There must be loads of novels set at sea in WW2 - I don't suppose procedures would have changed that much between 1945 and the early 1950s - and the ones actually written at the time should be pretty authentic.
Not so sure. Lots of 40s and 50s naval novels annoyed my grandfather (RN 1931-48) to the point where he would just throw the book in the bin - things like "using 'SONAR' in 1940" (should be ASDIC, from the 1920s until well into the 1950s). So I wouldn't be confident that the details were right even with contemporary sources.
Edit: I'd put it down to meddling with texts in the editing process more than contemporary author error except that my other grandfather (RAF), mixing mostly with Americans in the Middle East, had no idea that sonar wasn't the British term either (we discovered in the 1980s). It wasn't something he'd ever picked up on so maybe ex-RAF/Army authors wouldn't either?
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Edit: I'd put it down to meddling with texts in the editing process more than contemporary author error except that my other grandfather (RAF), mixing mostly with Americans in the Middle East, had no idea that sonar wasn't the British term either (we discovered in the 1980s). It wasn't something he'd ever picked up on so maybe ex-RAF/Army authors wouldn't either?
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On the other hand: it's no longer war-time, and changes in technology might have brought changes in procedure.
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