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I must admit before reading this book I didn’t know this type of ship existed. The Bustler Class were high powered tugs, capable of crossing the Atlantic with a convoy, and towing damaged ships thousands of miles, while at the same time serving as rescue ships with extra accommodation built in. They were a type of ship that was in very short supply at the outbreak of war, but the description of the design process given here is full of typically frustrating bureaucratic delays, which added nine months to the construction of the first of the class!
Seven of the eight tugs get a full chapter each. The one exception is the Hesperia, which sank in the Mediterranean in February 1945 and only gets two pages. For the other five we get a reasonable amount on their wartime careers, more on their post-war careers, and a selection of personal memories from former crewmen that were posted on the author’s previous website.
Some of the exploits of these ships are very impressive, towing damaged ships from Gibraltar to Britain, through U-boat infested storm ridden seas, or across most of the Atlantic. The personal memories add a great deal of colour, and bring to the fore some aspects of their work that wouldn’t otherwise stick out, in particular the dangers of attempting to keep tow lines attached (one story, involving the perils of working on the hull of an abandoned submarine sticks out, as do the difficulties of towing empty aircraft carriers across the Atlantic)
The result is a memorable look at the careers of these eight sister ships, which played a significant role in the war at sea, and in seven cases in the post-war world.
Chapters
1 – The need
2 – The shipyard
3 – The context
4 – Bustler
5 – Samson/ Samsonia
6 – Growler and Hesperia
7 – Mediator
8 – Reward
9 – Turmoil
10 – Warden
11 – Technical specifications of the tugs as built
Author: R.O. Neish
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 176
Publisher: Whittles
Year: 2022