"Mr. Johnson has ... produced a technical history of destroyers as
all-around naval weapons. Anyone interested in these ships will value
his efforts." --The Wall Street Journal
A "well-written" and "enjoyable history of destroyer class warships"
filled with "memorable sea battles in which destroyers played prominent
roles." --Publishers Weekly
For men on destroyer-class warships during World War I and World War II,
battles were waged "against overwhelming odds from which survival could
not be expected." Those were the words Lieutenant Commander Robert
Copeland calmly told his crew as their tiny, unarmored destroyer escort
rushed toward giant, armored Japanese battleships at the Battle off
Samar on October 25, 1944.
This action-packed narrative history of destroyer-class ships brings
readers inside the half-inch-thick hulls to meet the men who fired the
ships' guns, torpedoes, hedgehogs, and depth charges. Nicknamed "tin
cans" or "greyhounds," destroyers were fast escort and attack ships that
proved indispensable to America's military victories. Beginning with
destroyers' first incarnation as torpedo boats in 1874 and ending with
World War II, author Clint Johnson shares the riveting stories of the
Destroyer Men who fought from inside a "tin can"--risking death by
cannons, bombs, torpedoes, fire, and drowning.
The British invented destroyers, the Japanese improved them, and the
Germans failed miserably with them. It was the Americans who perfected
destroyers as the best fighting ship in two world wars. Tin Cans &
Greyhounds compares the designs of these countries with focus on the
old, modified World War I destroyers, and the new and numerous World War
II destroyers of the United States.
Tin Cans & Greyhounds details how destroyers fought submarines,
escorted convoys, rescued sailors and airmen, downed aircraft, shelled
beaches, and attacked armored battleships and cruisers with nothing more
than a half-inch of steel separating their crews from the dark waves.
