Amazon.com description: Product Description: The U.S. merchant marine played a critical, though often overlooked, role in World War II. This reference work provides a brief narrative of each of the recorded attacks on American-flagged merchant ships, as well as an accounting of the men and the ships, which were a part of this worldwide conflict. In addition to the wealth of data on the ships, their crews and cargoes, it depicts the exciting and often violent story of the hundreds of enemy attacks on convoys and lone merchant vessels. Evident within the narrative is the gallantry and sacrifice of naval gun crews and the merchant crewmen.