In spring 1941, when the Allied Merchant Navy was losing on average 130 ships a month, the unbreakable resolve of these civilian seafarers was all that held Britain back from inglorious defeat. Their courage and tenacity saved the lives of millions in the bleakest episodes of the War, and contributed substantially to some of the most celebrated Allied victories. Roy V. Martin describes in detail not only the most famous Merchantmen evacuations such as Dunkirk and Singapore, unraveling the truth from deep-rooted myth, but also the lesser-known evacuations in which hundreds of thousands of lives were saved, but which, in mainstream histories of the War, have been shamefully sidelined up to now. Also documented is the Merchant Navy's support of the landings in Africa, the Mediterranean and Normandy, where 1,000 merchant ships manned by 50,000 civilian seamen delivered troops, supplies and two prefabricated harbors. Time and again in moments of crisis, the Merchant Navy was called upon to shoulder the greatest burden, to suffer the greatest losses, and to salvage whatever possible from disaster; and yet their ranks, from 14-year-old boys to 74-year-old-men, were frequently neglected by the authorities and the public, and at worst, treated as expendables. This book aims to honor the seamen of the Merchant Navy for their colossal sacrifice, and to establish their story in its rightful place, among the most inspiring of the Second World War.