NAVY NEWS, MARCH 1999
23
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D-DAY'S DOWN ON TAPE Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan, the Imperial War Museum is now offering its D-Day pack of facsimiles of original documents (reviewed in our November issue) at £4.99 plus £1pp (£3 overseas). And also, for the same price, D-Day Remembered, an 80 minute cassette tape carrying the reminiscences of 39 veterans of the inva-
THE CAPTAIN class
frigates, 78 modern
destroyer escorts known affectionately as DEs, were leased to the Royal Navy by the United States and filled a desperate need. Although it is general-
ly accepted that the worst of the battles In the Atlantic were over by the time they arrived in 1943, those that went on to serve in the roving Support Groups were very successful, sinking
36 U-boats and damaging many more.
They also played an important part in the fight against the German naval threat in the summer of 1944, protecting the shipping involved in the build-up to D-Day. Don Collingwood is well-qualified to put together their hitherto
untold story - he served in them from their first arrival in 1943 to their
return to the US after the war. And, he says, a statistical analysis of U-boat sinkings he once made
showed that of the ten major classes of RN escorts, comprising some 389 ships, their prowess was only
exceeded by the Lochclass frigates, the Black Swan-class sloops and
the converted 'V and 'W destroyers. The Captain Class Frigates (Leo Cooper (£19.95) thus provides
new insight of an aspect of the war at sea that has for too long been
neglected. •
(inset) wood,
HMS Cubitt
and
Don Collingher Ordnance Artificer from November 1943 to March, 1946.
sion of Hitler's Fortress Europe in 1944. Focusing on the British contribution (unlike Private Ryan, which ignored it), this includes accounts by Lord Louis Mountbatten on the planning of Operation Overlord; George Honour (commander of the midget submarine X-23 which marked the approach to Sword Beach); and Albert Barnes (of the RN tug Stormking towing Mulberry Harbour caisson).
BIRTH OF BIG GUN WARS
D
URING England's
wars with France the role of the Royal Navy was crucial. Its victories in the
end confined France's
territorial aspirations to continental Europe under
Napoleon and largely deprived her of her pre19th century empire. But it was in the AngloDutch wars of the 17th century that the Navy developed as a significant instrument
ADMIRALTY SHIPS BADGES
of power, when the "big ship, big gun" policy, which not all admirals
had
hitherto
ORIGINAL PATTERNS
favoured, was revealed to be
1919-1994
the correct path to victory. In The Anglo-Dutch Naval
A two-volume work in hardback with X-page addendum. Full colour printing of over 1720 approved Pattern badges for H.M. Ships, Shore h'slablishments and R.KA's together with a brief text for every
Roger Hainsworth and Christine Churches show how its permanent adoption brought two further developments of crucial significance. First was the gradual elimination of armed merchant-
badge, full index and glossary of
men as a serious naval emergence of a permanent professional Navy in which
• BIG GUN: Robert Blake, by Samuel Cooper
skilled men might seek a
increasingly elaborate sig- of ships bearing from 74 to nals. 100 guns, and although Ironically, the line-of-battle there would be far fewer of
career in peace.
both war and
Secondly there was the development of the line of battle as a formation in which large numbers of warships could engage the
formation's success doomed the very ships which first employed it Monck's second- and thirdrates and smaller frigates.
enemy to greatest effect. Although larger and better Eventually talented com- armed than their adversaries manders would devise and of the First Dutch War they execute successful tactics were too small for the linefor their fleet, which they of-battle of the future. could manoeuvre through That would be composed
them, their firepower was much heavier than that which Blake and Monck in 1652-53, or York and Rupert,
Sandwich and De Ruyter in the later wars, had brought to bear.
East Sussex. TN37 6ZA
,
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THREE ARK ROYALS 1938~1999
T
his is the first, and only, book to toll the l u l l stories of the last three Ark Royal* in detail. The wartime Ark, the Ark of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. and the present aircraft carrier whieh will see the FAA into the 21st century. Foreword by Rear-Admiral Terry Loughran. thelast operational CO of the present Ark. 165 photographs, including 15 in colour. Hardback with full colour laminated dust jaeket. Price 423 plus p&p
ISBN 1 901225 02 X
Also Still Available: HMS CENTAUR 1943~1972 (Hardback) £16.95 plus p&p HMS VICTORIOUS 1937~1969 (Hardback) £21 plus p&p Please add £2.00 p&p UK & EU (£4.00 overseas airmail). Payment by sterling cheque, postal order, or by VISA/MASTERCARD. Telephone/Fax orders welcomed. From FAN PUBLICATIONS. 17 Wymans Lane. Cheltenham. Glos GL5I 9QA. Tel/Fax 01242 5X0290, or order from good bookshops. Allow 21 days for delivery.