Category: Frigates, Cutters and Sloops

The author served on Totland as an Ordinary Seaman. He now records the war careers of each of the 10 US Coastguard cutters transferred to the RN.

KONSTAM. Angus. British Lend-Lease Warships 1940–45: The Royal Navy's American-built Destroyers and Frigates (New Vanguard 330). 48p., illus., index. Oxford: Osprey, 2024. ISBN: 9781472861283.

Covers the fifty four-stack Town Class Destroyers which were in turn followed by a further hundred ships including many frigates specially built in American shipyards. There are detailed ship profiles of the major classes, a cutaway of HMS Campbeltown (of Saint-Nazaire raid fame) as it appeared in 1941, and excellent battle scene artwork.

BROWN, Les. Black Swan Class Sloops: Detailed in the Original Builders' Plans. 128p., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Seaforth, 2020. ISBN: 9781526765963.

Based on copies of the builder’s plans held in the Imperial War Museum, this beautifully illustrated book shows the plans for one of the best escort ship designs. The design was gradually improved and this book uses plans of four selected ships to chart that development. These comprise: Black Swan as built; Flamingo as modified later; Starling, the single most successful U-boat hunter of the war, as in 1943; and Amethyst, as refitted after her clash with Chinese communists on the Yangtze in 1949.

FRIEDMAN, Norman (ed). British Naval Weapons of World War II. The John Lambert Collection edited with an introduction by Norman Friedman. 3 vols., bibliog., illus., index. Barnsley: Seaforth, 2019-20.

John Lambert died in 2016. He was a renowned draughtsman who specialised in smaller naval vessels and left some 850 sheets of drawings and plans, covering everything from turret guns to underwater weapons. These have now been published with excellent photographs added, edited with an introduction by an acknowledged expert in Norman Friedman. Volume I covers destroyer weapons (ISBN: 9781526747679); Volume II covers escort and minesweeper weapons (ISBN: 9781526750471); Volume III covers coastal forces weapons (ISBN: 9781526777102).

OULD, Vic. The Life and Death of HMS Bullen: Memories of Some Survivors. [iv], 56p., illus. Fleet Hargate: Arcturus, 1998.

Bullen was a Captain Class frigate which began service at the start of 1944 and was sunk in the Atlantic at year's end, off Cape Wrath. A series of accounts of the sinking from her survivors and members of accompanying ships in the escort group. A revised edition was published in 2002 (ISBN: 0907322689). Also available since 2013 as a print on demand volume from New Generation Publishing, ISBN: 9781785073557

OULD, Vic. Last But Not Least: HMS Goodall, Torpedoed 29 April 1945: Recollections of Survivors. [vi], 62p., illus. Fleet Hargate: Arcturus, 2004. ISBN: 090732293X.

Goodall was a Captain Class frigate and the last RN ship sunk in the European theatre, in April 1945. A series of accounts of the sinking from her survivors and members of accompanying ships in the Arctic convoy RA66. Also available since 2013 as a print on demand volume from New Generation Publishing, ISBN: 9780755215843.              

THOMSON, Max. 8th Div Home From Changi 1945 (H.M.A.S. Hawkesbury). Addendum: USS Mount Hood Explodes 1944. (Naval Historical Society of Australia, Monograph 11). 13p., illus. Garden Island, NSW: Naval Historical Society of Australia, 1989.

The text of two lectures given to the Victoria Chapter of the Society in 1988 and 1989. The first records the movements of Hawkesmoor in the dying days of the war and her trip to Singapore to return Australian POWs. The second deals with a catastrophic incident in Manus harbour in November 1944. There are several pages of poorly reproduced photographs.

SEABRIDGE, Allan, MORGAN, Shirley & CHADWICK, David. High Seas to Home: Daily Despatches from a Frigate at War. 190p., bibliog., illus., index. Derby: Derby Books Publishing Company, 2012. ISBN: 9781780910413.

Cliff Greenwood was a 40-year old journalist called up in 1943. After training as a Coder he served on Byron in Home Waters, the Arctic and the Atlantic until war’s end. He wrote home every day and his letters are printed here enriched with the reminiscences of crewmates and background detail from the authors.

BONIFACE, Patrick. Loch Class Frigates. 256p., illus. Liskeard: Maritime Books, 2013. ISBN: 1904459544.

The Loch class were some of the best A/S frigates produced for the RN during the war, although most of the class only entered service from 1944 onwards. This volume records the design and service record of the 28 completed vessels.

A lower deck view of life on a sloop mainly engaged on long haul escort work on the Atlantic or Gibraltar Runs. Also does justice to the runs ashore.

A personal account from a Temporary Sublieutenant RNVR of a ship commissioned in 1945. She served in the Western Approaches and then moved to the East Indies.

A privately published selection of fact and fiction from the members of the group which consisted of Captain Class frigates and served from 1943–1945. A sort of school magazine.

This small volume gives a full record of her RN service, including a busy war, before she became the Headquarters Ship of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, moored in the Thames.

The concluding volume of his lightly dramatised war career.

A good technical guide to how the ships worked and were manned, with some limited operational information.

A curious jumbled and rambling account, all in block capitals, but with some interesting illustrations.

A detailed and well-illustrated account of each ship's building, equipment, and service.

A popular account of the war service of HMS Duff. Launched in 1943, she was first a training ship, then took part in the patrols off the Normandy beachhead before moving to Harwich to work with MTBs in the North Sea. The title refers to the popular song, adopted by the ship as its own. Originally published in softcover, a hardback was published by Severn House in 1976 (ISBN: 0727801767).

Her A/S Officer describes Manners short life with much attention given to her sinking and subsequent events in which 19 U-boats were sunk in the Irish Sea and its approaches early in 1945.

The author has scoured the archives for photographs and plans of these ships - the Captain Class frigates in the RN. The book provides a mixture of design history and operational history.

The story of the famous "DEs". Some 78 were transferred to the RN as Captain Class frigates; they are well-illustrated and described.

Some 78 "DE's" joined the RN under Lend–Lease. The author served in one of them and has contacted many former colleagues to produce a loving and detailed tribute to their work.