This book, as the title suggests, covers the destroyers of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Covering their history and ship's badges and written by a man who was himself involved with the designs of each current badge (in some cases redesigning the badges), the thoroughness of the research is immediately apparent. Following the same format as his earlier book: "The Capital Ships" it lists all the destroyers in alphabetical order from HMAS ANZAC to HMAS Yarra. Each individual ship entry gives a brief description of the origin of the name, service history (varying length depending on the ship), casualty lists where applicable, Commanding officers and ships of the same name. There are plenty of photos throughout the book, some of which will appeal to the ship modeller.
It also has chapters devoted to heraldic terms, the origin of ship badges and colour profiles of ship badges. These sections however are repeated from: "The Capital Ships".
Where this books excels like the first Vol, however, is in the badges and battle honours section of each individual entry, as the author goes through the history of each badge and how the badges evolved to their current format . Mr Cassells explains the significance of the each badge in layman's terms yet doesn't "dumb down" the heraldic terminology.