It is strange that the story of H.M.S. Kelly has never been fully told before, though it is a story well worth waiting for. Built on the 'coaly Tyne', and commanded by Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten, she was launched just in time to stand the first shock of war, in time to sink a U-boat on the second day of hostilities. As the days darkened her name grew brighter. 'The Asdic Express' they called her in Western Approaches, for her relentless tracking down of the underwater enemy. We see her in heavy weather against the lowering, frozen sky of the Arctic battleground; or silhouetted starkly against the glow of a burning Norwegian town, racing up Channel to catch the Hipper; or caught in a nest of E-boats off the Isle of Sylt. And we see her listing badly, barely afloat, with half her engine-room torn out by a German torpedo, a crippled destroyer on the wrong side of the North Sea—a ship with one foot in the grave. Both in action and ashore we see her men, and are with them as they express in their own language their thoughts and feelings on wild days off Ushant or Christmas puddings in Scapa Flow; from the officer who described his service with Kelly's famous Captain as 'Forever with the Lord', to the ordinary seaman who reflected sadly, 'Shouldn't have joined if I can't take a joke'. This is a great book about a great ship and the men who sailed in her. It will rank among the finest sea stories of any war.

Kenneth Poolman Admiral The Earl Mountbatten (introduction)

The Kelly