Pendant (or pennant) numbers have been used by individual ships of the Royal Navy for purposes of identification for more than 100 years. They were also used in all the navies of the British Empire so that ships could be easily transferred from one navy to another without changing her number. They offer the simplest and clearest way to identify a ship, but until now there has been little in the way of consistent and accurate information, and certainly no single location where you can look up or research complete pendant numbers. The book is designed as an easy-to-use reference work and as such is, in the main, composed of alpha-numeric listings to enable the user to find and identify warships by reference to ship name and to identify specific pendant numbers assigned to that name; or by pendant number to identify specific vessels assigned that number at various times. It begins with an introduction and a brief history of visual signalling used by the Royal Navy before industrialisation, and explains how the large numbers of identical ships being built brought about the need to identify specific ships within fleets to aid signalling and tactical deployment. There follow chapters covering the pendant numbers of the surface fleet and submarines (which stopped using them once boats began to spend so little time on the surface), and then pedant numbers by ship name. A significant chapter lists the pendant numbers assigned to the British Pacific Fleet during the Pacific campaign of WWII together with an explanation of why numbers were assigned, and an examination of missing ‘A’ series pendants known to have been carried by some vessels during the conflict. The BPF numbers have only recently come to light and there is still much that is not known but this section provides the most comprehensive study of available data at this time. There is also an appendix covering deck letters assigned to aviation capable ships. This is a genuinely new and significant reference book and is destined to become a major new aid for Royal Navy warship and auxiliary identification.

Pendant (or pennant) numbers have been used by individual ships of the Royal Navy for purposes of identification for more than one hundred years. They were also used in all the navies of the British Empire so that ships could be easily transferred from one navy to another without changing her number. They offer the simplest and clearest way to identify a ship, but until now there has been little in the way of consistent and accurate information, and certainly no single location where you can look up or research complete pendant numbers. This book is designed as an easy-to-use reference work and as such is, in the main, composed of alpha-numeric listings to enable the user to find and identify warships by reference to ship name and to identify specific pendant numbers assigned to that name; or by pendant number to identify specific vessels assigned that number at various times.

The self-propelled or locomotive torpedo was probably the greatest game-changer in the history of naval warfare. For the first time the largest warship could be sunk by a weapon carried by the smallest, and most navies were quick to see the potential. Although the 19th-century Royal Navy had a reputation for technological conservatism, it was an ‘early adopter’ of the torpedo and was instrumental in the development of the small fast craft that became the delivery system of choice, the steam torpedo boat. Britain’s most important contribution to torpedo warfare, however, was the invention of its antidote, the torpedo boat destroyer, or ‘destroyer’ as it came to be called. This often-told story has overshadowed the earlier but no less significant history of the torpedo boat itself in the Royal Navy, an injustice set to right by this new book. Torpedoes were derived from earlier underwater explosive devices – mines, spar and towed torpedoes, and the like – so the first chapter briefly reviews their history before moving on to Robert Whitehead’s revolutionary invention that made the self-propelled torpedo a practical weapon. The Admiralty was so impressed it purchased the rights to Whitehead’s device, and thereafter the Royal Navy made much of the early running in torpedo boat design. In this they were greatly assisted by existing boatbuilders like Thornycroft and Yarrow who already specialized in small fast craft. The core of this book is a detailed developmental history of British torpedo craft, from the early experiments like Vesuvius and Polyphemus, through the 1st Class TBs to the so-called Coastal Destroyers of the early 20th century. There are also separate chapters on 2nd Class boats, on Torpedo Gunboats and on the ‘Torpedo Depot Ships’ Hecla and Vulcan. The book concludes with a number of appendices devoted to background issues like quick-firing guns and reports on performance of the boats in various circumstances. As it fills a surprising gap in the technical history of British warships, this book will be welcomed by naval enthusiasts, modelmakers and historians.

The history of the development of submarines covered in this book spans the most tumultuous years of the 20th century. When the little Holland No. 1 was launched in 1901, few could guess that the submarine would become the most potent weapon of war ever developed.

An alphabetical arrangement of the ships of the continental and United States Navies, with a historical sketch of each one.

From flags and pennants to Morse code and complex telecommunications, Radio History Ship to Shore is a treatise on the navigational aids vessels have used over the centuries. Author Spurgeon “Spud” G. Roscoe takes the reader on a journey through the evolution of communication systems globally, from the days of Columbus to modern times. Roscoe also mines his first-hand experience as a radio officer who sailed on a dozen ships, including a reproduction of the ill-fated HMS Bounty. Now in his eighties, he has been meticulously collecting the content for Radio History Ship to Shore for more than five decades. The result is a hefty tome in which Roscoe shares his encyclopedic knowledge and unyielding fascination with communications systems. The book includes all the vessels in the RCMP marine section (and, later, marine division), the RCAF marine squadrons, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, and the Canadian Coast Guard, including the weather ships, and icebreakers. Radio History Ship to Shore is complemented by a wealth of historic photos of everything from warships to Canada’s famous Bluenose schooner.