The 'little ships' of the Second World War - the fast and highly
maneuverable motor torpedo boats and gunboats which fought in coastal
waters all over the world - developed a special kind of naval warfare.
With their daring nightly raids against an enemy's coastal shipping -
and sometimes much larger warships - they acquired the buccaneering
spirit of an earlier age. And never more so than in the close
hand-to-hand battles which raged between opposing craft when they met in
open waters.
Large numbers of these small fighting boats were built by the major
naval powers. The Germans called them Schnellboote (Fast Boats),
referred to by the British as E-boats (E for Enemy). In the Royal Navy
they were MTBs and MGBs. The American equivalent were PT boats (for
Patrol Torpedo). They fought in the narrow waters of the English Channel
and the stormy North Sea, in the Mediterranean off the coasts of North
Africa and Italy and among the islands of the Aegean, across the Pacific
from Pearl harbor to Leyte Gulf, in Hong Kong and Singapore, and off
Burma's Arakan coast.
Bryan Cooper's book traces the history and development of these craft
from their first limited use in the First World War and the fast motor
boats designed in the 1930s for wealthy private clients and water speed
record attempts. With account of the battles which took place during the
Second World War, when the vital importance of coastal waters came to be
recognized, he captures the drama of this highly individual form of
combat. And not least the sea itself which was the common enemy of all
who crewed these frail craft.
