Osprey Publishing just released a new book devoted to the Escort Carriers under British Flag during World War 2. Still this book has a few paragraphs devoted to the first two Escort Carriers under Dutch Flag. They had (Dutch) Fleet Air Arm Flights detached to them, under operational control of the British, so I think they count as ‘British’.

This book is relatively short at 48 pages but don’t let the relatively small thickness of the book fool you. The book is packed with information. It clearly describes the need for air cover for convoys and how out of necessity many merchant ships were converted to operate as a ‘proof of concept’. Once the value of the Escort Carrier was proven, the larger US industrial capacity provided the vast majority of the Escort Carriers under British Flag.

The book is broken down in the following sections.

So, before we get into the specifics of the book. Here is a little about the author and illustrators, Mark Ladas holds a degree in Naval architecture and has written a few naval publications for osprey, he is an avid ship modeler and amateur historian. The illustrators Johnny Shumate and Julian baker both work as freelance illustrators and have both also been longtime contributors to osprey.

Here we breakdown the contents of the book.

Casemate Publishers, distributors for Kagero Publications, has added another title to their ongoing series of Super Drawings in 3D. This time they turn their attention to the Russian Destroyer Spravedlivvy. Built in 1956, the ship was part of a class of Soviet destroyers that are not well known in the west. By no means an iconic ship, given that Kagero is based in Poland, this ship was turned over to the Polish navy in 1970 where it took the name Warszawa (Warsaw). When it went into service with the Polish navy, the ship had been modified to carry missiles. The book looks at its original configuration, as the ship was commissioned, rather than in its modified form.

HMS Submarine M.1 was an innovative but ill-fated attempt to overcome the poor performance and high per-shot cost of contemporary torpedoes. The unique solution was to add a 12-inch Mark IX gun, initially intended for battleship use. The gun was to be fired at a flat trajectory on the surface, or even at periscope depth (!) through use of a simple bead gunsight. 3 of the 4 M-class vessels that were ordered were actually completed, but operational results were poor at best. To reload, the sub had to surface, and it has been reported that the Royal Navy was reluctant to risk the possibility of German replication of this concept. M1, the first in the class, did not see wartime service, and sadly was lost in a collision with a Swedish transport vessel in 1925, and was discovered again in 1999, reported in a BBC television documentary airing the next year.

Military History has always fascinated Bouko de Groot. He earned a BA in Art History and an MA in Egyptology from Leiden University. Bouko de Groot served in the Dutch Army and has authored a number of academic, popular scientific, and business journalistic articles. He spent at least eight years working in Shanghai for IHS Fairplay, publishing daily online maritime news, along with weekly and monthly magazines. He is Dutch and currently lives in Germany.

Peter Bull graduated from art college in 1979 and has worked as a freelance illustrator for over 25 years. He has created both traditional and digital art for publishers worldwide. Peter also runs the Peter Bull Art Studio, based in East Sussex, UK, which he founded in 1975.