Lorenzo DuFau is a hero. As a World War II sailor, he helped save the world in 1944. As a black man, he had to fight to get in the fight--yet his country ignores him. His son dismisses him as a failure. His grandson hardly knows him. Until late one night when he finally tells his grandson Larry, and Larry's two college friends Kevin and Marcus, about his ship, the USS Mason. In the segregated Navy, with the vast majority of black men relegated to duty as stewards or laborers, DuFau and his shipmates were the only crew to take a warship into combat. As they hear the story, Larry, Marcus and Kevin become the 1940s Mason shipmates: James Graham, Gordon Buchanan, and DuFau himself. Now the adventure begins as the men of the Mason escort convoys across the treacherous North Atlantic, battle German submarines, and survive the "storm of the century." Commodore Alfred Lind recommends them for commendations, and black journalist Thomas Young writes about their exploits for the folks back home. The Mason crew does all this while fighting racism from individual sailors and from within the Navy itself--nothing stops them. History has forgotten the USS Mason and the young men are determined to change this. Larry appeals to his father. He's determined with the help of his friends to reunite the veterans and force Washington to award the men their long overdue honors.