Acknowledgements

I

WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS

my particular thanks to Antony

Preston for his expert guidance and the loan of a number of
books from his impressive naval library. At Gonway, I thank
Rob Gardiner, Julian Mannering and Stephen Chumbley
for both their assistance and a display of patience which
went well beyond the call of duty, while John Lee and
David McLean kindly saw the project through to its
completion.

In London, I acknowledge the assistance of library and

research staff at the Imperial War Museum, the National
Maritime Museum, the Public Records Office and the Lon-
don Library. At the Royal Institution of Naval Architects in
London, Toby Ramsay was especially helpful. In Paris, M.
Jerome Legrand of the Centre de Documentation at the
Musee de la Marine showed me documents on the French
coast defence fleet and the Battle of Koh-Chang. In Amster-
dam, help on Dutch-designed vessels was provided by Mrs
E. Streef, Mr C.P.P. van Romburgh and Mr L. Horneman of
the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum. In Germany, assis-
tance was provided by the Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv,
Freiburg, where Dr Hansjoseph Maierhofer and Herr
Moricz were very helpful with a range of subjects relating to
coastal defence in Germany and Scandinavia after the First
World War. The Stadtbibliothek, Mainz, also proved to be a
very useful library.

Significant assistance on modern Swedish coastal defence

was given by Col. Gote Dygeus, Swedish Coast Artillery,
while in Norway Frank Abelsen provided some remarkable
photographs and background on Norwegian coastal battle-

ships. In Britain, Ted Hooton gave helpful pointers on gen-
eral sources and especially on fixed coastal defences, Eric
Grove introduced me to one hitherto unfamiliar aspect of
the subject, while the original inspiration for the work came
from Trevor Lenton.

Photographs and illustrations come from Conway Mari-

time Press, my own collection, the above-mentioned
museums and sources, and a host of contemporary weapon
system manufacturers and shipbuilders, whose publicly
available material is acknowledged as such. To the latter I
extend my gratitude for both illustrations and also for their
numerous technical briefings on different aspects of the
subject over the years. Assembling my own collection was
made an easier task thanks to the kind assistance of
Anthony Cross and colleagues at the Warwick Leadlay Gal-
lery in Greenwich.

Finally, the enterprise was made a great deal easier to

complete thanks to the loving help and encouragement
given by my family Agi and Richard Argent, and the invalu-
able practical assistance provided by Hashi Syedain and
Gavin Stoddart. I am also grateful for the kind help pro-
vided by Dr Sayed Fazle Amin, Barbara Krebs, Deanne
Bergin, Stephen Gardiner and Suzanna van Moyland. I
apologise to any helper whom I may have neglected to
mention. Any fault with the text is mine alone.

G

EORGE

P

ALOCZI

-H

ORVATH

London, April 1996