A letter from Vice-Admiral Sir John Augustine Collins KBE, CB, ex-Chief of the Naval Staff, Royal Australian Navy, to Alan Payne of the Naval Historical Society of Australian in June 1980 reflecting on the history of the development of what started as the Local Defence Vessel, became the Australian Mine Sweeper, contained this sentence:
"Fortunately they proved capable beyond our dreams and became in fact, corvettes."
This book is not about the people, the flesh, blood and souls of the men and what they did. It is a book about the ships themselves, the nuts and bolts, the steel and rivets, the very fabric of the ships. It is a comprehensive record...in written word, photographs and detailed drawings, of this little-praised class of warship that, while small and apparently insignificant when compared with the better-known and much larger frigates, destroyers and cruisers of Australia’s war-time fleet, played a vital role in World War II.
