The Design and Construction of British Warships 1939-1945: The Official Records : Submarines, Escorts and Coastal Forces (Vol Ii) (2nd of A 3 Vol Set))

Naval Inst Pr, 1996. hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8x1x11. 1996 Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, Maryland), 8 1/8 x 11 inches tall purple buckram cloth hardcover in publisher's unclipped dust jacket, gilt lettering to spine, copiously illustrated with black-and-white photographs and line drawings, 158 pp. Slight light stains to top margin of front cover. Otherwise, a near fine copy - clean, bright and unmarked - of this uncommon history. ~SP12~ [2.5P] At the end of the Second World War the Director of Naval Construction set the various design teams within his department the task of recording their wartime activities. All types were covered from the largest fleet carrier to the humblest tug, and the short summaries described the principal achievements of each design and distilled the lessons of combat. By a quirk of history these essays were never published, until the issue of this series. The contemporary illustrations intended for inclusion have been lost but a fine new selection is here incorporated, and the editor of the series, D. K. Brown, has added footnotes to explain obscure references and technical jargon. This second volume includes submarines, corvettes and frigates, fleet mine sweepers and motor torpedo boats, and for those interested in the rationale of design and the performance of warships in battle it unlocks a vast source of fascinating and authentic original material upon which so much of postwar interpretation and analysis has been based.