Description
Naval Institute Press, Published 1990. Hardcover, 160 pp.; 25 cm; illustrated with over 200 black-and-white photographs and line drawings, including detailed technical cutaway diagrams.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Condition & notes
In Very Good condition with a Very Good dust jacket. Pale green-gray cloth-covered boards with gold lettering on spine; mild bumping to edges and mild shelf wear. Binding tight; sticker residue at top corner of front pastedown. Otherwise unmarked. Dust jacket has a few tiny nicks and light creasing to edges with mild shelf wear; front panel reproduces Geoff Shaw's painting of HMS Taku at sea in the eastern Mediterranean, January 1943, back panel shows HMS Thunderbolt's crew with their Jolly Roger return-from-patrol flag, March 1942. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover.Paul Kemp's authoritative study of Britain's T-class submarines, brought into service in 1937 and the most powerfully armed Royal Navy submarines of their day. The 53 boats served throughout the Second World War in every theatre, accounted for the loss of several hundred enemy vessels totalling over 500,000 tons, and earned four Victoria Crosses for their crews in the Mediterranean. HMS Tantalus undertook the longest patrol of any British submarine during the war: 55 days and 11,629 miles in January and February 1945. Postwar, the class was rebuilt for the anti-submarine hunter-killer role, with the streamlined 'Super-T' conversions of the early 1950s becoming the Royal Navy's most advanced conventional submarines until the introduction of nuclear-powered hunter-killers in the early 1960s. Drawing on interviews with figures key to the class's development and employment, Kemp covers design, weapons, sensors, daily life aboard, wartime operations, and Cold War conversion. Foreword by Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Mackenzie.Contents: Foreword; The 1,000-ton Submarine; Hull, Superstructure and Propulsion; Torpedoes, Guns and Mines; Sensors and Communications; Life Below; War 1939-45: Worth their Weight in Gold; War 1939-45: Submarines or Gunboats?; The Admiralty Regrets; Toward the Killer Submarine; The Fast Submarine; In Retrospect; References and Notes; Appendices (List of T-Class Submarines and their Fates, Weapons, Axis Warships and Merchant Shipping Sunk by T-Class Submarines 1939-45, Glossary); Bibliography; Index.