Analysis of the table leads to the conclusion that while, as the war progressed, the weight of supplies shipped via the Arctic convoys soared above the weight of aid sent during 1941, the annual amount sent via the northern route became a smaller percentage of the total weight sent each year from the West to the Soviet Union. That came about partly because, as stated above, the Arctic convoys were suspended at various times, and partly because there was a massive increase in the amount of aid sent via some of the other routes. Aid sent to the Persian Gulf ports and to the Soviet Far East (Vladivostock) rose very steeply in 1943, and remained at a high level during 1944.

  Table. The percentage of the total aid sent from the Western Hemisphere to the Soviet Union during the war and its immediate aftermath that was sent via the Arctic convoys.30 Year

  Short tons sent via the Arctic convoys

  Percentage of the weight of aid sent to the Soviet Union that was delivered via the Arctic convoys

  1941

  170,000

  42.7%

  1942

  1,060,000

  38.7%

  1943

  760,000

  14.2%

  1944

  1,630,000

  23.4%

  1945

  810,000

  19.8%

  All this is leading up to the point that even if the likes of Zhukov, Mikoyan and Khrushchev are right when they say that the foreign aid given to the Soviet Union played an important part in their country’s victory over Nazi Germany, it is only being accurate to acknowledge that the relative contribution of the Arctic convoys compared with transport via other routes diminished rather than expanded after 1942.

  That said, when the current regime in Russia alleges by implication, as was stated expressly by some during Soviet times, that during what the Russians refer to as the Great Patriotic War, Britain and America fought to the last Soviet soldier, that is also unfair. Such a charge can certainly not be levelled with any justification in relation to the majority of the men, who in a desperate bid to help the Russians, risked life and limb while participating in the fighting during the Arctic convoys, and in so doing, did their very best to ensure that the Battle of the Arctic was won.

  LEAD UP TO SUPPLY OF AID TO RUSSIA

  1. President Roosevelt with Winston Churchill at one of the series of meetings off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941 where it was agreed the West would send arms to Russia (See Chapter 2). 2. Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky thanks British workers at a tank factory on 22 September 1941, during the ‘Tanks for Russia’ week referred to in Chapter 2. 3. Averell Harriman (seated) and Lord Beaverbrook (leaning on the table) with Molotov between them at the 2 October 1941 signing of the Moscow Protocol (See Chapter 2). Harriman is also visible 2nd from right in photo 1.

  TANKS AND AIRCRAFT SENT TO THE SOVIET UNION

  4. A British Matilda tank bound for Russia is hoisted into the air so it can be loaded onto a merchant ship at Liverpool Docks on 17 October 1941. 5. Above left and 6. above right: Publicity shots circulated to the British press showing tanks and crates containing other aid in Murmansk’s port shortly after their arrival in North Russia. 7. A British Hurricane fighter aircraft sent to Russia, in the airfield near the Kola Inlet’s Vaenga.

  SNOW AND ICE ENCOUNTERED DURING ARCTIC CONVOYS

  8. Above left and 9. above right: Arctic conditions endured on board the British cruiser Sheffield during December 1941. 10. Another wintry scene on the deck of a British ship on Arctic convoy duty, during 1942. 11. An intrepid seaman poses in front of the British cruiser Belfast’s B gun turret barbette in November 1943. 12. The iced-up guns of a British battleship on Arctic convoy duty.

  HUNT FOR ARCTIC CONVOY PQ12 – THE LEADING PLAYERS

  13. First Image: German Vizeadmiral Otto Ciliax (on extreme left), who was in command on board Tirpitz (15. pictured Second Image) during her first Arctic sortie, and 16. above Generaladmiral Rolf Carls, his land-based superior officer (pictured on left), seen greeting members of the battleship’s crew. However the two admirals endangered everyone on the ship because they failed to appreciate that their communications would betray Tipitz’s future position (See Chapter 4). 14. Admiral Sir John Tovey, Commander-in-Chief of Britain’s Home Fleet, who was confident his forces could sink Tirpitz if they caught up with the German battleship, but whose efforts were hampered by the weather and a misreading of German communications.

  THE ABORTIVE ATTACK ON TIRPITZ

  17. First Image and 18. Above: Obsolescent Fairey Albacore aircraft are shown sitting on and taking off from carrier Victorious’ flight deck in scenes which were similar to what took place during the early morning of 9 March 1942. 19. Wake left behind by Tirpitz, as seen from one of the attacking Albacores on 9 March 1942, as the German battleship was steered away from the dropped British torpedoes (See Chapter 4). 20. Tirpitz’s Kapitän Karl Topp who saved the ship and her crew by the prompt evasive action he called for during the 9 March 1942 attack (See Chapter 4).

  THE BRITISH CRUISER WHICH TORPEDOED HERSELF

  21. The British cruiser Trinidad prior to participating in the protection of PQ13. 22. The massive hole in Trinidad’s port side made by the explosion of her own torpedo which, during the battle with German destroyers on 29 March 1942, rather than hitting its German target boomeranged back to incapacitate the British cruiser (See Chapter 5). 23. George Lloyd, a musician who was one of just four men who escaped from Trinidad’s transmitting station after it was flooded following the torpedoing of the ship. 24. The destroyer Eclipse’s Lieutenant Commander Edward Mack, whose attempts to sink the winged German destroyer Z 26 during the 29 March 1942 battle were interrupted by the appearance of the other two German destroyers which had previously been accompanying Z 26.

  VICTIMS FOLLOWING GERMAN ATTACKS ON PQ13

  25. Bernard Covington, a 17-year old armed guard from South Boston, in the US state of Virginia, who was reported missing following the torpedoing of his vessel, the American merchant ship Effingham, on 30 March 1942 during the passage of PQ13, but who was rescued after around four freezing days in a lifeboat. 26. The British merchant ship Induna which, like Effingham (mentioned above), was torpedoed by a U-boat on 30 March 1942. 27. Austin Byrne, a 20 year old from Bradford, who was serving as a gunner on Induna when she was torpedoed. He also survived in a lifeboat along with his shipmates for the best part of four days until they were rescued.

  TORMENT IN THE RUSSIAN HOSPITAL

  28. First Image: Morris Mills, pictured here after he had survived his adventures in the Arctic, suffered life-changing injuries when his ship New Westminster City, which had been part of PQ13, was bombed while tied up in Murmansk’s harbour (See Chapter 8). His left foot was subsequently amputated by a Russian surgeon while he was a patient in the Murmansk school, part of which is shown in photo 29. Above, that had been converted into a hospital. 30. Jimmy Campbell, the 15-year-old Induna steward, shown here recovering in a Scottish hospital from the injuries caused by the freezing conditions and frostbite he sustained while in one of Induna’s lifeboats. 31. Bill Short, pictured here after the war, by which time he had been fitted with artificial legs. He also suffered in the Murmansk hospital. As a result of the frostbite he sustained as a 22 year old in one of Induna’s lifeboats after the sinking, both of his legs were amputated (See Chapters 6–8).

  THE TORPEDOING OF THE BRITISH CRUISER EDINBURGH

  32. Above: Edinburgh’s Captain Hugh Faulkner (left) with Rear Admiral Stuart Bonham Carter (right) probably on board the cruiser. Edinburgh was torpedoed on 30 April 1942 while they were in charge (See Chapter 10). Kapitänleutnant Max-Martin Teichert (33. above right) was the commander of U-456, the U-boat whose crew fired the torpedoes. Teichert’s initial reaction to Seeing the cruiser in his sights was to write one word in his war diary: ‘Wunderbar (Marvellous)!’ 34. Edinburgh after being torpedoed. One of the destroyer commanders remarked that her peeled-up quarter deck made her look as if she was a scorpion about to attack. 35. After learning what had happened to Edinburgh, Admiral Hubert Schmundt, Admiral Nordmeer, (pictured on the left with his assistant and Reinhart Reche, one of his most productive U-boat commanders on the right) found it hard to decide whether the three destroyers under his command should first attack the damaged cruiser, or whether they should initially head towards QP11, the convoy he was also targeting.

  GERMAN BID TO SINK THE DAMAGED BRITISH CRUISER EDINBURGH

  36. Thanks to this photograph taken from the German destroyer Z 24, we can observe how Z 25’s making smoke in the distance concealed the crippled German destroyer Hermann Schoemann (in the middle ground) after she had been hit by a British shell during the 2 May 1942 battle between the rival surface forces. 37. Hermann Schoemann’s men gather on deck after the battle referred to above as Z 24 advances with a view to rescuing them. The rescue went well. Only eight of Hermann Schoemann’s crew lost their lives. 38. This photo records the final stages of the minesweeper Harrier’s successful attempt to rescue the men still on board Edinburgh after the cruiser during the 2 May 1942 battle was hit by a third torpedo.

  SINKING OF THE CRUISER TRINIDAD

  39. In the Kola Inlet: members of Trinidad’s crew can be seen on the cruiser’s deck after the damage caused by the self-torpedoing had been repaired, while awaiting the order to depart. 40. Trinidad is pictured here listing and smoking after being damaged for a second time. On this occasion she has been hit by bombs dropped from German planes in the course of their attack during the evening of 14 May 1942. 41. A line up of the midshipmen learning the ropes on Trinidad. They include the 17-year-old Tom Baird (on the right), whose memories of the bombing which led to the sinking of the cruiser, are quoted in Chapter 13. 42. Trinidad’s Captain Leslie Saunders with his wife and oldest son standing in front of the gates at London’s Buckingham Palace, where he had gone to be invested with a DSO, a just reward for his and his ship’s crew’s bravery during their encounters with the enemy.

  PQ16: THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

  43. First Image: Gathering of the merchant ships in Iceland’s Hvalfjord prior to the departure of PQ16 on 20 May 1942. They included the CAM ship Empire Lawrence, 44. pictured above at an earlier date. 45. The British submarine Trident stands guard beside one of the PQ16 merchant ships as the convoy steams eastward.

  PQ16: THE FIRST CHALLENGES

  46. The PQ16 merchant ships steam past an iceberg, one of the occupational hazards that had to be taken in their crews’ stride when their route took them near the ice edge. 47. A Focke-Wulf 20 Condor reconnaissance aircraft. A German crew flying one of these machines caught up with PQ16 on 25 May 1942, prompting the commander of one of the armed trawlers with the convoy to describe it as a sinister bat which would deliver them into the hands of the ‘butcher’ who was searching for them. 48. Bohdan Pawłowicz (2nd from left), the embedded Polish journalist aboard the Polish destroyer Garland during PQ16, who would later write an account of some of the traumatic events he witnessed. 49. Pawłowicz’s cameraman Pawel Płonka aiming his camera in the general direction of the German aircraft, which during the 27 May 1942 air raids were whizzing overhead. He was later wounded following a near miss (See Chapter 15).

  PQ16: THE STORM

  50. In this blurred still, lifted from a Polish film featuring shots taken from Garland’s decks during PQ16, German aircraft are to be seen streaking over the convoy. 51. This photograph taken from the corvette HMS Honeysuckle shows a stick of bombs dropped by a German aircraft falling uncomfortably close to one of the British submarines escorting the convoy, and to some of the nearby merchant ships. The submarine in question may well have been Trident whose commander courageously insisted he would take his chances along with the other surface escorts rather than diving each time enemy aircraft appeared. 52. Another still from the film shot from Garland shows a merchant ship being targeted by the Luftwaffe during PQ16, probably in the course of one of the series of raids by aircraft on 27 May 1942.

  PQ16: THE DAMAGE

  53. Another still taken from the Garland film. It shows one of the destroyer’s crew, who was injured during one of the 27 May 1942 air raids, being operated on by the ship’s surgeon. The film’s commentary reveals that unfortunately this man was one of many who did not make it. 54. Garland’s starboard Oerlikon points skyward, but remains silent and unattended, beside the covered up corpses of its gunners. This photo is displayed in the book written by Pawłowicz where he describes Seeing the gunners’ charred corpses lying among the smoking embers of the splinters which had killed them during one of the 27 May 1942 air raids. Near misses during these raids ravaged Garland and her crew. The bodies of the gunners were eventually covered up, Pawłowicz reported, sparing the feelings of those readers who were afterwards shown a photo of the scene. 55. A photograph of PQ16’s SS Empire Purcell burning after she had been hit during one of the last air raids during 27 May 1942. The ship is seen behind the head of Honeysuckle’s gunner whose head and shoulders and the eyepiece he is looking through form the jagged silhouette in the foreground.

  PQ16: COFFINS AND GARLANDS

  56. Icy conditions encountered on board Garland while anchored off North Russia. 57. Sailors bury at sea one of the Garland seamen who was killed during the 27 May 1942 battle that claimed so many Polish lives. 58. The commanders of the Polish destroyer Garland (Lieutenant Commander Henryk Eibel – left) and the Polish submarine Jastrząb (Lieutenant Bolesław Romanowski – centre) seen here on one of Garland’s decks on the way back from Russia. The third man is Jastrząb’s Andrzej Guzowski. 59. Destroyer Ashanti’s Commander Richard Onslow seen here being rewarded for his action during PQ16: with his son Richard Junior and wife Kathleen standing outside Buckingham Palace on the day he was invested with the bars to his DSO. 60. Trawler Lady Madeleine’s Graeme Ogden with first wife Sheila and daughter Julia at the investiture at the Palace concerning his DSO in relation to his courageous action during Arctic convoys including PQ16.

  LUFTWAFFE ATTACKS PQ17

  61. A Blohm & Voss 138 reconnaissance aircraft like the one that on 1 July 1942 appeared above convoy PQ17 (See Chapter 16). 62. Murmansk, PQ17’s original destination, after the bombing that resulted in PQ17 on 1 July 1942 being redirected to Archangel. 63. Above: A photograph of a German bomber as it races in to launch its torpedoes at close range during the big attack on PQ17 on 4 July 1942. It was shot down, as was the plane in 64. on the right which during the same action is seen to be losing height and smoking after flying too close to two Allied destroyers (See Chapter 1). 65. Russian tanker Azerbaijan appears to go up in smoke after being torpedoed during the same 4 July 1942 air raid. Miraculously she remained afloat and reached Russia. 66. Left: Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord, and 67. right Norman ‘Ned’ Denning, who had diametrically opposed views on the threat to PQ17 posed by Tirpitz (See Chapter 17).

  PQ17’S SCATTER ORDER: REBELS AND CONFORMERS

  68. Above left: HMS Keppel’s Captain Jack Broome, the senior officer in charge of PQ17’s close escort. 69. Above centre: Rear Admiral Louis Hamilton, commander of the supporting cruiser squadron, and 70. above right: Palomares’ Captain Jack Jauncey, the senior officer remaining with the convoy. All played their part in PQ17’s destruction (See Chapter 18). 71. Above left: Leo Gradwell, the rebellious commander of armed trawler Ayrshire. She is seen in photo 72. above right from Troubadour, one of three merchant ships Gradwell insisted on protecting notwithstanding the 4 July 1942 scatter order. 74. Above: Howard Carraway, Troubadour’s armed guard chief, who describes in his diary how his ship was camouflaged on Gradwell’s orders with the white paint seen being applied in photo 73. First Image. 75. Lotus’ John Hall, another officer who refused to leave merchant crews to their fate (See Chapter 19).

  THE SCATTERING OF PQ17: ITS REPERCUSSIONS

  76. Above left: A PQ17 freighter sinks; 77. above right: her survivors in boats. Both photos have, probably incorrectly, been alleged to show the aftermath of Carlton’s 5 July 1942 torpedoing. 78. SS Washington’s radio operator Robert Henderson who survived the 5 July 1942 bombing and abandonment of his ship, and wrote an account of his experiences in a lifeboat. Two of Washington’s lifeboats following the abandonment are to be seen pictured in 80. here. 79. The last moments of American PQ17 merchant ship Daniel Morgan. She was bombed on 5 July 1942 before being sunk by U-457. 81. Above: Survivors from Washington on a Novaya Zemlya beach following their long journey in lifeboats (See Chapters 18 and 23). Photos 80. and 81. are part of a unique series of photos supplied thanks to Washington’s Arthur Mcdonald. 82. American ship Ironclad in the distance on or after 10 July 1942 in Novaya Zemlya’s Matochkin Strait (See Chapter 24). This photograph was taken from Troubadour, part of which is visible in the foreground.

  PQ17: THE FINAL ACT – AND ITS SEQUEL

  83. The abandoned Paulus Potter is seen sinking after being torpedoed on 13 July 1942 from U-255. 84. The British army officer taken prisoner after the torpedoing of PQ17’s Empire Byron (See Chapter 18) is brought ashore at Narvik. He is carrying his white coat. 85. A reward for U-255’s Reinhart Reche following his successes against PQ17. 86. The reception committee for other U-boat men who had attacked PQ17, on the arrival of the returning U-boats in Narvik. 87. Churchill (on the left) and America’s Averell Harriman (on the right) on either side of Stalin when they met in Moscow in mid-August 1942 (See Chapter 26). 88. Lady Juliet Duff – seen here pre-war in dressed to kill fancy dress – who during the summer of 1942 highlighted the terrible conditions in Murmansk’s hospital where injured Allied seamen were being treated (See Chapter 26).