HMS Enterprise. The Story Of The First Commission, April 1926 to December 1928.

8vo., First and Sole Edition, with numerous plates and a folding map (lightly spotted); red cloth, upper board and backstrip blocked and lettered in gilt, a very good, bright, clean copy. The editor was almost certainly the Rev. Harold E. Stevens, ship's chaplain from 1 January 1927 to the end of the commission. The first of the Royal Navy's two 'E'-class Cruisers (the other being HMS Emerald), Enterprise was launched on Clydebank in 1919 and completed at Devonport in 1926. During the last phase of her first commission she was commanded by Pridham-Whipple, who (commanding the Mediterranean cruiser squadrons for Cunningham) became one of Britain's finest fighting admirals of WWII. The Enterprise's own WWII service comprised Atlantic escort 1939-40; Home Fleet 1940 (including the Norwegian campaign during which she supported the army at Narvik); South Atlantic 1940-41 (including Force H and Mers-el-Kebir); East Indies 1941-42; Eastern Fleet 1942-43; Home Fleet 1943-44 (including Normandy/Utah); Reserve and Trooping 1945. After long and faithful service she was decommissioned in 1946 and scrapped at Newport in the same year. The suggestion that a book of the first commission should be produced came from the ship's company and a copy was printed for everyone who had served in her for a year or more. Since her complement averaged 570 it is clear that few copies can have survived, let alone in this condition; we have been unable so far to trace another. EXTREMELY SCARCE