HMS Howe 1944-45
( ROYAL NAVY ) HMS HOWE
[With a Foreword by Captain H. W.U. McCall, Royal Navy]. [First and Sole Edition.]
RECORD OF HER LAST WARTIME COMMISSION: A RARE SURVIVAL
Published: [Privately Printed Durban], [n.d.?1946]
Stock code: 15293
Price: £380.00
4to., First Edition, with frontispiece, 25 plates on 18, numerous illustrations (one full-page) in the text and front endpaper map in red and black; original grey-blue cloth, upper board blocked with ship's crest in blue, very neatly recased with old endpapers preserved, covers lightly age-marked else a very good, bright, clean copy.
This copy was formerly in the possession of G.A.J. Seymour (possibly Chief Shipwright). HMS Howe's last wartime commission took her from Scapa Flow to Auckland, including the UK naval ports, Gibraltar, Algiers, Port Said, Suez, Aden, Bombay, Trincomalee, Singapore, Colombo, Fremantle, Sydney and Auckland. Then she travelled across the Pacific to take part in air strikes against Leyte. Then back to Fremantle and on to Durban (where this publication seems to have been printed), Cape Town, Mombassa, the Seychelles and Colombo again, after which she retraced her outward route back to the UK. This record is the usual ship's mixture of chronology, geography, anecdote, private reminiscence, humour, cartoons and Crossing the Line. There is much coverage of her gunnery for which she was renowned throughout the Pacific Fleet. AN IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE ADDITION TO THE OPERATIONAL RECORD OF THE KGV BATTLESHIPS IN WWII. RARE. We can find no record of this publication in any reference known to us.