The Boy's Book of Submarines. With numerous illustrations and diagrams.

by Archie Frederick Collins, Virgil D. Collins

Fascinating description of the submarine from a World War I perspective, with illustrations. The book describes how to build a model submarine in order to understand how the technology works, and discusses issues associated with submarine warfare. A serious work, written at a reading level suitable for youth or working people. It is doubtful, a century later, whether young people still have a comparable understanding of the significance of submarines.

Excerpt:
The very sound of it conjures up thoughts of great ships that were and will be torpedoed and sent to the bottom of the old ocean to rust and to rot there.
Of all the mighty monsters that ever sailed the seven seas this piratical craft is by long odds the most daring as well as the most dangerous to both life and property.
And yet while of course you know that a submarine can travel on or under the water, dive like a porpoise and destroy an enemy ship by shooting a torpedo at her, do you know exactly how an undersea boat works and fights and just how she does all the seemingly impossible feats for which she is notorious?
At the present time the greatest war in the world's history is being fought, and you are more than a mere looker-on for your country is in it and you may be one of the boys who will be called to the colors to defend her on, or against, these undersea craft.

220 pages, ebook

First published October 21, 2008

About the author

Archie Frederick Collins, who generally went by A. Frederick Collins, was a prominent early American experimenter in wireless telephony and prolific author of books and articles covering a wide range of scientific and technical subjects.