Convoy: Merchant Sailors at War, 1939-1945

The men of the American, British, and Canadian merchant marine are the forgotten heroes of the long and costly Battle of the Atlantic. From their first casualty in September 1939 to the last on VE Day in May 1945, nearly 50,000 men of the Allied merchant service lost their lives to Axis torpedoes, bombs, and guns. This stunning portrait, first published in 1998, pays tribute to their all-important role.

In both words and pictures, the book calls attention to the men who won this victory. Rare photographs, paintings, and memorabilia convey an impression of the dangers faced by the seamen in the stormy North Atlantic, the ice-fields of North Cape and the Barents Sea, and the vast expanses of the Pacific. The text draws on unpublished memoirs of the men who sailed in the convoys, including those who survived days adrift in lifeboats and faced U-boat torpedoes and Luftwaffe bombs. Convoys were the lifeline of the Allied war effort, and this account is an evocative and moving reminder of just how much we owe the ordinary seaman.

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