Blurb

The Royal Navy Submarine Service of today plays a central role in the defence of Great Britain. With the Trident D5 ballistic missile, the Service maintains and operates a weapon of unimaginable destructive power, while the twelve fleet submarines of the `Swiftsure' and 'Trafalgar' classes are the most potent individual vessels in the Royal Navy's order of battle. But in the early years of the twentieth century, the role of the submarine was anything but central to the Royal Navy.

Since Submarine Holland 1 was laid down in 1901, submarines have undergone tremendous change. Holland 1 was small and primitive, its ability unproven, while the nuclear-powered `Trident' class submarines of today's Royal Navy are 165 times heavier. Their ability to travel the oceans of the world for months on end, fully submerged and carrying Britain's nuclear deterrent, is a graphic illustration of this quantum leap in design and technology.

Nothing illustrates this change better than the fascinating selection of photographs collected for this book from the archives of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Storico Navale in Venice, and a number of private collections. They cover the stories of the first submersibles, the development of the submarine as a potent weapon of sea power in the First and Second World Wars, and the dawn of the nuclear age when submarines became launch platforms for strategic nuclear weapons with the potential for mass destruction.

HM Submarines in Camera gives a graphic view of life in British submarines which have been an integral part of the Royal Navy for the past 100 years — submarines that range from the tiny 'Holland' class designed in Queen Victoria's reign, to the monstrous `Vanguard' class of the nuclear age. Their exploits from the North Cape to the Falklands, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, are legendary, and the award of fourteen Victoria Crosses to the Submarine Service is testimony to the devotion, courage and past sacrifice of those brave men who are proud to call themselves submariners.

Illustrated throughout with archive photographs accompanied by detailed captions, HM Submarines in Camera will appeal to all with an interest in the Royal Navy and its enduring association with the submarine.