This book is not bad but it is disappointing in a number of respects. Sure, it gives a fair overview of the Royal Navy's wartime-built destroyer classes but it rather requires the reader to have read an earlier volume in the series. Certainly, this book is not for those who want to know what British destroyers did in the Second World War but it is very useful for the detail about design and equipment differences. There is a short chapter, at the end of the book, about a 'Destroyer in Action' - HMS Saumarez in the Battle of the Malacca Strait (May 1945); the author refers to Captain D26 as Captain Power but it was hardly difficult to give him his proper name, Captain Manley Power. It's a pity that the Battle of the Barents Sea (December 1942) is mis-spelled as Barants Sea and, here too, the Captain D (in HMS Onslow) has only a surname, Captain Sherbrooke, and he is not in the index either! Yet, Captain Robert St V Sherbrooke received a VC for his gallantry and leadership in this action and it is not even mentioned - shocking.

Full colour artwork is an important part of these books by Osprey and there is no doubt that this artwork is good. Representations, in this book, of HMS Onslow and HMS Saumarez in action are though, of course, artistic licence but there are only these two so I shall not quibble. Black and white photographs of wartime destroyers are widely available and there are plenty used to illustrate this book too - that's good and what is better is that some of the colour profile drawings of particular vessels give examples of the coloured bands on destroyer funnels that indicated the different flotillas (which, of course, don't show up in b+w photos); the colour profile drawing of HMS Laforey (page 25) is a good example. What I would like to have seen, though, is a page of colour drawing of the funnels of all the destroyer flotillas (which I have never seen anywhere).

The biggest disappointment, though, is rather remarkable. The J Class to Z Class destroyers, 15 classes of War Emergency Programme destroyers, are the bulk of the ships described in this book. The Tribal Class were more famous, probably, mainly for their size, differences, actions and high losses and a few of the C Class and Battle Class appeared right at the very end of the war. Yet the choice of ship for the excellent cutaway drawing is the Tribal Class destroyer HMS Eskimo, not one of the J to Z Classes - I would like to have seen a cutaway drawing of both classes, of course, but if there could be only one, it should have been one of the J to Z Classes, given the broadly similar design and internal arrangement of these 120 destroyers.

There are some silly mistakes worth my correcting - HMS Kempenfelt was a W Class not V Class (page 36). The author states, on page 35, "... reflect a return to the older tradition of naming flotilla leaders after important sea captains. ..." yet Jervis, Kelly, Laforey, Milne, Napier, Onslow and Pakenham were all Destroyer Leaders named for famous sea captains using the same initial letter of the destroyer class too. Q presented a difficulty, so the name HMS Quilliam was chosen, John Quilliam having been First Lieutenant of HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. Then came HMS Rotherham, incorrectly spelled by the Admiralty for the name was meant to salute Captain Edward Rotheram (this is not the first time that Admiralty clerks mis-spelled a ship's name - HMS Peterel is another example). Back to the alphabet, Leaders that followed (!) were Saumarez and Troubridge but, then, U and V presented a problem for the Ships' Names Committee, so the U Leader was HMS Grenville and the V Leader HMS Hardy. Why W was problematic for a Leader is a mystery but the W Class Leader was HMS Kempenfelt (HMS Wager was named after Admiral Sir Charles Wager, so surely she was the name for the Leader?) and, not surprisingly, with no naval captain of fame having a surname beginning with Z, that class Leader was HMS Myngs (interesting to note that the First Sea Lord from 2013-2016 was Admiral Sir George Zambellas, his name from his Greek family). In short, all Destroyer Leaders in the J to Z Classes were named for sea captains, John Quilliam commanding in his later career. It was interesting to learn that, from the V Class on, a second vessel in the class was built as a Leader, so that a replacement might be available should the Leader be lost. It would have been helpful were the Half Leaders of each Flotilla named - I know the Half Leader of the 27th Destroyer Flotilla was HMS Whelp (a Flotilla Leader was commanded by a four-stripe Captain, known as Captain D, and a Half Leader was commanded by a three-stripe Commander).

Not the remit of this book at all but, in the light of my comments in the preceding paragraph, why no X Class or Y Class Destroyers? X would be tricky for eight appropriate names but perhaps HMS Xebec, HMS Xenolith, HMS Xhosa, HMS Xylophone? Y would have been less difficult, perhaps HMS Yachtsman, HMS Yarborough, HMS Yarmouth, HMS Yarrow, HMS Yawl, HMS Yearling, HMS Yeoman, HMS York (the cruiser having been lost earlier in the war). ( )