MAINLY IN MINESWEEPERS - A Scot at Sea by McAra, Charles

London 1971, Leach, first UK edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6x9, Fine/Fine condition, v, 261 pagesillustrations.................................................Minesweepers do not feature prominently, if at all, in the literature about warships. The reason is simple. The fighting ships of any great navy form a hierarchy. This is true of the Royal Navy and was most evident during the Second World War when the fleet had expanded to include hundreds of ships and small craft of different shapes sizes and functions.In the precisely graded pyramid of prestige pride of place went to the battleships, aircraft carriers and cruisers, while minor war vessels such as minesweepers belonged unmistakably to a lower order. Squat and slow, they lacked the rakish elan of destroyers and MTBs or the sinister sleekness of submarines. They were the skivvies of the fleet, their task to keep the sea-corridors clean, an unglamorous role but necessary. And never more necessary than when there was a large-scale incursion on an enemy coast. Then, and usually in darkness, they swept a safe channel ahead of the assault-craft and the troopships.As a Hostilities Only sailor, Charles McAra spent most of his seatime in minesweepers and this enabled him to have a front-seat view of Operations Torch, Husky, Avalanche, Dragoon. These operations and other naval occasions provide the background to his recollections of the people he met and the places he visited from Tobermory in the Isle of Mull to Zante in the Ionian Isles.Written with verve and humour, Mainly in Minesweepers is an entertaining and perceptive narrative which cuts across the generation gap because while it will re-awaken in older readers memories of their youth or time in the services, it also offers younger readers a chance to enter into the experience of someone of their own age but living in an era so different from the present day.