Ships' Data, U.S. Naval Vessels

SDB Cover

History of the Ships' Data Book
Warship International, produced by the International Naval Research Organization, has been publishing original articles on warships since 1963. INRO is is dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its website is at www.warship.org/index.htm.

The final precursor
These two reports, the first by the Bureau of Construction and Repair and the second by the Bureau of Steam Engineering, were attached to the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1909-1910. For 1910-1911 they were consolidated into the first Ships' Data Book. Reports of this type began to appear in the annual Navy Department reports in 1887, and most if not all of these annual reports are available on Google Books, where this copy was obtained.

Ships' Data, U.S. Naval Vessels, 1911-1945
The Google scans are provided here because they do not reliably turn up in Google searches, although many up to 1935 can be found on HathiTrust. The 1942 edition was prepared but not issued and exists at the Navy Department Library on microfilm. The 1943 edition was declassified by its originator (Admiral Cochrane) on 5 January 1946. A 1 February 1944 "Addendum" to the 1943 edition adds little to what is available in the 1943 and 1945 editions. Volume 1 of the 1945 edition was downgraded from "Confidential" to "Restricted" by Admiral Cochrane on 5 January 1946 (see correspondence inserted after page iii), and this copy was later reviewed and declassified on 28 September 1967 citing as authority DoD Directive 5200.9, "Downgrading and Declassification of Certain Information Originated Before January 1, 1946," dated 27 September 1958. The other two 1945 volumes were Unclassified. Today (2026) the 1942, 1943, and 1945 editions are all shown in the online catalog of the Navy Department Library as "available for circulation." The generalstaff.org site (formerly alternatewars.com) has nice scans of all three 1945 volumes, which are presented in multiple sections. The fragments from the 1949 edition, which cover service craft, represent the semi-automated formats used in the 1949, 1952, and 1956 volumes. These volumes and any later ones are otherwise unavailable on the web although the 1952 edition is shown as "available for circulation" on the Navy Department Library website and the donor of the 1949 fragment wrote that the 1949 edition had been declassified in 1962.


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