What does M/L stand for?

Ian Reid 01827 251533; Fast Minelayers Assn, Northern Section: Contact Jim Calcraft 01562 67822; Federation of B'ham Ex-Service Assn: Meets first Sat of month at 11am at Jury's Inn, Broad St.

There are the renowned wrecks of the Dutch steamship SS Breda, lost near Oban in 1940, and the WWII minelayer HMS Port Napier off Skye.

With many b&w photos and diagrams, and including cruise minelayers and escort and command cruisers of the 1960s and 1970s, he describes various classes, such as the Bristol, Dartmouth, Chatham, Birmingham, Calypso, Dido, and Emerald classes; the HMS Adelaide; the "Atlantic Cruiser"; and World War I rearmament, aircraft, anti-aircraft weapons, and experiences.

A year after being sunk, E41 was raised and later saw service as a minelayer before being scrapped in 1922.

Supported by USS Shawmut (CM 4), a minelayer adapted for use as a seaplane tender, the detachment of flying boats began operations off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in February 1919.

The 6,000-tonne Rayville hit a minefield laid by the German commerce raider "Passat", formerly a Norwegian tanker captured in the Indian Ocean and converted to an auxiliary minelayer.

Clausewitz's "fog of war" was omnipresent, especially on the British side: battle signals were misread; major units put out to sea without notifying other commands; cruisers attempted to ram their own submarines; submarines made attack runs on their own cruisers; and destroyers engaged a Norwegian neutral, mistaking it for a German minelayer.

Alex was serving on a Royal Navy minelayer, the Kung Wo,which was sweeping the South China Sea in 1942when it was sunk by Japanese bombers.