Battleships: WWII Evolution of the Big Guns: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives

223 Pages·2015·47.23 MB·English

by  Kaplan

First printed in Great Britain in 2014 by
Pen & Sword Maritime
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd.
47 Church Street
Barnsley,
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 78 346 3077
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47 384 3578
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47 384 3547
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all material used in this book. The author apologizes for any
omissions. All reasonable efforts will be made in future editions to
correct any such omissions. The author is grateful to the following
people for the use of their published and/or unpublished material, and
for their kind assistance in the preparation of this book: Charles
Addis, Tony Alessandro, Malcolm Bates, Quentin Bland, Charles
Brown, Shannon Callahan, Phoebe Clapham, B.R. Coward, Jack
Delaney, Keith De Mello, Ernest Ervin, Herb Fahr, Michael Fiske,
James Flecker, Joseph Gilby, Gregory Haines, HMS Drake Photo
Section, Earl Haubrich, Mike Holloman, Eric Holloway, Pamela
Holmes, Tony Iacono, Jan Jacobs, David Jones, Albert Lee Kaiss,
Hargi Kaplan, Margaret Kaplan, Neal Kaplan, John Keegan, Richard
Landgraff, Henry Leach, Maynard Loy, Ted Mason, Richard
McCutcheon, Rita McCutcheon, F.W. Meacham, David Mellor, Neil
Mercer, Richard Minear, Morris Montgomery, Robert Oelrich, Ted
Pederson, Bruce Porter, Harold Porter, Ernie Pyle, R.V.Racey, Henry
Sakaida, Robert Sambataro, John Shelton, Doug Siegfried, Mike
Sizeland, Robert Shultz, Ian Smith, Mark Stanhope, Mark
Thistlethwaite, John Wellham, Stanley Vejtasa, Mitsuru Yoshida.
Contents
BATTLESHIP CONSTRUCTION
BATTLESHIP SAILORS
THE NEW CAPITAL SHIP
SCHARNHORST AND GNEISENAU
FAST AND LAST
TIRPITZ
WARSPITE
BATTLESHIP YAMATO
AFTERWORLD WAR TWO
GALLERY
Battleship Construction
The launching of the USS North Dakota, BB29, at Quincy, Massachusetts in 1909. A dreadnought
battleship of the Delaware class, she remained in the United States in a training capacity during
the First World War, and took no part in actual combat in her career. She was
decomommissioned in 1923 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, was scrapped in
1931 and later dismantled. Armed with ten 12-inch main guns, she had a top speed of 21 knots.

The USS Missouri, BB63, in the New York Navy Yard for a refit in July 1944.
The USS Alabama, BB60, on the building ways at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, A South
Dakota class vessel served in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of the Second World War.
She was to become a museum ship at Mobile, Alabama in 1965.