02/29/2016
Journalist Geroux combines the skills of a newsman and those of a scholar to tell the story of the vital and heroic role played by the U.S. Merchant Marines during WWII. These civilian sailors delivered hundreds of millions of tons of cargo across the globe during the war, on vulnerable, often-unescorted ships, and their actions are largely overlooked in histories of the war. Communities that made their living from the sea, including Mathews County, Va., and families such as the Hodges—who sent seven sons to war on defenseless merchantmen facing the ace U-boats of Nazi Germany—bore the consequences and received neither recognition nor reward. In the war’s early days, so many merchantmen were sunk off the Atlantic coast that a publisher “hurried into print a 144-page book entitled How to Abandon Ship.” Death was only a torpedo hit away and surviving could still mean dying slowly on a raft. Geroux leaves no doubt that the ocean was as unforgiving as the U-boats—as was a Congress that failed to extend veterans’ benefits to merchant mariners until 1988. Yet the men of Mathews still put to sea; “the torpedoes just got in the way.” Maps. Agent: Farley Chase, Chase Literary. (Apr.)

Reviews for The Mathews Men

 
“The valor and contributions of the U.S. Merchant Marines to victory in WWII has seldom been acknowledged . . . Geroux presents an unflinching, inspiring, and long delayed tribute to the sacrifice of these men.”—Booklist (starred review)
 
“Poignant . . . A deep, compassionate group biography of these ‘unsung hero's’ of the Merchant Marines.”—Kirkus
 
“Geroux combines the skills of a newsman and those of a scholar to tell the story of the vital and heroic role played by the U.S. Merchant Marines during WWII”—Publishers Weekly


Advance Praise for The Mathews Men

“Vividly drawn and emotionally gripping, The Mathews Men shines a light on the mostly forgotten but astonishing role the U.S. Merchant Marine played in winning World War II. It brings back to life a breed of men who repeatedly risk all for their country. It chronicles the sagas of families that stoically endured heartrending losses. It honors a community that pulled together to support its sons as they set out—again and again—on deadly seas.  And it reminds us how much we owe to the legions of ordinary Americans who quite literally saved the civilized world in the 1940s.”
—Daniel James Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat

“William Geroux has written a classic American tale, a gripping story of courageous everyday hero's facing death in World War II.”
—James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers

“William Geroux’s The Mathews Men harkens to the war heroics of Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken and the British detective drama Foyle’s War. A little-known story about the brutal sacrifices made by Merchant Mariners—and the tiny bayside community they left behind in Mathews County, Virginia—Geroux’s book is a gripping account of hard-drinking and even harder-working seamen, and a fresh take on World War II history. Loaded with offbeat characters trying to survive against astonishingly impossible odds, Geroux gives these unheralded hero's their belated due in an account that is as meticulously researched as it is even-handed and poignant.”
—Beth Macy, author of Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town
 
“When a reporter who writes as elegantly as Geroux unearths such a dramatic and untold story, he must feel as if he’s hit the motherlode. With The Mathews Men, Geroux gives us a rollicking read that plunges you into the middle of the ocean and seduces you into caring for the story’s heroic seafarers. This is both a terrific and terrifying blow-by-blow of the actions of the sailors of the U.S. Merchant Marine as the dodged deadly U-Boats during the course of World War II and who, as Lincoln put it, too often made the ultimate sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
—Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, co-authors of Halsey’s Typhoon and The Heart of Everything That Is

“Often overlooked and unsung, the men of the U.S. Merchant Marine risked all against stealthy German U-boats whether within sight of East Coast cities or on the Arctic run to Murmansk. Mr. Geroux has superbly chronicled the gripping and deeply personal story of brothers in blood as well as in mission.”
—Walter R. Borneman, author of The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King—The Five-star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea

“The German U-Boat war against American merchant men was deadly and dramatic—in World War II, the U.S. Merchant Marine had twice the fatality rate of the U.S. Navy. William Geroux has unearthed a fascinating tale of one small coastal town caught in the thick of the fight, and he tells it with a sharp reporter’s eye and a real feel for the heroic men who went down to the sea in ships.” 
—Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon and Sea of Thunder

05/01/2016
The heroics and sacrifices of the U.S. Merchant Marines during the late 1930s through the end of World War II in 1945 are often overlooked by history. Their precious cargo kept the Allied powers from starvation while also providing them with the arsenal to continue fighting. Because of this, American merchant ships were prime targets of Adolf Hitler's U-boats years before an American soldier set foot on European soil. Unprotected by the navy until 1943, Merchant Marines risked torpedo explosions, shark attacks, storms, and weeks aboard lifeboats with minimal supplies. Former journalist Geroux aims to bring their achievements to light in his first book by focusing on one community in Mathews County, VA, near Chesapeake Bay, and one family in particular. The Hodges family sent seven sons to war while the family's matriarch, Henny, ran the farm and experienced the war seaside. Geroux describes the evolution of U-boat and merchant ship technology as both Allied and Axis powers sought to attack and defend. VERDICT A gripping tale of wartime heroics and an emotional family story, this is a must-read addition to World War II literature.—Heidi Uphoff, Sandia National Laboratories, NM

Narrator Arthur Morey’s gentle, raspy voice is heavy on sibilance, but he makes this personal story interesting and personal nonetheless. The title refers to the large number of WWII sea captains who came out of Mathews County, Virginia. The story focuses on one family of seamen in the Merchant Marines who had to stare down Nazi submarines off the coast of the U.S. while trying to supply our battleships. Events take listeners from a small area on the Chesapeake to Russia, Normandy’s beaches, and the Pacific theater. Morey paces himself well and allows the listener to absorb a look at the Merchant Marines that offers a different perspective than other WWII stories. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

2016-02-09
An intricate look at the outsized role of a group of Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, families in the dangerous work of the Merchant Marines during World War II. As former Richmond Times-Dispatch journalist Geroux delineates in this stringently researched study, the Merchant Marines "was not a branch of the military" but rather "an association of privately owned shipping companies operating under the American flag, employing American crews, and fighting like bull sharks over contracts to haul goods by sea." Thus, they became vitally important in control of the seas when war broke out officially in 1941. Mathews County, Virginia, had a long reputation for producing the most capable mariners, and Geroux spotlights several families whose fathers and sons took the brunt in parrying the German U-boats that hunted in the waters of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, disrupting war supplies and oil to Britain and Europe. The author delves into the service of the Hodges family of Gales Neck, whose many sons became merchant mariners, working as independent contractors for the U.S. government who needed to carry the crucial war cargo across the seas. Facing the ramped-up U-boat campaign in the beginning stages, the U.S. did not have the wherewithal to protect the tankers and freighters—until the implementation of the convoy system in mid-summer 1942 after horrible losses at sea such as the sinking of the Onondaga. Geroux offers poignant accounts of these lost men, such as Onondaga's Capt. George Dewey Hodges, whose remains and ring were soon after found in a captured shark. Sadly, however much the Merchant Marines aided in helping shepherd the convoys across the seas during the war effort, they were locked out of the postwar veterans' benefits. A deep, compassionate group biography of these "unsung heroes" of the Merchant Marines.