The Forgotten Heroes: The Heroic Story of the United States Merchant Marine
This somewhat jumbled but eloquent plea for recognition of the U.S. Merchant Marine veterans of World War II is by the son of the creator of the science fiction classicDune, who was one of those veterans. The core of the book narrates the merchant sailor's perils and achievements during the war, as derived partly from anecdotes, many of which will be familiar to seasoned maritime readers, and partly from the wartime experiences of one Dean Beaumont and his liberty ship. Herbert then proceeds to state the case of his heroes by recording the neglect and discrimination merchant mariners suffered and offering suggestions for just restitution even at this late date. He skips from incident to incident and from theme to theme and doesn't always portray the larger strategic picture within which the merchant marine operated as assuredly as he does the merchant mariner in peril at sea and destitute on land. Still, he convincingly renders the merchant marine's wartime service as a triumph of production, persistence, and heroism.Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved