Battlecruiser - Douglas Reeman

Conceived on paper as an invincible defence against enemy commerce raiders, the battlecruiser was hailed as a triumph. Romantically described as the fleet's greyhounds, these great ships, remarkable for their size and speed, were designed to outrun and outshoot any of their heavier opponents. But the Battle of Jutland exposed their fatal flaw, the weakness of their armour, which could be pierced by a single enemy shell. At the outbreak of World War II, only four of their class remain.In 1943, when Captain Guy Sherbrooke joins H.M.S. Reliant, he knows he may be her last captain. The battlecruisers Hood and Repulse, household names, have been destroyed. But Reliant is both legend and survivor, a lucky ship, and as Britain prepares to invade occupied Europe, one of the last battlecruisers must enter the conflagration. And Sherbrooke, who commands her destiny, cannot alter the bitter truth: that for one of her ill-fated class, there can be no half measures. Only death or glory await H.M.S. Reliant.