BOOK OF THE MONTH
Design, development and performance
There is one word to describe this book: impressive. With 11 completed warships serving in at least five navies from 1940 into the mid-1980s, plus succeeding vessels that are inherently considered to be part of the same ‘family’, tackling the development and service of the Britain’s Fiji-class cruisers – also known as the Crown Colony-class – would be a challenge for any author. However, readers are in safe hands with Conrad Waters, long-serving editor of the World Naval Review, who, in 2019, authored the well-received and comprehensive study covering Britain’s Town-class light cruisers. This latest work is essentially the sequel to that excellent and weighty tome.
I can’t overstate the merits of this book, as the pages do all the talking. The quality of its production and presentation is immediately clear on first look and the well-written detail is obvious. Simply put, if the Fiji-class light cruisers are of interest to you, then there is little better place than this charming technical history to find out more about them. With 11 ships constructed in three sub-classes, followed by another six vessels built to modified designs – we’ll get to t…
