Destroyers - USA: boeken - historie, typen en inzet

USN Fleet Destroyer vs IJN Fleet Submarine : The Pacific 1941-42

Leading up to the Pacific War, Japanese naval strategists believed that a decisive fleet engagement would be fought against the United States Navy. Outnumbered by the USN, the Imperial Japanese Navy planned to use its large, ocean-going submarines to chip away at its opponent before the grand battle.
In order to accomplish this, the IJN's submarine force was tasked to perform extended reconnaissance of the USN's battle fleet, even in port, and then shadow and attack it.
For their part, the USN was fully aware of the potential threat posed by Japanese submarines, and destroyer crews were trained and equipped with modern anti-submarine weapons and tactics to screen the battle fleet.

Challenging the assumption that Japanese submarines were ineffective during the Pacific War, this fully illustrated study examines their encounters with the US Navy, and the successes and failures of American destroyers in protecting their capital ships.

USN Destroyer vs IJN Destroyer - The Pacific, 1943

This book covers the fierce night naval battles fought between the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during late 1943 as the Allies advanced slowly up the Solomons Islands toward the major Japanese naval base at Rabaul. During this period, several vicious actions were fought featuring the most modern destroyers of both navies.

Throughout most of 1942, the Imperial Navy had held a marked edge and a key ingredient of these successes was their destroyer force, which combined superior training and tactics with the most capable torpedo in the world. Even into 1943 mixed Allied light cruiser/destroyer forces were roughly handled by Japanese destroyers.

After these battles, the Americans decided to stop chasing Japanese destroyers with cruisers so the remainder of the battles in 1943 (with one exception) were classic destroyer duels.
The Americans still enjoyed the technical edge provided to them by radar, and now added new, more aggressive tactics. The final result was the defeat of the Imperial Navy's finely trained destroyer force and the demonstration that the Japanese were unable to stop the Allies' advance.

US Navy Destroyer Escorts of World War II

The Destroyer Escort was the smallest ocean- going escort built for the United States Navy - a downsized destroyer with less speed, fewer guns, and fewer torpedoes than its big brother, the fleet destroyer. Destroyer escorts first went into production because the Royal Navy needed an escort warship which was larger than a corvette, but which could be built faster than a destroyer. Lacking the shipyards to build these types of ships in Britain, they ordered them in the US.

Once the US unexpectedly entered World War II, its navy suddenly also needed more escort warships, even warships less capable than destroyers, and the destroyer escort was reluctantly picked to fill the gap. Despite the Navy's initial reservations, these ships did yeoman service during World War II, fighting in both the Atlantic and Pacific, taking on both U-boat and Japanese submarines and serving as the early warning pickets against kamikazes later in the war.
They also participated in such dramatic actions as the Battle of Samar (where a group of destroyers and destroyer escorts fought Japanese battleships and cruisers to protect the escort carriers they were shielding) and the capture of the U-505 (the only major naval vessel captured at sea by the US Navy).

The destroyer escorts soldiered on after World War II in both the United States Navy and a large number of navies throughout the world, with several serving into the twenty-first century. This book tells the full story of these plucky ships, from their design and development to their service around the world, complete with stunning illustrations and contemporary photographs.