The Captain Class Frigates In The Second World War

This is the first book to fully document the story behind the Frigates that played such a vital role during World War Two.

The Battle of the Atlantic was Winston Churchill's area greatest of concern during the Second World War. By 1943 new tactics and technology, developed out of bitter experience, combined with the effect of long range maritime patrol aircraft were beginning to tip the balance in the Allies' favour. But the dearth of modern escort vessels was still potentially disastrous; over 160 U-boats were still at large to attack vital convoys of men and material. The Captain Class Frigates, seventy-eight sturdy, modern destroyer escorts, known affectionately by all who sailed in them as the DEs, built in the United States and leased to the Royal Navy, began to come into commission in January of that year and to fill that desperate, long felt need. This is their story, told by a man who served with them from their first arrival to their return to the States in 1946. It is a story of vigilance, determination and dogged fortitude combined with high skill and unfailing courage.

While there is a perennial interest in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars and in Nelson himself, there is no reference work that chronicles all the captains of his ships, their social origins, their characters and the achievements in their lives beyond their service under Nelson. This new book, researched and written by distinguished historians, descendants of some of Nelson's officers, and members of the 1805 Club, presents concise biographies of those officers who fought with Nelson in his three great battles, with superb colour illustration throughout. Nelson first gave the name of 'band of brothers' to the officers who had commanded ships of his fleet at the battle of the Nile (1798). This new volume will include 100 officers, ranging from lieutenants in command of gunboats at the battle of Copenhagen (1801) through captains of line-of- battle ships at the Nile and at Trafalgar (1805), to admirals in command of squadrons in his fleets. Of real significance are the specially commissioned photographs of all the monuments and memorials to Nelson's captains, descriptions with transcriptions of epitaphs, and clear directions to enable the readers to find them. Part travel book, part biography and moving testimony to Nelson's faithful captains, Nelson's band of Brothers presents the opportunity to rediscover 100 local heroes.

Here is the exhaustive and exhilarating story of HMS Venomous, one of sixty-seven V&W destroyers built at the end of the Great War that were to play a key role in the struggle to keep the sea lanes open in the Atlantic, Home Waters and the Mediterranean during the following war. Her story was perhaps the most memorable of all her class. When war broke out she was to find herself in the front line as the German blitzkrieg swept across Europe in 1940 and the V&Ws made high speed dashes across the Channel to bring troops and civilians back from Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk, and prepared for the expected invasion. Later that year she and her sister-ships escorted the Atlantic convoys which supplied our Russian allies with the weapons to halt the German advance. She returned to the Mediterranean and took part in Operation Pedestal to save Malta, and as the allies prepared for the landings in North Africa she was ordered to escort the destroyer depot ship, HMS Hecla to the invasion beaches. When Hecla was torpedoed off the coast off Morocco Venomous fought the attacking U-boat and rescued 500 survivors. She escorted convoys along the coast of North Africa including the first-through convoy from Gibraltar to Alexandria. and she joined the invasion force to Sicily during Operation Husky. In October 1943 she returned to Britain for a major refit at Falmouth when she was converted to an air target ship for training Barracuda torpedo bombers based at Douglas, Isle of Man, and then, after being transferred to the east coast, she was nearly lost in a hurricane before being sent to Kristiansand to accept the surrender of German naval forces. Venomous and her sister-ships were all scrapped after the War, but her extraordinary career, during which she fought without cessation, is brought to life in this rousing and beautifully told ship biography, a fitting memorial to the V&Ws and the men who served in them. ‘I would rate this as being in the same class as The Cruel Sea for a picture of small ship life in World War Two.’ The Naval Review ‘A portrayal of life on a wartime destroyer with a depth and insight that is possible unequalled by any previously published work.’ Warship Annual This book is outstanding for its detailed insight into the life on not just a single destroyer but, by extension, life at sea aboard and Royal Navy destroyer.’ The Northern Mariner ‘A Hard Fought Ship is a vivid portrait of a fighting vessel and the men who operated her.’ Warships International Fleet Review ‘Highly recommended to both naval historians and the general public.’ Mariner’s Mirror ‘It is an exemplary ship biography where a detailed narrative of the destroyer’s exploits are brought to life by a wealth of first-hand accounts.’ Navy News ‘This book is a detailed and thrilling account of the life of a typical V&W class destroyer.’ Sea Breezes

The World War II codebreaking station at Bletchley is well known and its activities documented in detail. Its decryption capabilities were vital to the war effort, significantly aiding Allied victory. But where did the messages being deciphered come from in the first place? This is the extraordinary untold story of the Y service, a secret even more closely guarded than Bletchley Park. The Y service was the code for the chain of wireless intercept stations around Britain and all over the world. Hundreds of wireless operators, many of them who were civilians, listened to German, Italian and Japanese radio networks and meticulously logged everything they heard. Some messages were then used tactically but most were sent on to Station X – Bletchley Park – where they were deciphered, translated and consolidated to build a comprehensive overview of the enemy’s movements and intentions. Peter Hore delves into the fascinating history of the Y service, with particular reference to the girls of the Women’s Royal Naval Service: Wrens who escaped from Singapore to Colombo as the war raged, only to be torpedoed in the Atlantic on their way back to Britain; the woman who had a devastatingly true premonition that disaster would strike on her way to Gibraltar; the Australian who went from being captain of the English Women’s Cricket team to a WWII Wren to the head of Abbotleigh girls school in Sydney; how the Y service helped to hunt the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic, and how it helped to torpedo a Japanese cruiser in the Indian Ocean. Together, these incredible stories build a picture of World War II as it has never been viewed before.

The War for England's Shores examines the Kriegsmarine's S-Boat offensive along the English Channel and the North Sea from 1940 to 1945, together with British and, later, Allied responses to nullify that threat. Very fast, and armed with torpedoes and mines, S-Boats posed a serious threat to the convoys that were forced to run close along the British coast on a daily basis. Despite the significance of this campaign and the real threat to the whole British war economy, it has been, until now, strangely overlooked by historians. Indeed, the book highlights issues around the maritime identity of those states and navies that see themselves in oceanic terms, at the expense of engagement with, and operations in, coastal waters. Using an array of archival materials from Britain, Germany and the USA, The War for England’s Shores examines why the Germans failed to make the most of this opportunity to disrupt British trade. G H Bennett analyzes how the British slowly countered the threat by embracing new technologies and developing a system of sea control that gradually forced the German S-Boat arm from the offensive against Britain's coastal convoys, and on to the defensive in the months leading up to the invasion of France. The author also looks at the S-Boat campaign along these convoy routes in the context of present-day interest in littoral warfare, so that the work has a vital and current appeal and offers significant and surprising insights. The book offers an unparalleled exploration of a key moment in the development of coastal warfare, and will appeal to historians and enthusiasts as well as defense analysts and naval personnel.

“An indispensable reference work for anyone studying either the U-boat campaign or WW2 at sea . . . copiously illustrated, fascinating—and harrowing.”—Navy News During the Second World War over 250 Allied warships from a dozen navies were sent to the bottom by German U-boats. This ground-breaking study provides a detailed analysis of every sinking for which source material survives from both the Allied and the German sides, resulting in detailed treatment of the fate of 110 vessels, with the remainder summarized in an extensive appendix. Uniquely, each entry is built around a specialist translation of the relevant segment of the war diary (log) of the U-boat in question, taken directly from the surviving originals—remarkably, this represents the first large-scale publication of the U-boat war diaries in any language. The book offers a wealth of new information, not only with respect to the circumstances of the sinkings from both the Allied and German perspectives, but also to the technical environment in which they lived as well as the fate of the crews. The entries include background details on the vessels concerned and the men involved, with a selection of rare and carefully chosen photos from archives and collections around the world. Each entry is itself a compelling narrative, but is backed with a list of sources consulted, including documents, published works and websites. A decade in the making, this is probably the most important book on the U-boat war to be published for many a year. “Offers significant new information on many of the most famous incidents.”—Maritime Advisor

“A comprehensive survey of the design history and development of the Royal Navy's greyhounds of the sea.”—WARSHIPS Magazine Since World War II, the old categories of 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 programs that produced vast numbers of trade protection vessels—sloops, corvettes and frigates—then analyzes the pressures that shaped the post-war fleet, and continued to dominate design down to recent years. Written by America's leading authority and featuring photos and ship plans, 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. Includes photos