The quoted chapter places merchant shipping at the centre of the convoy system rather than treating it as background to escorts and U-boats. In 1939 the British Empire fielded nearly 3,000 merchant ships totalling about 17.5 million gross tons, but depression had left many of them old and dilapidated. Officers could be well educated yet poorly paid, while crews came from great ports, small island communities, India, Goa, China, Hong Kong, and other maritime regions. The text describes roughly 50,000 Lascars among about 190,000 seafarers in Empire ships and notes occupational traditions within those crews. The convoy war depended on this commercial capacity and the pay, labour, and communities that sustained it.
Notable Point · 11:30-15:15
Britain's merchant fleet and its imperial workforce
Middlebrook's figures show that Britain entered the Second World War with the world's largest merchant fleet but depended on ageing ships and a multinational imperial workforce.