Battleships of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia [Hardcover]

M. J. Whitley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1999

Encyclopedic in scope, this single-volume reference is devoted to the one hundred battleships that served or were under construction in World War II. The handsome work details and illustrates the design and construction of each class of battleship with complete histories for each ship.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

MJ Whitley is the author of numerous naval titles (Destroyers of World War Two, German Capital Ships of World War Two, and many more), and the acknowledged expert on the ships of the Second World War. He died in 2000. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155750184X
• ISBN-13: 978-1557501844
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 9.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,085,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Survey, July 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Battleships of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia (Hardcover)

This book offers in one place, substantial information about the battleships of World War Two. A companion to his earlier work on cruisers, I was most impressed by a number of rare photographs that I have not seen before in other books covering the subject.

As a survey of the subject, this offers quite a bit of information. Of course, there are other books that delve into much more detail but you'd have to buy four or five books.

The only disappointment in this book were the line drawings. There were imprecise and not up to par with the drawing of the author's previous book on cruisers. In addition, the gray color of the line drawings were distracting.

Hopefully all the author's books will be combined into one comprehensive reprint, as it is diffcult to find his earlier work on destroyers.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Whitley being Whitley, November 11, 2001

By 

Richard Worth (MO, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battleships of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia (Hardcover)

I love the way Whitley compresses it all into one volume that won't chew a hole in your wallet. This is not the last word in battleship references, but it's among the best first words you can find. The one weakness is in its illustrations. Modelers can pass this one by. The line drawings look like the author did them himself, out of necessity--which is actually the case. And there are no armor schematics. However, Whitley goes beyond where other references (like Conway's) grind to a halt, and he goes to the trouble of describing the armor layout rather than simply slapping statistics onto the page. What it lacks in detail, it makes up for with its handiness and broad scope. I'm aware of its limitations, especially where the author was trying to pry information out of Russian and Japanese sources, but I find myself getting plenty of use out of it.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Pretty Good Effort, December 25, 1999

By 

wonderrat "wonderrat" (Mountain View, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battleships of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia (Hardcover)

Battleships of World War Two : An International Encyclopedia by Whitley is actually pretty good, especially compared to some of his other efforts. There seem to be fewer editorial errors compared to his book on cruisers and all in all the historical information is useful. Modelers should note that the drawings are pretty useless, which is consistent with the books in this series.

Fortunately, this book seems to be complete, especially if you have Whitley's cruiser book, which is missing the combat history of the British cruiser HMS Bermuda (and not HMS Jamaica, as was mentioned in my Amazon review of Cruisers of World War Two). A pretty good effort, but if you want completeness and better illustrations, go for the Garzke and Dulin series on battleships.