Guns Up, Depth Charges Readied. US Navy, Commonwealth and Other Allied Escort Ships Shepherding Convoys and Battling German and Italian Air and Naval Forces in the Mediterranean in World War II. By Cdr. David D Bruhn USN (Rtd.) Heritage Books, Maryland, 2021.
Reviewed by Tim Coyle
The extensive sub-title outlines the content of the book which is distinguished by encompassing all the allied naval forces in the Mediterranean; The Royal Navy, the United States Navy, the Royal Australian and Canadian Navies, the South African Naval Forces and the Polish Navy. In so doing, it focusses on minor warships – destroyers, destroyer escorts, sloops, armed trawlers and others.
This focus ensures lesser- known naval forces, such as the South African Naval Forces (SANF) and Polish Navy units receive equal billing with their larger brethren. David Bruhn shares the authorships with contributors writing on those forces: Rear Admiral Allan du Toit AM RAN (Rtd), who provided the SANF input, and Commodore Hector Donohue AM RAN (Rtd) with the RAN participation – most notably the ‘Scrap Iron Flotilla’.
Guns Up, Depth Charges Readied is one of 19 Heritage Books lead-authored by Bruhn covering allied naval operations by minor war vessels and naval ‘ancillary’ forces such as mine warfare, tugs and salvage ships, seaplane tenders, amphibious ships and many other types, written in conjunction with allied specialist contributors.
The book is an encyclopaedic coverage of Mediterranean naval operations. Twenty-three chapters cover U-boat sinkings, Italian navy submarine operations, convoy escorts, chapters on the SANF, the Tobruk Ferry Service, Canadian and Polish Navy engagements and more. Ten appendices detail allied and enemy losses, battle honours, lists of U-boats which operated in the Mediterranean, ship pennant numbers and decorations awarded. There are numerous informative titbits not normally found in a more formal history. These include tables of officers’ rank insignia of the allied and enemy navies (including the anachronistic uniform lacing differences between the RN, RNR and RNVR and their Commonwealth equivalents), ‘language differences’, comprising differences in US and British/Commonwealth spelling, images of decorations and medals awarded to ships’ companies and much more.
It is a handy reference to the Mediterranean theatre of naval operations without having to delve through large volumes.
Bruhn’s writings, concentrating on the allied/coalition aspect of naval operations in history, are pertinent today as the Indo-Pacific looms large as a multi-partnered maritime security challenge. Guns Up, Depth Charges Readied describes a naval campaign which arguably could not have succeeded without the contributions of the six allied navies small ships, all equal in gallantry in a common aim.
