Bottom Line First:
Like many books written by the warriors who were there, G. G. Connell’s story of his time aboard the HMS Petard can be somewhat flat and bare. What he has to say is compelling because it is the truth. This is what was happening around him and how the sailors responded to the boredom, the danger and the loss of shipmates. This is not history by a great writer, this is the view from a front line ship. A WWII destroyer was never a glamor ship with the front row to all the most dramatic ship battles. The HMS Petard was a hardworking, hard fighting ship and that is what recommends this book.
Author G.G. Connell tells us that he was inspired to write this history many years after WWII. He purpose was to remember the people and events of his ship. From that point on he barely mentions himself. All of the book is about the ship, her two Captains and his shipmates. As he honors their achievements we come to understand why they are worthy of remembrance. His complete lack of ego, at least for himself further recommends this book.
Some background. A Petard was an early version of what would now call a breaching device. It was a bomb that would be braced, screwed or jammed against the gates of a fort. The intent was to blow open the gates during an attack. If for any of several reasons, it exploded too soon, it would kill the people trying to place it. Hence the term to be hoist (blown up) by your own Petard. The HMS Petard would not let its crew down.
HMS Petard was a so called P Class Fleet destroyer. This meant it was slightly larger and more heavily armed than some destroyers and escort ships. Her missions would include Anti-submarine tasks, convoy escort, and emergency re-supply for isolated troops. She would mostly serve in the Mediterranean providing support for the heavily besieged people on Malta, the major landings in Italy, the back water, shoe string operations in the Greek and Turkish Islands. She would engage in a supply mission into the Indian Ocean long enough to be part of the team that sank a Japanese submarine (one of two such kills to her credit).
It is a common criticism of WWII Navies that ships were helpless against air attack. Petard alone and in squadron formation would fight off numerous air attacks. She was also credited with taking down a number of attacking aircraft while surviving mostly minor damage. It is possible that cumulatively, she suffered as much from friendly fire than enemy. This later point was something I had only heard about once before and in that discussion it was not clear just how common this may have been.
G.G. Connell has a relatively low opinion of his American Allies. Mostly this reads as a nationalistic version of uniform rivalry but there is one area that should be addressed directly. The authors is bothered that America was not willing to allow more support for the so called Dodecanese campaign. A serious look at a map should make it clear that this was a back of the back water operation. It could not have produced much more than it did and there was little to be gained by feeding more into a mostly non-productive side show. It is easy for the author to describe the Americans as naive or relatively inexperienced. The US would have learned a great deal about Island Warfare in the Pacific and was correct to take this campaign as it was intended to be, an effort to delay the serious business of fighting the war on the European Mainland.
Fighting Destroyer, The Story of the HMS Petard is a solid, if stolid almost stodgy telling of what it was to be on a fighting ship. The author will guide you towards understanding the link that forms between warriors and their ship. You will be exposed to the daily grind too often interrupted by the life and death of battle. The Petard is a heroic crew not because of its glamor or the author’s dramatics but because they stayed true to each other and to the work, the discipline and the double hazards of life at sea and aboard a fighting ship.
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他の国からのトップレビュー
Phred
WWII from the decks of a fighting British Destroyer
2016年3月10日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済みAmazonで購入
