The tales are the fabric of legend. A sea captain, who survived the sinking of two of his ships, lost while homeward bound in a third torpedo attack. A seaman who survived by clinging to a raft of debris—for days. Another seaman who was sleeping right over the ship’s explosives, who survived, greatly maimed, then went back to sea.

All of these stories and many more are true, and they are told in “The Mathews Men,” the terrific new book by former newspaper reporter Bill Geroux. He has told the story of World War II as experienced by many men of the United States Merchant Marine from Mathews County, and some from Gloucester County, and he has told it well.

These are the stories of sailors who were in the bull’s-eye of Hitler’s submarines; of those who were lost in fiery explosions, of those who survived; and of those who stayed at sea during all of World War II to keep the supply lines to Europe and the Pacific open.

In the first months of war they ...