Convoy: Merchant Sailors at War 1939-1945 - Hardcover

Kaplan, Philip; Currie, Jack

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557501378 ISBN 13: 9781557501370

Publisher: Naval Inst Pr, 1998

Synopsis

A tribute to the ships and the men of the British and Canadian Merchant Navies and the American Merchant Marine. The authors have assembled rare photographs, paintings and memorabilia in order to convey an impression of the extreme dangers faced by seamen in some of the most lonely and terrible places on earth. The accompanying text draws upon the unpublished memoirs of the sailors and contains vivid accounts of the war at sea, providing a reminder of how much we owe to ordinary seamen who never had the chance to be heroes and often died unrecorded deaths. Illustrated in color and b&w. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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Review

An often overlooked aspect of World War II was the battle waged night and day by those who served not on warships, but on merchant ships pressed into wartime duty. Convoy: Merchant Sailors at War puts a sharp focus on merchant sailors from the British Merchant Navy, the American Merchant Marine, and the Canadian Merchant Navy, and through copious use of photographs, paintings, wartime posters, and maps, tells the story of the merchantmen who fought the epic Battle of the Atlantic. The survival of the Allies depended on supplies flowing from North America to Europe; the desperation of the early years of the war, and the story of how the tide was slowly turned, is well presented in the book. As the coauthors are both British, the book tends to focus on English sailors, but the personal accounts of veterans of wartime merchant service transcends national boundaries. Life onboard the ships is well documented, and of particular interest is a photographic tour of the Jeremiah O'Brien, an American Liberty Ship which has been restored to its wartime condition. The text is organized thematically, dealing with particular classes of ships as well as with particular aspects (such as the role of air cover) of the Allied campaign to sweep the oceans of the dreaded U-boats. --Robert McNamara

About this edition

• Publisher: Naval Inst Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1557501378
• ISBN 13: 9781557501370
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224