News from Bill Forster | Holywell House Publishing

I am sad to have to tell you that I have no more copies left of the book I published about HMS VENOMOUS, the V & W Class destroyer on which my father served. It received wonderful reviews in the naval and maritime press and was bought by naval enthusiasts as well as the families of the men who served on her.

But my greatest pleasure was receiving an order from the son or daughter of one of those who served HMS VENOMOUS. And many of them contributed anecdotes or photographs to my web site about HMS VENOMOUS:

 Look under "WHAT"S NEW" for recent additions. These include the life of the last surviving officer on VENOMOUS when he was sent with HMS VALOROUS to accept the surrender of German naval forces in Kristiansand, Norway.

 Miroslav Lansky was only 18 when he served on HMS NORFOLK at the Battle of the North Cape when the German battle cruiser SCHARNHORST was sunk and not much older when as a Midshipman he was torpedoed on HMS CASSANDRA near Murmansk. He became a translator working for the UN in New york, Bangkok and Geneva and died in Geneva on the 15 July. Read about his life on this page:

And I have just completed telling the story of Lt Cdr Derek Lawson RNVR illustrated with the wonderful photographs he took on his Leica while serving on HMS BEVERLEY, HMS MIDDLETON and HMS VENOMOUS. See here.

I have published the full account of events at Kristiansand in May 1945 written by Lt J.A.J. Dennis RN, the CO of HMS VALOROUS, which is more detailed than the account written by Lt Cdr Guyon Prideaux RNVR, the CO of HMS VENOMOUS. See here.

Although I no longer have copies of HARD FOUGHT SHIP you may be able to find copies in the book chain between publisher and reader by searching the Internet [link here] and I do hope you will continue to send me material for adding to the web site. Which may eventually find its way into a future edition.