For the British, the Battle of the Atlantic was
a fight for survival. They depended on the safe transit of hundreds of convoys
of merchant ships laden with food, raw materials and munitions from
America to feed the country and to
keep the war effort going, and they had to export manufactured goods to pay for
it all. So Britain’s merchant navy, a disparate
collection of private vessels, became the country’s lifeline, while its seamen,
officially non-combatants, bravely endured the onslaught of the German U-boat
offensive until Allied superiority overwhelmed the enemy.
In this important, moving and exciting book, drawing extensively on
first-hand sources, the acclaimed maritime historian Richard Woodman establishes
the importance of the British and Allied merchant fleets in the struggle against
Germany and elevates the heroic
seamen who manned them to their rightful place in the history of the Second
World War.
