Trawlers and drifters were rushed into service while crews learned an exceptionally dangerous job, and fourteen vessels were lost in 1939. One officer broke down after weeks of keeping the War Channel clear and had to be removed ashore. Another sailor seemed calm after distress aboard ship but later jumped overboard during passage and was never seen again. The accounts make the psychological cost of minesweeping as visible as the material losses. Photographs of the many specialized craft broaden the lesson: keeping Britain's coastal convoys moving depended on crews, small vessels, and sustained engineering work.
Chapter · 4:49-7:40
The human strain of wartime minesweeping
Coastal Convoys uses the minesweeping campaign to show the losses, exhaustion, and specialized small craft behind keeping Britain's coastal routes open.