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 firsthand 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. AUTHOR Richard Woodman (1944 - ) is an English novelist and naval historian who retired in 1997 from a 37 year nautical career, mainly working for Trinity House, to write full time. His main work is 14 volumes about the career of Nathaniel Drinkwater, and shorter series about James Dunbar and William Kite, but he also written a range of factual books about 18th century and WW2 history. These include a trilogy of studies of convoys in the Second World War. Unlike many other modern naval historical novelists, such as C.S. Forester or Patrick O'Brian, he has served afloat. Richard Woodman is a regular correspondent for the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List and continues his close association with the sea as a keen yachtsman. He also serves on the Corporate Board of Trinity House. REVIEWS: 'The finest work to date on the cruelly ill-used and underrated merchant navy.' Franck McLynn, New Statesman “It will surely serve oas a semi-official wartime history of the merchant marine.' John Crossland, Sunday Times 'Woodman combines harrowing, sometimes humorous eyewitness accounts with a strategic evaluation of the war at sea…superb.' Christopher Lee Literary Review ILLUSTRATIONS: 20 images *