Convoy: Merchant Sailors at War 1939-1945 [Hardcover]

Philip Kaplan (Author), Jack Currie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1998

The men of the British Merchant Navy, the American Merchant Marine, and the Canadian Merchant Navy, were the largely forgotten heroes of what was the longest, as well as one of the bitterest and most costly, campaigns of the Second World War. They suffered their first casualties on the day war was declared, 3 September 1939, when the liner Athenia was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland, and their last on 7 May 1945, the eve of VE Day, when two ships were sunk by a U-boat in Scotland's Pentland Firth. This book is a tribute in words and pictures to the ships and the men who made victory possible. The many rare photographs, paintings and memorabilia which the authors have assembled convey an unforgettable impression of the desperate dangers faced by seamen in some of the most lonely and terrible places on earth - the storm-tossed waters of the North Atlantic, the ice-fields of North Cape and the Barents Sea, the vast, empty expanses of the Pacific and the Southern Oceans. The accompanying text draws upon the unpublished memoirs of those who sailed in the convoys, who survived days adrift in lifeboats and who faced, again and again, the torpedoes of the U-boats and the bombs of the Luftwaffe.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com 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

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press (July 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557501378
• ISBN-13: 978-1557501370
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,584,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good, but not as good as their earlier efforts., March 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Convoy: Merchant Sailors at War 1939-1945 (Hardcover)

I've read and liked all the books in this format by Kaplan et.al., but I think this is the weakest in the series. The picture choices were "fair" and the writing "fair to good" but this means the book doesn't match the high standard set by the previous volumes (ie "Round the Clock", "Little Friends", etc). It was published after Mr. Currie died so I guess it's understandable. I've read and enjoyed most of Mr. Currie's books and, though I never got to meet him, I will miss him.