"British and Empire Warships of the Second World War is an ultimate book; a massive 768 pages in large format, 282 x 222mm, with 634 illustrations."
H. T. Lenton, a world-renowned internationally respected expert on naval matters, has prepared a unique reference work which is the culmination of nearly forty years' research. This is British and Empire Warships of the Second World War.
A lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy in the Second World War, and now a dedicated naval expert pre-eminent in his field, Lenton presents in this magisterial volume data far exceeding anything held in official records. British and Empire Warships of the Second World War is an encyclopedia of all the navies of Great Britain and its former Empire. No such work has ever been produced before.
Lenton lists in detail all the warships and lesser craft of the British, Dominion and Colonial naval forces that participated in the Second World War. Each category of ship is presented through a background history with extensive tables for the individual units, specifying the name, date ordered or acquired, builder, engine manufacturer, building dates and ultimate fate of each vessel, where known. For each class dimensions, displacements, armament and, where appropriate, armour thicknesses are detailed. Important vessels which were ordered but never completed are also listed. Hundreds of photographs illustrate the entries.
Nearly 20,000 entries in the Index!
A vast fleet came into existence under the powerful stimulus of war, and underwent a dramatic and sudden demise at the end of the conflict. British and Empire Warships of the Second World War is unique in the detail of documentation of this fleet. The book is divided into the following sections:
- major surface warships (battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, etc.)
- flotilla vessels (destroyers, destroyer escorts, submarines, sloops, corvettes and frigates)
- minelayers, minesweepers and auxiliary patrol craft
- trawlers, whalers and drifters including armed yachts
- amphibious forces, landing ships and landing craft
- coastal forces
- miscellaneous vessels (training vessels, depot and repair ships, stores ships, oil tankers,
surveying vessels, cable ships, harbour service vessels, motor fishing vessels, floating docks etc.)
To show the remarkable scope of this astonishing reference work we reproduce a specimen page.
H. T. Lenton's writing career developed as a result of his passion for collecting details of warships of all kinds. He built up a large network of contacts who exchanged information with each other. He wrote for Shipbuilding and Shipbuilding Record for nine years before becoming freelance in the late sixties. Thereafter he succesfully produced a highly successful monthly magazine called Naval Record.
His first book, British Warships, was published in 1962 and ran to seven editions. This was followed in 1966 by what was then a definitive work, Warships of the British and Commonwealth Navies, which ran to three editions up to 1971. Many books followed, covering other navies of the world.
This book, Lenton's forty-third, is the culmination of a lifetime's work. It stands in a class of its own and is the definitive work on the subject.
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