Death of Convoy PQ-17 - February ‘97 World War II Feature

Although PQ-17 was closely shadowed by U-boats, visual contact between the Germans and the Allied convoy was suddenly broken when the icy polar winds flowing over the warmer waters created a vast and welcome fog. Visibility was severely restricted for the ships of the convoy, as well, but PQ-17’s crews took comfort in the fact that if they could not see, then neither could they be seen by the enemy.

Although every crewman hoped that the protective fog would remain, in the still, bright afternoon the fog began to lift, and another long-range German scout plane appeared. Veterans aboard the convoy vessels knew that it would circle well out of gun range and remain only long enough to replot course and speed.

Now the men of the convoy waited for the inevitable attack. At 6:30 p.m. on July 2, seven Heinkel He-115 torpedo bombers struck. Loosely organized and lacking determination, the planes were driven off before any ships could be destroyed. Concentrated anti-aircraft fire kept the attackers at bay and prevented them from making accurate passes. After losing two planes, the Germans dropped their torpedoes well outside effective range and returned to their base.

It was not until the third day that the Germans scored a hit. The victim was the American Liberty ship Christopher Newport. Severely damaged, she began taking on water and was finally given up. Despite the loss, the men of the convoy felt that they had resisted brilliantly. They were confident that together with their escort they could complete the rest of the journey in good order.

All went well until the following afternoon, when elements of the Luftwaffe tried to press home another attack. Again, stubborn anti-aircraft fire drove the planes off. Later that same day, a flight of 25 planes was observed splitting into two groups before attacking–an attempt to divide the murderous defensive fire. With the convoy gunners busy defending against level bombers overhead, several torpedo planes, flying just above the water, were able to get in close. They launched at least 20 torpedoes, but only three found their mark. The Soviet tanker Azerbaijan was hit, but her crew managed to control the damage, and she eventually made it to port. Not so lucky were the merchantmen Navarino and William Hooper; damaged beyond repair, they both went down.

Back in London, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound–nervous, war-weary and possibly suffering from an undiagnosed brain tumor–monitored developments. His sporadic intelligence reports, supplied by Ultra intelligence intercepts, confirmed that Tirpitz had slipped her moorings at Trondheim on July 3 and appeared to be moving out to sea. Due to the delays in decoding all incoming transmissions, it was impossible for the Admiralty to know exactly where Tirpitz was, only where she had been.

Tirpitz was only shifting berths, but the move was enough to put the Admiralty into action. It was obvious to Admiral Pound that Tirpitz and her battle group were undertaking a strike position. Without knowledge of Hitler’s stipulation concerning British carriers, Pound was gripped by an overwhelming fear. Even with just a cursory look at his charts, he easily calculated that Tirpitz, steaming at 30 knots, could successfully evade the Home Fleet, overpower the cruiser force and slaughter the merchant ships.

Without confirmation of Tirpitz’s exact whereabouts, Pound believed the enemy force could already be closing on the convoy at high speed. His only alternative to maintaining the convoy was dispersal. The admiral called an emergency meeting of his naval operations staff, but his mind was already made up. Surrounded by about a dozen officers, Pound asked each one in turn which action they would pursue in light of the latest intelligence. Vice Admiral Sir Henry Moore, vice chief of the naval staff, recommended that if, and only if, the convoy was to be dispersed, there was no time to waste. The longer the delay in giving the order, the less sea room was available for dispersal, because the ships had to avoid the ice. Every other officer was against dispersal at that time. Pound politely thanked the men for their opinions, turned to an aide and said, “The convoy is to disperse.”