Jane's Fighting Ships, 1977-78; Jane's Yearbooks

New York: Franklin Watts Inc, 1977. First American Publication/Edition, Presumed First printing thus. Hardcover. Good. Quarto. 829, [3] pages. Illustrations (some with color). Silhouettes. Tables. Addenda. Index on Named Ships. Index of Classes. Title page and several other pages creased. Some cover wear and soiling. 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 (usually known as "Fred T.") 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 starting in 1969. 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, thus matching the sister Jane's publication on aircraft. Captain John Moore was a long-time editor of Jane's Fighting Ships and helped develop the covert landing techniques of the Special Boat Service. Moore was respected internationally. Once, when he was arrested in Shanghai after photographing a Chinese warship, his reputation alone was sufficient to get him released from custody. At the height of the Cold War his forewords to Jane's Fighting Ships were eagerly awaited commentaries on the state of the world and in particular its navies. John Evelyn Moore joined the Navy in September 1939. Having completed his training at sea in the battleship Rodney, Moore underwent a sub-lieutenant's course in Portsmouth, then served in the survey ship Challenger from 1942 to 1944. He assisted in hydrographical surveys in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea in preparation for Operation Zipper, the British plan to recapture Malaya from the occupying Japanese; during this period he contracted malaria and was bitten by a rabid dog. In 1944 he volunteered for "the trade", and served in the submarines Rover, Vigorous, the captured U994 and Trenchant. He passed his "perisher" course in 1949 and went on to command the submarines Totem and Alaric, and then the 1st Submarine Squadron in Sydney and the 7th, based in Singapore. During the Second World War Moore had experienced at first hand the difficulty of landing men from submarines and the submariner's dislike of entering shallow water. He determined to do something about these problems when in Singapore during the Confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia between 1962 and 1966, taking a special interest in the operations of the Special Boat Service. By 1965 "Goldfish", an underwater method of leaving and re-entering submarines, was under development by the Navy in the Far East. The technique was based on the experience during the Second World War of the midget submarines known as X-craft; but Moore took this further, inventing a homing device called "Trongle" which enabled swimmers to find their parent boat at night. Next he converted a Mark 20 torpedo ("a useless device for its original task") to become an underwater delivery vehicle which he called Archimedes, and he experimented with this with the then 2nd Lieutenant Paddy Ashdown, RM. Moore also adapted a Polaroid camera to take reconnaissance photographs through submarine periscopes, and eventually perfected a technique whereby special forces could be parachuted to a waiting sub, collect their gear and proceed to their targets. Appointments in naval intelligence followed when Moore studied the navies of the Warsaw Pact nations. Notwithstanding a lifetime in a disciplined service, Moore never lost his independence of mind. It is said that he refused promotion to rear-admiral for the certainty of long-term employment at Jane's - on his retirement from the Navy in 1973 he became the first naval officer to be its editor.