Jane's Fighting Ships, 1943-4 (Corrected to July, 1944)

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1944. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus (of corrected version). Hardcover. Format is approximately 13 inches by 8.5 inches [Landscape format]. [approximately 60 unpaginated ages of advertisements], xxv, A1-20, [1], 582, [2] pages. Illustrations. Tables/tabular data. General Index. Shaken and hinges weak. Spine/Cover worn and soiled Edges soiled. Some pages creased. This is a large and heavy book and would require additional shipping charges if sent outside of the United States. Jane's Fighting Ships is an annual reference book of information on all the world's warships arranged by nation, including information on ships' names, dimensions, armaments, silhouettes and photographs, etc. Each edition describes and illustrates warships of different national naval and paramilitary forces, providing data on their characteristics. The first issue was illustrated with Jane's own ink sketches--photos began to appear with the third volume in 1900. The present title was adopted in 1905. It was originally published by John Frederick Thomas Jane in London in 1898 as Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships, in order to assist naval officers and the general public in playing naval wargames. Its success eventually launched a number of military publications carrying the name "Jane's". It is a unit of Jane's Information Group, which is now owned by IHS. Ten early editions of Jane's (those of 1898, 1905-06, 1906-07, 1914, 1919, 1924, 1931, 1939, 1944-45, and 1950-51) were reissued in facsimile reprints by Arco Publishing. All of these appeared in the oblong or "landscape" format that characterized the series until the 1956/57 edition, while from 1957/58 the present "portrait" layout was adopted. The New York Times on September 21, 1944 from London on September 20th that a hint of the overwhelming sea power the United States and Britain are massing for use against Japan was contained in the 1943-44 edition of Jane's Fighting Ships, released to the press on on the 20th and formally published on the 21st. This authoritative naval publication pointed out that while the Allied navies are still growing as a result of new building and accretions of ships from other sources, the German and Japanese fleets were showing signs of the steady process of attrition to which they had been subjected. Jane's appraisal of the growing Allied strength contained most interesting information in view of the fact that the European war is believed to be entering a phase where almost all British and American sea power can be shifted to the Pacific. United States expansion, the new edition notes, "continues at a tremendous pace" with two new 45,000-ton battleships, the Missouri and Wisconsin, due to be launched this year, bring the total number of battleships to twenty-four. In addition, the United States had recently completed several new cruisers "considerably exceeding losses" and 80,000 landing craft. The American Navy, which has reconstructed old vessels to strengthen defense against aircraft, number 4,167 ships as of the preceding January. Condition: Fair.

Keywords: Naval, WWII, Warships, Reference Works, Aircraft Carriers, Battleships, Silhouettes, Cruisers, Destroyers, Corvettes, Depot Ships, River Gunboats, Submarines, Minesweepers, Tenders, Torpedo Craft, Seaplane Carrier, Armored Ships, Sloops

[Book #4965]

Price: $175.00

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