Fleets of World War II - Book Review

Naval War College Review, Summer, 2002 by Frank Uhlig, Jr.

Worth, Richard. Fleets of World War II. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2001. 375pp. $35

In this handy-sized, reasonably priced book, Richard Worth and his publisher have provided an excellent instrument of discovery for readers whose range of interest in World War II includes the many fleets that fought, and even the few that only looked on nervously.

Worth describes adequately all the combatants, nation by nation (from Albania to Yugoslavia), type by type (aircraft carriers to motor torpedo boats), class by class (oldest to newest), and, for the larger types down through destroyers and submarines, ship by ship (the Americans in hull-number order, though Worth does not give the individual numbers). Worth omits amphibious ships and auxiliaries, "ships whose primary function was not naval combat," though he does include the U.S. Navy's several dozen seaplane tenders, large and small. There are a few other omissions too, some obviously unintended.

Each country's section begins with a general discussion, "an assessment" of its fleet, geostrategic situation, tasks, relevant history, and resources, including weapons (guns and torpedoes). Then Worth gets to the ships and their aircraft. He covers Albania in just over six lines; the United States requires seventy pages.

One should not expect to find portraits of any particular ship; Worth includes very few. However, other excellent but more expensive books provide satisfactory views, as well as individual ship data, of almost every class of fighting ship of that war.

Altogether, the index includes about 4,600 ships' names. However, a host of unnamed ships and craft (such as the thousand or so U-boats, the eight hundred American torpedo boats, and the 502 American yard minesweepers, YMS) must content themselves with one general index entry for each class. Nearly all classes are to be found in the book--only nine lines for the 136-foot YMS, with a fine photo. The U-boats, in all their variations, properly get seven pages.

In a book of this sort one will find errors, but this reader found few indeed, compared to the great opportunity to commit errors, and those were small. For example, the German 280 mm gun was much closer to the eleven inches credited to it in other books than to the 11.1 inches Worth allows. Also, not all American Clemson-class destroyers built for World War I "suffered from inferior workmanship." Only those built by Bethlehem did, and the U.S. Navy discarded most of those before World War II began.

The great pleasure of this book lies in Worth's clear and succinct commentary. Regarding a pair of British battleships, for example, he writes: "The Nelsons were innovative in many ways, but successful in few. The nine 16-inch guns seemed a potent battery, but by the time they worked out all their bugs, they proved no more effective than the old 15-inchers." The fifteen-inch-gun Queen Elizabeths "sometimes achieved brilliant gunnery; as early as Jutland the Germans noted Valiant's consistent fire." In 1940 "at Calabria, Warspite planted a shot on the Italian flagship at a range of 26,400 yards, the longest ship-to-ship hit in history."

Of the numerous American Fletcher-class destroyers, Worth observes that they "had a strong armament, long range, reliability, and irrepressible toughness. Some of their success came by inheritance; most units joined the fleet after the early, unpleasant lessons of night combat against the Japanese. However, the Fletchers presented the perfect vehicle for exploiting those lessons, achieving utter triumph at Cape St. George and Surigao Strait." Also, "most of the losses among the Fletcher and Sumner classes resulted from kamikaze attacks. In many cases the ships survived, but the navy in that stage in the war didn't bother to repair them. Hoel succumbed to a more traditional fate beneath an avalanche of Japanese gunfire: 40 shells, ranging from 5-inch to 16.1 inch, stopped her dead in the water, and subsequent hits finished her off. Johnston received 4,700 pounds of incoming ordnance within the space of one minute. It wrecked half of her machinery, yet she continued at 17 knots.

... After accumulating damage fo r two and a half hours, she wallowed so helplessly that her crew couldn't even properly scuttle her; they simply opened her watertight doors and let her flood."

Worth says of the American diesel-driven Cannon-class destroyer escorts that they "rolled as badly as the Evarts type," an earlier class of destroyer escort that he reports was prone to "lurid" rolls. The Navy, according to Worth, considered the Cannons the least successful of its several destroyer escort classes. I did not know the Navy's official opinion on those ships, but having a little experience in one of them, I found it an easy opinion to share.

Discussing briefly another class in which I sailed, the 173-foot American sub marine chasers, Worth reports accurately that they were "wet forward and generally uncomfortable in heavy seas." Indeed, in a head sea of any magnitude, solid water often swept over the pilothouse. With the sea on the beam the ship proved a deep roller. Still, these little ships "proved seaworthy enough," and, Worth adds, "the navy viewed them as a success." This also is an easy opinion to share.