Thanks Tom. I’m with you.

My dad did escort service for 4 years on the North Atlantic on HMCS St. Laurent…he told me the really brave men he knew were the merchant marine…slow boats, sitting ducks really, facing deadly torpedoes, acoustic too, air bombardment — especially the Murmansk run —and who got very little ‘glory’ in making sure that the armed forces, to say nothing of England, had food, weapons, armaments, clothing and boots, the very ordnance you wrote about.

Dad said that convoy duty, D-Day patrol, being nearly sunk by a German Glider Bomb in the Bay of Biscay, or sinking U-845 was nothing compared to being ordered to sail through oil soaked merchant mariners crying for help.

My umbrage was that all that incredible feat of logistics you wrote so well about was often squandered by the ineptitude of poorly placed but politically even class connected command.