was the only campaign of the World War II that really frightened him. If the lifeline to North America had been cut, Britain would never have survived; there could have been no build-up of U.S. and Commonwealth forces, no D-Day landings, and no victory in western Europe. Furthermore, the battle raged from the first day of the ...
Available Formats: Softcover
The Royal Navy
An Illustrated History
The Royal Navy's long and glorious tradition of service to Britain is covered in this fascinating, illustrated history—from the age of empire, when it was the most powerful navy in the world, through two world wars, to its present status as a vital part of the NATO alliance.
Available Formats: Hardcover
British Fiji Class Cruisers and their Derivatives
The Fiji-class, often called the “Colony” class, cruisers were a class of eleven light cruisers of the Royal Navy that saw extensive service throughout World War II. They were an attempt to incorporate the characteristics of the preceding “Town” class within the reduced 8,000-ton limit agreed under the 1936 London Treaty. In general layout, Colony class resembled the earlier ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
Knight of the North Atlantic
"Baron Siegfried von Forstner and the War Patrols of U-402, 1941-1943"
Born of an aristocratic military family, with a tradition of U-boat service, Baron Siegfried von Forstner, the U-boat's captain, served without the pretentiousness of title, even after winning the Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross). He fought the war like a knight of old, with a defined code of chivalry, as he dueled with escorts, went to the aid of fellow U-boats, and ...
Available Formats: Hardcover
Atlantic Escorts
"Ships, Weapons and Tactics in World War II"
Winston Churchill famously claimed that the submarine war in the Atlantic was the only campaign of the World War II that really frightened him. If the lifeline to North America had been cut, Britain would never have survived; there could have been no build-up of U.S. and Commonwealth forces, no D-Day landings, and no victory in western Europe. Furthermore, the battle raged from the first day of the ...
Available Formats: Softcover
Total Undersea War
"The Evolutionary Role of the Snorkel in Donitz's U-boat Fleet, 1944-1945"
During the last year of World War II the once surface-bound diesel-electric U-boat ushered in the age of ‘total undersea war’ with the introduction of an air mast, or 'snorkel' as it became known among the men who served in Dönitz's submarine fleet. U-boats no longer needed to surface to charge batteries or refresh air; they rarely communicated with their ...
Available Formats: Hardcover