Destroyers (WW 2) - Great Britain: Books - History and Ships

British Destroyers 1939-45 : Pre-war classes

The Royal Navy entered World War II with a large but eclectic fleet of destroyers. Some of these were veterans of World War I, fit only for escort duties. Most though, had been built during the inter-war period, and were regarded as both reliable and versatile.

Danger though lurked across the seas as new destroyers being built in Germany, Italy and Japan were larger and better armoured. So, until the new, larger Tribal-class destroyers could enter service, these vessels would have to hold the line. Used mainly to hunt submarines, protect convoys from aerial attack, and take out other destroyers, these ships served across the globe during the war.

This fully illustrated study is the first in a two-part series on the real workhorses of the wartime Royal Navy, focusing on how these ageing ships took on the formidable navies of the Axis powers.

British Destroyers 1939-45 - Wartime-built classes

As the possibility of war loomed in the 1930s, the British Admiralty looked to update their fleet of destroyers to compete with the new ships being built by Germany and Japan, resulting in the commissioning of the powerful Tribal-class.
These were followed by the designing of the first of several slightly smaller ships, which carried fewer guns than the Tribals, but were armed with a greatly enlarged suite of torpedoes.
The first of these, the 'J/K/M class' was followed by a number of wartime variants, with slight changes to their weaponry to suit different wartime roles.
Designed to combat enemy surface warships, aircraft and U-boats, the British built these destroyers to face off against anything the enemy could throw at them.

Using a collection of contemporary photographs and beautiful colour artwork, this is a fascinating new study of the ships that formed the backbone of the Royal Navy during World War II.

British Destroyers and Frigates : The Second World War and After

Since the Second World War the old categories of British destroyer and frigate have tended to merge, a process that this book traces back to the radically different Tribal class destroyers of 1936.
It deals with the development of all the modern destroyer classes that fought the war, looks at the emergency programmes that produced vast numbers of trade protection vessels - sloops, corvettes and frigates - then analyses the pressures that shaped the post-war fleet, and continued to dominate design down to recent years.

Written by America's leading authority, it is an objective but sympathetic view of the difficult economic and political environment in which British designers had to work, and benefits from the author's ability to compare and contrast the US Navy's experience.

Norman Friedman is renowned for his ability to explain the policy and strategy changes that drive design decisions, and his latest book uses previously unpublished material to draw a new and convincing picture of British naval policy over the previous seventy years and more. Hugely successful with enthusiasts and professionals alike from its first publication in 2006, this paperback is the book's third printing.

British Destroyer vs German Destroyer : Narvik 1940

The opening months of World War II saw Britain's Royal Navy facing a resurgent German navy, the Kriegsmarine. Following the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in early April 1940, British and German destroyers would clash in a series of battles for control of the Norwegian coast.
The operational environment was especially challenging, with destroyer crews having to contend with variable weather, narrow coastal tracts and possibility of fog and ship breakdowns.

In two engagements at Narvik, the Royal Navy entered the harbour and attacked the loitering German destroyers who had dropped off mountain troops to support the German invasion. The raids were devastating, halving at a stroke the number at Hitler's disposal.

Employing specially commissioned artwork and drawing upon a range of sources, this absorbing study traces the evolving technology and tactics employed by the British and German destroyer forces, and assesses the impact of the Narvik clashes on both sides' subsequent development and deployment of destroyers in a range of roles across the world's oceans.

British Destroyers - J-C and Battle Classes

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans.
The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.

A follow-up to ShipCraft 11 on inter-war destroyers, this new volume deals with the later classes which were the most modern British destroyers of the Second World War. Marked by a common single-funnelled silhoutte, they were actually very varied, ranging from the large and powerful J to N flotillas, via the austere 'War Emergency' classes that were built in large numbers, to the radically different 'Battle' class, designed with a powerful AA armament for service in the Pacific.

Town Class Destroyers - A Critical Assessment

Early in World War II, fifty obsolete US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy in return for a 99-year lease British bases in the Caribbean, Bahamas and Newfoundland. Though they were obsolete and far from ideal, they played a vital role in the Royal Navy's campaign. This is their complete story.

Topics covered include the background to the acquisition of the ships - the Battle of the Atlantic; their specification and design, and modifications in RN service; operations and achievements, such as the St Nazaire Raid and finally, losses and accidents. This authoritative text is supported by many contemporary photographs and twenty eight detailed plans prepared specially for this book.