Plastic Ship Modeler Cover (click to enlarge)History on CD-ROM

Accurately identifying enemy ships has always been difficult. During World War Two the Navy Department produced booklets with information on the ships of other nations. They compiled what was known about these ships and formatted it in a form that could be used to train lookouts on ships. The US Navy Ship and Aircraft ONI 54-R June 9, 1942 was one such publication and is now available from History on CD-ROM in a form you can access on your computer. 

The CD contains two Adobe Acrobat PDF files, one is a catalog listing the other CD's available. The other file is actually a the entire book converted to PDF format in one searchable file. Most computer users already have Acrobat on their systems as it is probably the most popular document exchange format. If not it is included on the CD, or you can download the latest version free from Adobe.com. If Acrobat is on your system already then simply double click the file on the CD and it will load into a window similar to your internet browser. You now browse from page to page or use the menu on the left to jump to the ship type that interests you. Pages can be displayed as tiled images or zoomed in for a closer look. On some pictures I was able to zoom in 400% without serious image degradation.

This CD Covers US Navy Ship and Aircraft during the post Pearl Harbor period up until about the Midway era. There are several photo's of each ship and infomation about the classes. Many pictures I have seen before, but some I don't remember seeing in print. It is nice to have them all together in an easily searched archive.

 

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Sample photo from article  (click to enlarge)
Chris Drage sample article  (click to enlarge)
back cover  (click to enlarge)
Conclusions:
This CD is a 96 page document describing 188 ships/classes and 12 types of aicraft including 311 pictures, and 124 silhouettes The CD works well with both a Windows PC or a MAC computer or any operation system that can run Adobe Acrobat. If you would rather have a printed copy then simply print what you need as the pages are scanned in at 600 dpi. A test print of several pages shows that the output is at least as good as the reprint of a USN Book that I have in my library. This CD is  item # N501 and sells for $29.95. You can buy it direct via the website using credit card, money order or check.


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