For the King's Service

The Army and Navy had an insatiable demand for ships during both world wars. They were needed as troop transports, minesweepers, hospital ships, armed merchant cruisers and even as aircraft carriers. The many British railway lines had fleets of ships, which were used as ferries, cargo ships and pleasure steamers. From Scotland came the wooden paddle steamers of the Clyde, from the Irish Sea, the ferries, from the South Coast a mix of cross channel ferries, cargo steamers and paddle steamers and from the East Coast a similar mix. They saw active service in every theatre in both wars and many were lost to enemy action.A.J. Mullay tells the story of the many railway steamers which joined the fight to rid the world of the Axis yoke, and of the successes and disasters of railway ships at war.