For Aviva Burnstock, my wife, and for Saul, Esther and Abraham, my children

  Introduction

  Lots of books have already been written about the Arctic, or Russian, convoys – the groups of ships that carried supplies to the Soviet Union during World War 2, which are at the heart of any description of the Battle of the Arctic. Most of these books either concentrate on the victories and errors of the British admirals who guarded the convoys, and their thrusts against the German warships sent to attack them, or they focus on the elements, and the resulting discomfort for sailors forced to steam their ships through mountainous seas in freezing gales.

  But the Battle of the Arctic is not just about the Royal Navy and its efforts to shepherd ships past the waiting Germans, while doing their best to avoid storms and floating icebergs. Without minimizing their contribution, there is another aspect of the story which has never been properly explored, or understood by the general public. It involves the forgotten heroes of the Arctic convoys: the officers, armed guards and the ordinary civilian seamen, mostly from Britain and America, but also from other countries including Holland, Norway, Poland, and Russia, condemned to carry on steaming their merchant ships slowly through the icy waters to and from Russia, even though they knew that at any moment they might be sunk. That was not a very enticing prospect given that the seas were so cold that a man might freeze to death after just five minutes of immersion.

  The scale of what was asked of the Allies’ seamen during the passage of these Arctic convoys was staggering. The Arctic convoys rarely travelled alone: for much of the time they were watched by the crews of sinister enemy spy planes, which once in touch could, given a fair wind, circle them 24/7. Messages sent by these ‘stalkers’ to the German commanders in occupied Norway meant that convoy participants, whose ships had been armed, had to be constantly on their guard; a fleet of enemy warships might appear over the horizon at any moment.

  The German method of communicating also facilitated attacks by swarms of hostile torpedo bomber planes and U-boat wolf packs, whose speed relative to the merchant ships, which typically lumbered along at just 8 knots (9 mph), made it possible for the pursuers to catch up more or less whenever they were summoned.

  The super-efficient German search-and-sink system would have presented the Allies’ navies with major headaches even in the most temperate of climates. Travelling as they had to, through ice and snow, squalls and even hurricanes, resulted in almost intractable complications.

  Even during the dark months, light from the beautiful multi-coloured ‘northern lights’ – flickering shafts of light that lit up the sky – would at times, inconveniently for the Allies, provide just what the U-boat commanders needed to locate the convoys through their periscopes once the wolf packs were near enough to the merchant ships or escorts to put in an attack. In the Arctic there are also numerous natural decoys which confused the most alert of the merchant ship crews and the sailors aboard their escorts. Spouts of water or a dark form moving through the water could so easily be taken for a passing whale only for a gunner to discover too late it was a U-boat. There were also numerous false alarms on account of Arctic mirages which dramatically increased the apparent height of objects such as icebergs. It did not take many such cries of wolf for complacency to set in, leaving a ship’s crew vulnerable when a real U-boat came along. The merchant ships’ vulnerability was exacerbated when as frequently happened in the Arctic, the Allies’ escorts’ compasses and submarine detection equipment (Asdic) did not function reliably.

  There were other factors that impeded the merchant ships’ progress. Although all the Arctic convoys, hemmed in by the ice anchored in the North Pole, had to pass through the same arc of the Barents Sea – to the north and south of the appropriately named Bear Island (located between the summer ice edge and Norway’s North Cape), each sailing after the first 11 ‘PQ’ (east-going) Arctic convoys required that a different challenge had to be overcome.

  Each time a group of aid carrying merchant ships set out for Russia from Iceland or Scotland, there had to be a fresh rolling of the dice by the British admirals, who were in charge of the predominantly but by no means entirely British protection forces cobbled together in order to give the escort the best chance of prevailing (at various times the Royal Navy was stiffened by support supplied by the American, Canadian, Polish, Norwegian and Free French navies). It became increasingly difficult for the commanders of these protection forces to select the permutations that would surprise or defeat the Germans, on account of the convoys having to be run again and again and again.

  The Germans very nearly succeeded in their quest to stop the Arctic convoys. Anyone who has either read about Arctic convoy PQ17, or seen Jeremy Clarkson’s BBC documentary about it, will know how close the Germans came in July 1942 to sinking every single merchant ship in the group. In the wake of the controversial decision made by the British First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Dudley Pound to scatter the convoy, depriving it of the cover provided by Allied warships, for fear it might be about to be attacked by Germany’s giant battleship Tirpitz, the number of the convoy’s merchant ships carrying aid which were abandoned or sunk following attacks by the Luftwaffe or by U-boats rose to 22 out of 33 which had participated following PQ17’s initial stages.

  It has become ‘fashionable’ to vilify Admiral Pound for the part he played in this disaster. With the benefit of hindsight his decision seems at first sight to have been one of the most heinous mistakes made by a British naval commander during the war. No less a commentator than Stephen Roskill, the official historian of the war at sea, has indicated that he could see no justification for it. His verdict probably would have been supported by just about every Arctic convoy participant had they been asked at the time. Jeremy Clarkson in his 2014 documentary appears to be saying the same thing.

  However, a detailed re-examination of what Pound knew at the time, including what he could glean from specific Enigma decrypts which have become public since Roskill’s official history of the war at sea was published, and which were also not cited in the documentary, could lead one to a very different conclusion. It cannot be denied that, as highlighted by Clarkson, when making his decision concerning PQ17, Pound was overworked, exhausted, and probably already disabled to some extent by the brain tumour that would kill him. The orders he gave to the convoy escort were ambiguously phrased. However, that does not mean his decision to scatter the convoy was wrong. Given his knowledge at the time, he appears to have had good reason to scatter PQ17. Readers who wish to decide for themselves whether Pound has been unfairly lampooned and castigated by historians and documentary film makers during the decades that have followed his momentous action should read this book’s Chapter 17, and the case for supporting Pound’s decision laid out in Note 5 in this book’s conclusion (Chapter 44).

  That said, one can understand why the Russians, who were not privy to Pound’s reasoning, were upset by what had occurred. It looked to them as if while they were losing thousands of men every day on the Eastern Front, the Allies were not even prepared to support them by throwing into the fray the relatively small number of sailors in their warships, who had scarpered at the first sign they might encounter serious opposition. The result as seen through Russian eyes was that the much-needed aid had been needlessly consigned to the bottom of the Barents Sea.

  Previous books have described Stalin’s negative reaction to what he regarded as Pound’s faint-hearted decision, disapproval which is echoed in the diaries written by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet Union’s London-based ambassador. From the Russian viewpoint, it was all the more unforgiveable because it was made at a time when the Allies were also refusing to reduce the strength of the German opposition in the East by opening up a second front in the West. But the available histories have not been able to pronounce on whether this view was confined to the Kremlin and Russia’s embassies. Thanks to documents brought to my attention and made available by staff working in Archangel’s Northern Maritime Museum, I have been able to shine a light that goes a bit deeper into the Russian mindset. These documents in Archangel’s archives highlight the disgust that was expressed by other Russian leaders at the way the Allies’ warship commanders had behaved.

  Russian exasperation was not just fuelled by the attitudes of the admirals in charge of the Allies’ warships. The documents in Archangel also include a bitter denunciation of the way the Allies’ merchant navies conducted themselves following the PQ17 scatter order. Some of the merchant seamen were cowards, according to the Russians. Concerning the actions of one ship, the political head of the Soviet Union’s Northern Fleet wrote: ‘Does it not make you feel sick to see such reckless behaviour?’ These Russian documents, combined with the relevant Enigma decrypts and the US reports relating to the same incidents which are in the principal archives in America, in Washington D.C. and Maryland, have enabled me to describe the fall out from the PQ17 disaster in a much more balanced way than has been the case in some previous publications (see Chapters 1 and 17–24).

  Whatever the rights and wrongs concerning PQ17, the Allies at times had good reason to feel equally frustrated by Russian behaviour. Stalin’s apparent ingratitude notwithstanding efforts made on the Russians’ behalf to protect subsequent Arctic convoys was provocative to put it mildly. After learning that the Allies had lost no less than 10 merchant ships in one day thanks to raids by U-boats and the Luftwaffe during the September 1942 Arctic convoy (PQ18), and then that a relatively modest British force had heroically h
eld off an attack by the much larger warships fielded by the German fleet during the first stages of the December 1942 Battle of the Barents Sea, Churchill was appalled when the following month Russia’s ambassador Maisky, without crediting the extremely plucky actions by the Royal Navy, effectively accused him of failing to keep his word concerning future convoys. It seemed there was nothing that could be done to dissipate Russian mistrust.

  Churchill’s outrage has been mentioned in previous histories. What has been less well documented is what lay behind his indignant response to this slur: his knowledge that the British seamen were one hundred per cent committed to the Russian cause. No-one who has read all the available reports concerning the actions by the Royal Navy during the Battle of the Barents Sea can doubt that its response to the threat posed by the German fleet was anything but resolute. British sailors were sorely tried. Here is not the place to describe in detail the nightmarish scenes that unfolded in two of the four HMS ships hit by shells fired from the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper during the battle while their crews were attempting to protect east-going Arctic convoy JW51B. Suffice it to say that the gory aftermath of the shelling would not have been out of place aboard the flagship Victory after Admiral Horatio Nelson was mortally wounded during the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. All is explained in this book’s Chapter 33.

  Even those readers, like me, who were read bedtime stories as a child about Nelson, leading to a lifelong belief that the courage of Britain’s most celebrated admiral would never be matched, might at least concede that the destroyer Onslow’s Captain Robert Sherbrooke came close during this fight. His exploits, which ended with him like Nelson losing an eye, and their decisive effects are depicted in Chapter 32.

  Equally stirring, although based on flimsier evidence, are the events affecting the minesweeper Bramble, the third ship the German gunners hit during the battle. Because Bramble went down with all her crew, there are no available reports by any of them that can be quoted. This, and the fact that the attack on her was not witnessed from other Allied ships, has persuaded the writers of previous histories to relegate her crew’s passing to the barest of mentions, although some have speculated that the British seamen who spotted the flashes made by gunfire over the horizon, may have been observing traces of what amounted to her valiant last stand. Fortunately, Hipper’s captain’s previously unpublished account of the initial attack on Bramble came to light in the course of my research, and I am pleased to be able to publish brief extracts from it, thereby drawing back the curtain a little on what transpired, something that has only been possible by taking the reader to the very edge of reported history.

  Readers who notwithstanding the above are of the opinion that Churchill may have been too quick to criticize Stalin and his ambassador Maisky for taking the Allies’ aid for granted, should before making a judgement about this appreciate that the British prime minister also had in mind the other travails lived through by British seamen in the course of protecting previous Arctic convoys. Whether or not his aides had filled him in on the specific experiences of those who had – and had not – survived the flooding below decks aboard the cruisers Trinidad and Edinburgh (see Chapters 5 and 10) when these ships were torpedoed in March and April 1942, or the carnage on board the destroyers Foresight and Forester when, although outgunned, their captains nevertheless faced down the German warships attacking them at the beginning of May 1942 by advancing towards them (see Chapter 11), Churchill, who had served as the First Lord of the Admiralty during World War 1 as well as at the beginning of World War 2, would almost certainly have taken into account the terrible suffering that he would have known must have been part and parcel of these engagements.

  As indicated at the beginning of this introduction, the battles fought by the Allies’ crews in their warships and armed freighters during the World War 2 Arctic convoys have been referred to in previous books. The classic accounts are Richard Woodman’s Arctic Convoys 1941–1945, and the Naval Staff History The Royal Navy And The Arctic Convoys. Between them the authors of these works have covered all the principal actions. Both books are remarkable. They have opened up a previously neglected area of history by shining a light on actions that without their investigations and write-ups might never have been given the attention they deserved.

  However, like the majority of such histories which seek to cover the myriad of actions of a campaign without exception, this has been successfully achieved at a price. The only way the authors have managed to fit every relevant event into booklets or volumes that are not too long is by judicious abridgement, in the course of which many of the most dramatic experiences have been summarized in a few paragraphs or even sentences.

  Not wishing merely to repeat what has already been carried out so expertly, I have approached the subject in a different way. Following what I have done when writing my previous books about well-known subjects, I have covered all the most important events, but by leaving out other actions which have not been covered in accessible colourful accounts, I have left space for the most vivid stories that have not always been given the oxygen of detailed exposition in previous publications. My object has been to give the reader some idea of what it was like to be involved in the great events portrayed even if some of the happenings during the Battle of the Arctic have as a result regretfully been excluded. Perhaps this will persuade the relatives of those veterans who participated in the Arctic convoys, but whose more dramatic accounts have not previously been made available, to bring them to my attention, thereby making it possible for them to be quoted in subsequent editions of this book.

  My desire to include in my narrative the most compelling actions has taken me in unexpected directions. I have devoted a substantial number of pages to the experiences of the merchant seamen after their ships were sunk or abandoned during Arctic convoys. For the reason given above, although this aspect of the Battle of the Arctic was covered in Richard Woodman’s book, he excluded the rich tapestry of vicissitudes the survivors lived through.

  This has given me the chance to honour many of the men whose valour has been relatively unknown compared with that exhibited in World War 2’s better known campaigns. The gap between what had happened and what has been published was particularly wide in relation to the aftermath of the battles fought in March 1942 during Arctic convoy PQ13. The detailed personal accounts mentioning first the traumatic sinkings during that convoy, and then the terrible hardships in the lifeboats lowered from the British freighter Induna, were a revelation.

  The search within America for diaries and letters relating to this stage of the Battle of the Arctic engagements was if anything even more rewarding. Here I was to find in the papers possessed by the families of two teenagers who were aboard the American freighter Effingham when she was sunk by a U-boat during PQ13, letters and diaries that had not only never been published previously, but which also could be characterized as containing a complete set of Arctic convoy experiences.

  As well as the frankest confessions one is ever likely to read about ruthless behaviour in the lifeboats, one sees in these documents how the boys, who began their journeys as innocent ingénues, were within a matter of months transformed, thanks to shabby treatment by their own government as much as by the aggression of their enemy, into disappointed, world-weary veterans. As if that was not punishment enough, the documents highlight the anguish suffered by the parents of one of the boys. A heartbreaking yearning note written by the mother of one of the teenagers after learning her son had not been seen since the sinking reveals how the Arctic convoys had an effect that spread well beyond those participating in them. One’s sense of outrage on her behalf is all the keener when it is revealed that her misery could have been avoided if only communications between Russia and England had been more efficient. Her son had in fact been rescued shortly before the letter of condolence was sent to her by the US Navy.

  The whole unedifying story of how she and the boys were treated, together with a complete guide to the tales of torment recorded by those who survived the sinkings during PQ13, appear in Chapters 6 and 7.