n BOTH sexes had to learn new skills during the last war, but life went on much as usual for the multi-skilled men of the Merchant Navy, seen here washing their smalls aboard the MV Empire Unity. Philip Kaplan and Jack Currie rightly describe their pictorial history of the role of merchant seamen between 1939 and 1945 as ''a visual portrait of the longest
battle of World War II''.
The death toll of 50,000 on the Allied side ran from the day war was declared to the eve of VE Day. Their bravery, as civilians operating in hostile waters to maintain trade links, has often been overlooked. Kaplan and Currie, a military historian who died in October 1996, powerfully redress the balance.
n Convoy - Merchant Sailors at War 1939-1945 is published by Aurum Press at #19.95.
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