Customer Reviews

Destroyers for Great Britain: A History of 50 Town Class Ships Transferred from the United States to Great Britain in 1940

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Something I've been fascinated with for some time now is the Clemson and Wickes class flush-deck (4 stacker) destroyers the US built for WWI. Built to enable the US to have a navy that was second to none for WWI, these destroyers only saw limited service in WWI (for some) but served with limited glory in WWII (not totally true but most people think of the Fletcher class destroyer as the US destroyer of WWII). 50 of the Clemson and Wickes destroyers were traded to Great Britain for the US to be granted land for air and naval bases in various British possessions. Mr. Hague's book provides insight into the 50 destroyers (the British referred to them as Town class destroyers because all were named after towns that had common names in the British Empire and the US). Opening with a general overview that identifies the American destroyers and the general modifications required before being put to service, Mr. Hague then follows up with a description of each ships service, usually supported with one or more pictures of the ship under discussion and a general conclusion of how the Town class performed.

Rating wise this one's a solid 5 star book for people interested in general information on the Town class destroyers. There are nice little details about each of the ships in the class including dates of modifications, the type of modifications implemented, and service the ships provided. Something I noted about a fair number of the Town class was the number of collisions; this was probably due to a combination of the inexperience of the crews and the turn radius of the Town class (seems the British didn't modify the rudder like the Americans did, instead they lived with the large turn radius that was due to the sterns design and the fact that both propellers rotated in the same direction). While this book is a good general reference book on the 50 destroyers transferred to the British, I disagreed with Mr. Hague's conclusions on the Town class's contribution for the British war effort. While the Town's weren't ready for immediate action, they did do convoy escort duty that other destroyers would have had to have performed in their stead. This was shown when Combined Operations requested two destroyers for Operation Chariot but were only given one (HMS Campbelltown) by Admiralty due to the critical need for destroyers. Despite my disagreement with Mr. Hague's conclusion, this is a very good book for those interested in the Town class.