Today we're showing three pieces of artwork from our July 2024 series books! Let us know in the comments which books you'd like to see featured in our August 2024 Artwork Reveal!
US Navy Pacific Fleet 1941: America's mighty last battleship fleet
By Mark Lardas
Illustrated by Edouard A. Groult
VPs AT WAKE
Kimmel planned to make Wake Island a forward base. It was simultaneously to serve as a springboard for operations against the northernmost of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands, and bait to lure the Japanese fleet into attacking it, where it could be ambushed.
A key part of the plan was transforming Wake’s lagoon into a seaplane base where US Navy reconnaissance squadrons (called VPs, for the Navy code for aViation Patrol squadron) could operate. The Pacific Fleet planned to build facilities for three seaplane squadrons at Wake, clearing coral heads and dredging the lagoon to a depth acceptable for Catalina PBY flying boats.
The effort was simplified as Pan American Airlines had built facilities for its China Clipper airliners to land in the lagoon, including a dock and seaplane ramp. However, the lagoon was too shallow (and too small) to admit seaplane tenders. All supplies for the VPs operating out of Wake had to be lightered from ships anchored offshore, vulnerable to submarines, and then cached on one of the three islands in the atoll. Maintenance facilities were required on the atoll as well, and these were planned but never fully developed.
Regardless, throughout 1941 VP squadrons would be sent to Wake to demonstrate its potential as a base. They would remain for a limited period – generally a week or two – then return to Hawaii. This plate captures the action in one such exercise on May 25, 1941.
The 12 aircraft of VP11, normally stationed out of NAS Kaneohe on Oahu’s east coast, are at Wake, where they conducted reconnaissance, practicing to detect an attempted Japanese invasion of the island. Nine PBY Catalinas are moored on the north side of the lagoon in the first of three squadron anchorages created in the lagoon. A tenth is taking off on a morning patrol. Two other PBYs launched previously are already on patrol. Due to prevailing winds, aircraft always take off and land headed east.
The European situation unraveled Kimmel’s plans. The US wanted Britain to send a battleship force to Singapore. It also planned to occupy Iceland to strengthen Roosevelt’s Atlantic Neutrality Zone. To support that, the US Navy transferred three battleships, a carrier, four light cruisers and two destroyer flotillas from the Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic Fleet. Accompanying them were three fleet oilers and three transports. By the time the transfer was complete in May 1941, the Pacific Fleet was inferior to the Japanese Navy in every category.
Artwork requested by Daniel Figueroa Giraldez
Chrome Dome 1960–68: The B-52s' high-stakes Cold War nuclear operation
By Peter E. Davies
Illustrated by Adam Tooby
B-47E-65-LM 53-1884 blasts off for a 1957 ground alert sortie
The bomber’s J35 engines left it seriously under-powered until the J47 engine became available for the B-47E version. In service, it acquired an unenviable reputation for very difficult handling, poor engine response, and a tendency to spin or stall. It also lacked all-weather bombing equipment, and its use as a low-altitude bombing system (LABS) bomber, requiring a high-g climb and half-loop to deliver a nuclear weapon, induced metal fatigue. One wing, the 306th BW, lost seven B-47s while practicing this manoeuvre and 251 were written off in accidents. During the 1956 Suez Crisis over 1,000 US-based B-47s flew simulated nuclear strike flights totaling 8 million miles over the Arctic zone and the USA. Although not an airborne alert like the later Chrome Dome missions, it showed that any potential threat could be faced quickly, albeit at tremendous operational expense.
Artwork requested by Paul Williams
British Lend-Lease Warships 1940–45: The Royal Navy's American-built destroyers and frigates
By Angus Konstam
Illustrated by Adam Tooby
HMS TROLLOPE IN ACTION WITH E-BOATS, JUNE 1944
The Captain-class frigate HMS Trollope was commissioned in Boston on 10 January 1944 when
Lt Cdr Harry Westacott assumed command of her. She then crossed the Atlantic, and was modified
in Gosport before joining the fleet. In late April she became a Coastal Forces Control Frigate
(CFCF), supporting anti E-boat patrols off Cherbourg. Trollope was involved in one small skirmish,
but her real test came in early June, during Operation Neptune – the amphibious part of the D-Day
landings. On the night of 6–7 June she formed the outer picket of a patrol line protecting the
shipping lying off the beachheads. That night the 5th S-boot (E-boat) Flotilla based in Cherbourg
attempted to attack, but came up against a cordon of Allied warships. Trollope was the outlying
‘picket’ boat that evening, and detected the approaching E-boats on her radar. She fired off
starshells, then engaged the six boats with her guns. Three E-boats turned away but the others
headed straight for her. Trollope fired with everything she had, including her bridge-mounted
Lewis gun. Two E-boats were hit, with one stopped and set ablaze and another badly damaged. If
they launched torpedoes at Trollope, these went by unseen in the dark. The third boat then broke
off the attack. None of these E-boats though, made it past the Allied cordon that night, to reach
the anchored ships beyond. Trollope survived her first baptism of fire, but a month later wasn’t so
lucky. On 6 July, during another night-time clash, the frigate was torpedoed by an E-boat, and
although beached near Arromanches, she was deemed a ‘constructive loss’.
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