According to conventional naval history, the Coastal Motor Boat was the brainchild of three enterprising young Royal Navy officers in the early stages of the First World War. This new book reveals that the truth was far more complex, and historically more significant. Research in previously unused family records shows that the shipbuilder John I Thornycroft played a pivotal role, building on his prewar experience in the new sport of fast motorboat racing, without which the technologically advanced CMB could never have been built. This book goes on to analyse the original role for which these boats were specifically designed an attack on the German High Seas Fleet in its protected anchorages and why the operation never took place. Later activities are covered but by the end of the war many regarded the CMB as a disappointment, if not a downright failure. This changed dramatically in 1919 with the RNs intervention against the Bolsheviks, when CMBs spectacularly raided the Kronstad naval base following the singlehanded sinking of the Russian cruiser Oleg by CMB.4. Although these operations have been written up many times previously, for the first time this book has had access to contemporary Soviet reports which throw much new light on these events and their significance. After the war, the Royal Navy lost interest in CMBs unlike the Soviets who built large numbers of what were effectively copies but the Thornycroft design continued to be built and operated by navies as far...

Binding: Hardback;256 pages; Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd; Classification: HBTM; Weight: 1472 g; Dimensions: 226 x 268 x 26

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