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BOOK REVIEW ...The U.S. Navy's Sumner Gearing class destroyers
served as a standard for post-World War II destroyer design and
development. Their evolution over the course of nearly forty
years and three wars is fully covered in this handsomely illustrated
book. Robert Sumrall traces the origins of these destroyers through
half a century of changing naval technology, showing the great
advances made in ordnance, fire control, and steam engineering.
As the author makes clear, the class was as much a product of
world events as of bureaucratic decisions. The Sumners and their
long-hulled sisters, the Gearings, were designed and built in
the midst of the Second World War and adapted and modernized
during the Cold War. Using an extensive and impressive source
list, Sumrall describes the ships as they were first completed
and in later variations into the 1970s, when these aging warships
continued to play a role in the destroyer force. Examples of
both classes were in service in other navies around the world
as late as 1994. |
