New WWII Book Finds the Heart of Maritime Service in Letters Home

Book Publishing Central August 19, 2026 ·5 writeups ·joined Jul 2025

5 min read

Captain Horace Chance’s wartime diaries reveal how a husband and father stayed connected to Staten Island while crossing dangerous seas

Behind every convoy route and cargo manifest in Captain Horace Chance’s wartime record is another destination: home.

WW II Liberty Ship Voyages: The Diaries of Captain Horace Chance, 1943 to 1946 — Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find, compiled and introduced by grandson David Kendall Peterson, presents World War II Merchant Marine history through a deeply personal family lens. Chance’s diaries and letters repeatedly return to his wife May and their three daughters even when he is writing from bombed ports, rough seas, submarine-threatened waters, or the bridge of a Liberty ship.

May was “Dolly.” The daughters became “the gang,” “imps,” “wiggles,” “biddies,” and other playful names. Chance called the four women his “four roses.”

That language matters because it shows what the documents were originally for. Chance was not writing for a future audience. He was maintaining a conversation with the people he missed.

His pages move easily between enormous events and ordinary family concerns. He wonders whether a daughter graduated. He tries to remember birthdays and anniversaries. He asks for better family photographs. He reminds May about medical care. He reports on checks sent home. He imagines what everyone might be doing at the exact hour he is writing from another time zone.

Then the war intrudes.

In May 1943 at Oran, North Africa, bombs struck near his ship during an air raid. Chance described the blasts, anti-aircraft fire, burning vessels, hoses, ammunition, and the confusion of the attack. Two men from his ship were killed and three injured. Yet the diary continues afterward in the same voice that worries about family, work schedules, mail, and when the ship will sail.

That continuity gives the book its emotional force. War does not replace domestic life; it stretches it across an ocean.

The pattern continues after Chance becomes a captain. In 1944 he earned his master’s license and took command of the S.S. Robert M. T. Hunter. He later commanded the S.S. Jared Ingersoll. His responsibility expanded to crews, troops, cargo, discipline, repairs, money, weather, navigation, and changing orders, but his private vocabulary remained recognizably that of a husband and father.

On Christmas Day 1944, far from home in the Atlantic, Chance watched escort vessels mark the holiday while his thoughts remained with the family celebrating without him. On later voyages, as American shores approached, his entries became charged with anticipation about seeing May again.

The postwar letters retain the same domestic pull. From Dublin, Italy, Gibraltar, and the Atlantic, he writes about meals, prices, weather, gifts, travel plans, and possible arrival dates alongside observations about damaged cities and recovering countries.

Peterson’s compilation preserves those personal writings alongside operational evidence. Daily ship logs record fuel, water, speed, weather, drills, cargo, repairs, and positions. Photographs, postcards, service records, family recollections, shipboard news, and other documents add further context.

The contrast makes the family story stronger. A captain can be reduced to rank and voyage statistics. Chance’s own words restore the man who wanted ice cream, worried about his daughters, teased his wife, complained about the weather, and counted the distance home.

WWII Liberty Ship Voyages will appeal to readers interested in military history, maritime history, letters from wartime, family archives, genealogy, and the emotional lives behind public service.

The book’s family focus also broadens the meaning of service. Chance’s voyages were his responsibility, but absence was shared. May managed life at home while letters and cablegrams crossed the distance between them. The daughters waited, grew older, married, and built lives while their father repeatedly departed again. Seen through that lens, the archive records not only one mariner’s endurance but also the quieter endurance of a household learning to live around uncertainty, separation, and return during years of global war.

They waited.

About the Book

WW II Liberty Ship Voyages: The Diaries of Captain Horace Chance, 1943 to 1946 — Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find, preserves Captain Horace Chance’s diaries, letters, and maritime records with family context assembled by grandson David Kendall Peterson.