I searched around a bit and found a more detailed history of your grandfather at http://chicagofamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-grandpa-seaman-1st-class-joseph.html, which you may have written, in which the ships in which he served are identified as SS JOSHUA HENDY, SS HENRY DURANT, and SS SEA QUAIL. (Only the first two were Liberty ships; SEA QUAIL was a type C-3 cargo ship; see http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/1major/active/ingalls.htm and scroll to hull number 413.) For information on the two Liberty ships, see http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/LibShipsJon.html#JosR and http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/LibShipsH.html, respectively, and scroll to the name of each ship.
The excellent web site American Merchant Marine at War (www.usmm.org) has a list of all merchant ships sunk or damaged during World War II. As far as I know this list is quite comprehensive; none of the three above ships is found in this list. See http://usmm.org/shipsunkdamaged.html and follow the links for detailed information.
Separate Google searches on the names of the three ships turn up very little that is unusual or unique; the fact is that most merchant ships in World War II had fairly uneventful wartime careers. SEA QUAIL apparently came under kamikaze attack in the spring of 1945 during the invasion of an island known as Le Shima, (see http://armed-guard.com/biogc.html and scroll to the biography of Laurence Caldwell) but your grandfather had already left that ship by that time.
Of course there remains the possibility that one or another of the ships in which he served came under attack by a U-boat or a kamikaze, which resulted in no damage or casualties and was possibly not even deemed worthy of historical mention, so one should be cautious in concluding whether the versions of your family legends are or are not accurate. On the other hand I hesitate to ascribe the lack of corroborating information to other logs that have not yet come to light that may tell different stories than the logs you have found to date.
One additional avenue of research is to attempt to obtain the Armed Guard officers' reports for the voyages of the three ships during the time your father served in each. See this page of the Armed Guard website: http://armed-guard.com/searchmil.html, in particular Section IV. Researching Ship Records. You will have to contact the National Archives and Records Administration facility in College Park, Maryland, and request copies of the relevant Armed Guard Logbooks and Reports. There will be a charge for any research, photocopying and mailing on the part of Archives staff but they will alert you to that cost before beginning work. These reports would almost certainly mention any contact with the enemy of even a fleeting nature, and may include other details of interest to you. I assume it will take some greater or lesser time for the Archives to get back to you.
But whatever you eventually find about your grandfather's service, remember this above all: he was a hero who, with his shipmates, served bravely, and nothing can diminish that, regardless of the accuracy of your family legends. In the end the details don't matter.
Good luck and best wishes.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster
Armed Guard website
www.armed-guard.com
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