The Arctic is a very funny term,
because sometimes the weather was a raging torrent, it was terribly rough sea.
And at other times, it was smooth as a duck pond.
We sent a lot of, lot of ammunition, guns, tanks, aircraft to Russia.
And I mean you’ve played a.., Russia played a very large part.
It lost probably more people than the rest of the Allies combined.
It was tremendous what you did—tremendous.
We weren’t thinking about anything like death or anything else.
All we were thinking about was how to destroy as many aircraft, berths, and boats as we could.
We weren’t thinking of anything.
And we were all pleased to help…
We were on the same side.
ARCTIC CONVOYS (a drama in two acts) Act 1
On June 22, 1941, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the armaments problem arose immediately.
Of course, the Soviet Union was preparing for the war, but not the kind that Hitler had planned.
From the start, we were suffering terrible losses.
And, as it always happens in such situations, we needed this, this, this…
In March of 1941, the United States passed the Lend-Lease Act.
It was officially entitled “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States,”
which rather plainly made clear the US’ position on the ongoing events in Europe.
The US felt that it was in its best interest to assist those countries, which were fighting the Axis powers.
The initial recipient of the aid was going to be the United Kingdom,
although later on the Soviet Union did join the program.
Cargo ships would be carrying the equipment, materiel, ammunition, even food,
which was required to wage the war.
To deliver the supplies to the frontline as quickly as possible,
the Allies decided to use a naval route to the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk
through the Greenland and Barents Seas. The convoys were formed in Iceland, in the Hvalfjörður or Reykjavík,
as well as in northern Scotland, at the Loch Ewe base.
Depending on the ice conditions, the route lay either to the north or south of Bear Island,
in a very narrow corridor between Svalbard and the Norwegian coast.
The final destination points for the convoys were the ports of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and Molotovsk
A cruise like this lasted for 10 to 14 days.
But we also knew that the thorn in the German side was the equipment.
You were providing the men and the women,
but the Americans and the British, we were supplying the guns, the tanks,
and all the machinery of war through the Arctic convoys.
Which was a good combination really, because it worked.
A single cargo ship was able to carry about 10,000 tons of cargo,
which was equal to 260 medium tanks or 425 trucks.
This many combat vehicles could be used to equip five armored brigades in the Red Army.
Convoys that were sent to the USSR at various times could include from 10 to 30 cargo ships.
Every convoy and every ship was very important to the Soviet Union during the war.
The USSR Northern Fleet could not provide adequate protection for the convoys.
There were only eight destroyers among its surface ships,
so Great Britain, which had much more powerful forces,
committed to protect those convoys from German attacks
Hitler’s Germany, the German leadership didn’t even assume that Britain would be helping the Soviet Union.
They strongly believed that Churchill hated the Soviet Union.
And so they didn’t believe this assistance could happen.
But they forgot Churchill’s saying,
“Great Britain has no constant friends or enemies, but rather constant interests.”
That’s why the Germans didn’t prepare forces to counter these convoys.
So the first convoys— figuratively speaking, those of 1941—
managed to slip through mainly because the Germans were unprepared for the Allies to act like this.
Those were peaceful convoys.
We had to fight not only the Germans, but the elements as well.
Because the Barents Sea is a rough one.
The constant rolling, it’s an immensely bitter sea, it beats you all the time.
When I came aboard the destroyer, of course, it was tough.
But I tried hard, since there was work to do. And, of course,
I never told anyone how difficult I found it.
These are arctic waters. Even in summer it’s only 4 degrees Celsius.
You won’t hold on for more than five minutes.
Hence, you must fight for your vessel, and they fought.
Along the entire route, the convoy faced extreme risks.
Storms and fog were frequent in Arctic waters. Ice was all around you.
Huge lumps of ice would grow on the vessels’ superstructures,
and the ship could capsize if you didn’t remove them in time.
And don’t forget about the German submarines, which could be anywhere, and enemy aviation.
All this made the Arctic convoys extremely treacherous.
You know, true sailors fear any storm, any blizzard.
Only fools aren’t afraid of a storm. Sailors have always feared it.
But on the Arctic convoys, all sailors, even the atheists from the Soviet Union, were praying to God,
“Lord, send us a storm, send us some fog!”
That’s because neither enemy aircraft, nor submarines could operate in a fog or storm.
In the spring of 1942, the situation began to change, and not in favor of the Allies.
Pretty much every torpedo bomber the Luftwaffe had was sent north.
More and more submarines were also sent north to intercept Allied shipping.
And finally daylight hours, which are pretty favorable to air
and submarine operations, were also getting longer.
It was perpetual daylight, and we were going through the Arctic, where the snow line comes down;
and it’s a very narrow strip that you’ve got to go through,
where there’s north of Norway, and then the great ice flow.
And you’ve got to get through that.
Well, the Germans knew that, and their submarines used to lie in wait,
so as they come through, they torpedoed the merchant ships.
This particular vessel is Red Oak Victory, she’s moored in Richmond, California.
The purpose of the US Navy in World War II was basically to get stuff from A to B.
And glamorous though the combat ships were, this was usually done by the non-glamorous cargo vessels.
They are the testimonial to the courage of not only the naval personnel,
but also the civilians of the merchant marine, who braved the weather and the enemy.
It’s a basic steam ship, built very good. the service speed was 15 knots on this ship.
Although in good weather, they got 16 knots, according to log books that I’ve been reading.
However, in harsh Arctic conditions, the heavily loaded cargo ships couldn’t sail faster than 10 knots.
So, the convoy passed by the Germans at the speed of the slowest vessel, about 20 km/h
The convoy’s movement order was a formation with merchant vessels and tankers in the middle.
They were surrounded by close escort ships: as a rule,
these were destroyers, corvettes, minesweepers, and armed trawlers
A bit farther away, at a distance of several miles, they were accompanied by light cruisers.
The convoy kept its distant covering forces, which consisted of heavy ships, within 50 miles of its core.
The escort ships were arranged in such a way that their fields of fire created a closed-loop perimeter.
Sometimes, two or three submarines were sailing behind the convoy.
The ratio between escort ships and merchant vessels was one warship per two to two and a half transports.
In late June, the weather in the Arctic was good.
German intelligence discovered that the Allies were about to send a large convoy to the Soviet Union.
This was PQ 17.
The first week went by without any incidents,
and the sailors hoped it would stay that way until the destination port.
At dawn on July 4, Convoy PQ 17 was spotted by a German reconnaissance aircraft.
After midday, the air strikes began.
Bombers and torpedo aircraft approached from a right angle,
but all their attempts to destroy the convoy were fiercely repelled.
During one of such raids, destroyer Wainwright rushed towards the attacking aircraft at full speed,
firing from all guns.
160217GOTOUSSRSHIP The ship’s counterattack was pretty successful.
The lead airplane was shot down and the rest dropped their torpedoes too early and scattered.
Nevertheless, German aviation managed to sink two merchant ships.
But despite the losses, the convoy maintained formation and continued on.
Not about to let this lucky opportunity go to waste,
the German command came up with a plan for an all-arms attack on this convoy.
It would involve aircraft, submarines, and surface vessels.
To include the battleship Tirpitz, which was now gonna come into play.
Tirpitz was Germany’s most modern and powerful warship.
Her mere presence in Norway forced the British to keep their main naval forces in that region.
The battleship was used in military campaigns only at the direct order of High Command.
So this was to be a classic, demonstrative defeat of an Allied convoy.
From the Germans’ point of view, the conditions were perfect:
perpetual daylight, excellent weather, no storms, no fog,
and a large convoy with poor protection.
So you could attack it with every asset. But the British realized this, too.
The British Admiralty concluded that it was a great opportunity
to do away with Tirpitz and the threat that she posed.
At 21:11, a radiogram came from the Admiralty saying,
“Cruiser Force withdraw to the westward at high speed.”
The squadron of cruisers and destroyers, which were sailing in front, suddenly turned.
The astonished crews of the merchant vessels saw them pass by and head westward.
The First Sea Lord, basically the British Navy,
ordered all surface ships of the convoy to concentrate on a certain point.
In other words, they were to leave the convoy.
See you in part two. On february 23.
Now you can imagine how the sailors in the Allied vessels began to feel once they realized
that they’d been left to fend for themselves, no longer able to rely on anybody else for protection.
Every tank, every gallon, every drop of oil, every aircraft mattered to us.
I think everybody that served on the Russian convoys felt
that they were doing the right thing to help the right people.
We were ordered to search for the transport vessels
and escort them to Arkhangelsk, Molotovsk, and Murmansk.