Trying to be Sailors by John Leggoe

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Minor wear to book corners. Foxing to top and right foredge. Interior and binding are still very good. Book is a little musty smelling. Dust jacket has light creasing at edges.

Reporter John Leggoe during WWII was a Royal Australian Naval Volunteer. He used this background to write this book on the WWII makeshift and obsolete ships of the RAN and the amateur sailors that manned them.

It is 1942, the RAN are desperately short of ships, arms and other equipment. They are forced to press into service anything that could float. Secrecy and stealth were the only factors going for these often weird, lumbering craft, with little or no offensive capacity, in their sorties into enemy waters north of Australia and around New Guinea.

Gradually, a new fleet of small ships - frigates, corvettes and fairmiles from Australian shipyards began to replace the makeshift ships of 1942. In them, the amateur sailors ranged the Pacific, from Hobart to Tokyo, escorting convoys, hunting submarines, landing and evacuating troops, carrying out secret missions, bombarding Japanese positions and sweeping mines.

These sailors came from all walks of life. Their training was sketchy and they learnt in operations at sea. (book flap)