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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
