The first recorded engagement by a steam-powered warship took place on a river, when in 1824 the Honourable East India Company’s gunboat Diana went into action on the Irrawaddy in Burma. In the 150 years that followed river gunboats played a significant part in over forty campaigns and individual actions, down to the Portuguese and American ‘Brown Water’ fighting in Africa and Vietnam respectively at the end of the twentieth century. They proved to be the decisive factor in operations against the Maoris, with Gordon’s Ever Victorious Army in China, during the river campaigns of the American Civil War, in the French conquest of Indochina, during Kitchener’s advance on Khartoum, and on the Rufiji and Tigris during the Great War.

Author Roger Branfill-Cook Published by Seaforth Publishing ISBN 9781848323650 EAN 9781848323650 Bic Code Cover Hardback