For an old "naval gazer" like your reviewer, the arrival of the latest issue of Osprey Publishing's Warship yearbook is always a treat. Overflowing with lengthy, detailed and scholarly reviews of important past warships and their equipment, Warship 2021 is yet another great thought-provoker. Its panel of contributing authors is experienced, knowledgeable, and impressive.
As well, it offers a checklist of all the better naval history books that you may have missed during the past year. The high quality reviews of those books are another very welcome treat.
There is so much for modern naval personnel and their supporters to learn from this kind of appropriate and up-to-date history. The essays comprising Warship 2021 present the good, the bad, and the ugly of the world's warships of, mostly, the World War II era. The performance analysis of the ships, their crews, and their weaponry is invaluable. An excellent example of that is the pictorial record of the post-war trials of the schnorkel-equipped Nazi U-Boat U-889 undertaken in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in mid-1945.
Read carefully. This important naval publishing annual event really makes its readers think.
Editor: John Jordan
Available from Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK.