Whitley's Cruisers of World War II prints correct feet values beside faulty metre conversions for several C-class subclasses. The correction still recommends the book, which had been reliable for other cruiser classes. Those earlier successes made the mistake easier to miss. The disputed dimensions also fitted prior descriptions of the ships' speed and hull form, which helped them escape a second check. Converting the printed feet values independently would have exposed the error before it entered the comparison.
Notable Point · 1:49-3:46
Checking feet-to-metre conversions
The reference book's feet measurements are sound, but several printed metric conversions are not, demonstrating how a trusted source can still introduce error.