Destroyer! - German Destroyers in World War II
In April 1940, the fjords of Norway became, a bloody battleground for destroyers: on two days, in the greatest destroyer battles fought in western waters during the Second World War, ten German and two British destroyers were sunk. These were blows that were almost to cripple the Kriegsmarine destroyer flotillas for the rest of the War.
But the heavily-armed destroyers were, in fact, the most active German surface warships during the Second World War:
- Minelaying during the Polish campaign
- Laying minefields close to British shores
- Supporting the invasions of Denmark and Norway
- Making sorties from France on Allied shipping
- Operating with the larger ships (Scharthorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen) and escorting them on the 'Channel dash'
- Fighting bitter battles against Russian 'convoys in the Arctic waters
- Skirmishing with British destroyers in the North Sea, English Channel and Bay of Biscay
- Bombarding and minelaying in the Baltic.
Destroyer describes all these actions in detail hitherto only found in unpublished official teports, and also documents fully the design and construction of the warships themselves. Extensive appendices present complete data for each class of destroyer, and the text is complemented by photographs, maps and many line drawings.
With 16 pages of photographs, 14 maps and 15 line drawings. Front cover illustration: action in the Bay of Biscay, 28 December 1943, by Geoff Hunt. The destroyers depicted are Z32 and Z37.