United States Navy Destroyers (Images of War)

What links the United States Navy’s first torpedo boat destroyer USS Bainbridge, commissioned in 1902, with the latest American destroyer, the futuristic looking USS Zumwalt? Both were initially heavily criticised for design faults and cost overruns, the latter so serious that the planned class of 32 vessels has since been pruned to just three. The Bainbridge Class, on the other hand, faired a lot better in the long run. The author states clearly at the beginning of his book that it is ‘not a comprehensive history’ of the subject but rather ‘a broad overview’. This is certainly true and neither does Michael Green make any assumptions of prior knowledge making sure, to give just one example of many, that the correct US Navy nomenclature for ‘turrets’ and ‘enclosed mounts’ is properly explained. He also makes quite extensive use of quotations and illustrations from historic copies of official US Navy manuals in order to ease the uninitiated reader through what might otherwise be a perplexing series of technical explanations. The book is divided into five, chronologically arranged chapters which chart the story of United States destroyers from the earliest torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers, through the two world wars and then successively the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. We become familiar with terms such as ‘flivers’, ‘flush-deckers’ and ‘broken-deckers’ as well some famous names such as the eponymous Fletcher, Gearing and Spruance Classes which have marked the irresistible progress of the United States Navy from its humble, coastal defence origins to its current status as the most powerful naval force in the world over the past three-quarter century. Each chapter falls into two sections. Firstly some text which chiefly cover ship design matters, propulsion, equipment and armament and then an equal number of pages of annotated photographs. This is no panegyric: Michael Green is ever ready to point to equipment or design failure which brought an abrupt termination to a particular item or even class of ship as he is to praise and to demonstrate the reasons for success. Although it is readily appreciated that publishers exist to sell copies of their books, the title of this one is somewhat misleading with its over-emphasis on ‘War’. Green’s book covers the entire destroyer story in both peace and war and although a proportion of the photographs are indeed taken from ‘wartime archives’ some of the most interesting rarities are the onboard close-ups or ones taken from an overhead crane while the ship was alongside. United States Navy Destroyers is part of an extensive ‘Images of War’ series and Michael Green is an experienced author who has produced an excellent distillation of a weighty subject written in a very accessible form.