Destroyer - Ian Hawkins

There is no more vivid and poignant account than one at first hand, and Editor Ian Hawkins has drawn together numerous stories from those men who served on the 'B' class destroyers and others, weaving them seamlessly together using excerpts from books, news articles, speeches and his own authoritative notes. Accounts are arranged in chronological order and cover the mundanity of patrol, the strain of convoy escort, the heat of battle and loss of ships and lives. Among the more celebrated events, the accounts describe the evacuation of Dunkirk and Boulogne, the engagement of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, and D-Day itself, as seen through the eyes of captains, lieutenant commanders, engineers, signalmen, telegraphists, surgeons and crewmen. The result is a solid work that not only fills a gap in the recorded history of the War but can also be used as an overall view of it. All royalties from the hardback edition of this book are being donated to the HMS Cavalier (Chatham) Trust, a registered UK charity set up to save and restore the sole remaining British destroyer of the Second World War.