USS Lawrence
vs HMS Detroit

The War of 1812 on the Great Lakes

by Mark Lardas

Osprey Publishing

Reviewed by Graham Carter

The seventh title in this series covering significant naval engagements throughout the ages, a series I must admit have never come across. This one is an 80 page, casebound book with high quality semi-gloss paper that allows great reproduction of photos, drawings and charts in a thicker glossy card cover.

Mark Lardas is an amateur historian, but also a naval modeller who has researched and written extensively across these areas.

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The War of 1812 between Britain and the fledgling US took place in the great Lakes area, far from the Atlantic Ocean. This particular engagement is the only one in naval history in which the Royal Navy suffered a crushing loss when an entire British squadron from battleships down to its smallest craft surrendered to the enemy.

The book covers the struggle between the two forces in its historic context, as well as a detailed account of how the ships were built and armed, and stories behind the key personnel involved in the action.

Chapter headings are:

• Chronology,

• Design and Development,

• Strategic Situation,

• Technical Specifications,

• Combatants,

• Combat,

• Statistics and Analysis,

• Aftermath.

Followed by a Further Reading section and an Index.

The book is full of illustrations, both contemporary paintings and drawings as well as modern repays or museum pieces, maps and sketches, which are well captioned and enhance the text.

This is an excellent treatment of this important naval engagement that will be of great interest to naval historians and modellers alike.

Thanks to Pacific Monograph for the sample.

Review Copyright © 2021 by Graham Carter
This Page Created on 4 January, 2021
Last updated 4 January, 2021

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