US Heavy Cruisers 1941–45
US Heavy Cruisers 1941–45

Author: Mark Stille

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-04-20

Total Pages: 107

ISBN-13: 1782006311

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Designed and produced under the regulations of the Washington Naval Treaty, the heavy cruisers of the Pensacola, Northampton, Portland, New Orleans and Wichita classes were exercises in compromise. While they possessed very heavy armament – the Pensacolas, for example, carrying a main battery of ten 8” guns – this came at the cost of protection – armor was the same thickness as a gun cruiser, and incapable of protecting the vessels from enemy 8” fire. As the classes evolved, these flaws began to be corrected, with the main battery being reduced, and increased protection being added to the vital areas of the ship. Despite these drawbacks, the pre-war heavy cruiser classes served with distinction throughout World War II.

The Fighting Captain
The Fighting Captain

Author: Alan Burn

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2006-07-20

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 085052315X

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Captain F J Walker, RN, did more than any other man at sea to win the Battle of the Atlantic, a vicious and unrelenting struggle which Churchill described as the dominating factor throughout World War Two. He was a formidable figure and one of the greatest fighting captains in the Royal Navy, sinking twenty U-boats. For this he was awarded a CB and four DSOs. A month after D-Day, exhausted by his continuous actions at sea against the enemy and his successful exertions to keep the U-boats out of the English Channel to ensure the safe passage of the Allied landings at D-day, he went ashore in Liverpool after a patrol. His ships and the men he had trained and inspired were already back at sea when he died on the 9 July, 1944, aged 48. His ships went on to sink another nine U-boats, bringing his flotillas' total up to twenty-nine, before the U-boat fleet finally surrendered. Fifteen of which were sunk by Walker’s own ship, HMS Starling.

Ships
Ships

Author: Chris Bishop

Publisher: Pocket Landscape

Published: 2020-09

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781782745518

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Ancient galleys, Viking longships, medieval cogs, galleasses, galleons, men-of-war sailing ships, coastal gunboats, iron-clad steam boats, dreadnoughts, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines