World War II: Convoy PQ-17

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Germany’s ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 gave England an unlikely and problematic ally. Unlikely because Great Britain’s government was ardently anti-Communist, and problematical because of the vast distances involved in supplying aid under the protection of an already hard-pressed Royal Navy.

Political differences aside, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill felt that any nation warring with Germany was already an ally and deserved aid, from Britain as well as the United States. England’s commitments elsewhere around the globe precluded providing manpower or seizing the initiative. For now, the only aid readily available was a constant flow of supplies.

Originally, an informal agreement provided for the delivery of all goods to Soviet ships at British and American ports. The responsibility for ferrying supplies back to the Soviet Union would then rest entirely with the Soviets. But there were not enough ships in the Soviet navy to handle such a monumental task, and eventually the convoys to the Soviet Union came to consist mainly of British and American ships.

Axis domination of the Mediterranean left only two Allied supply routes to the Soviet Union open. One, through Iran, required a sea journey of more than 13,000 miles. The second was a more practical northern route of less than 2,500 miles, but it crossed the cruelest sea of all, the Arctic Ocean. This Arctic route became known as the Murmansk Run.

Sailing around the northern tip of Norway, the convoys would be exposed to one of the largest concentrations of German U-boats, surface raiders and aircraft anywhere in the world. Attacks by more than a dozen subs and literally hundreds of planes at one time would not be uncommon. Strict orders forbade the halting of any ship for even a moment for fear of being attacked by prowling German U-boats, and individuals who fell overboard or survivors seen adrift on the waters had to be ruthlessly ignored. In the first two years of the run, more than one-fifth of the supplies sent to Murmansk would be lost.

Late in August 1941 a small, unnumbered convoy of seven ships made the trip from Iceland to the Soviet port of Archangel in 10 days without incident. The convoy, which had been hurriedly assembled, made the trip both as an experiment and as a gesture of good faith.

That September a military mission was sent to work out a formal aid program for the beleaguered Soviets. Negotiations at first were difficult. The Soviets dismissed all discussion concerning aid and demanded the immediate opening of a second front. They were convinced that only an offensive somewhere else could reduce the pressure the Germans were putting on them.

Several times the talks broke up after bitter disagreement. Marshal Josef Stalin often pointed out that while the Soviet Union was saddled with the burden of carrying 90 percent of the war, all the British were offering was ‘the loss of a few ships in support of the common cause. It was only after it looked as if the negotiations would break down altogether that the Soviets were finally willing to listen to aid proposals. The British and American representatives agreed to furnish all the planes, tanks and other war materiel that the Soviets felt they needed. For an industrial giant like the United States, the manufacturing would be the easy part; getting the goods safely halfway around the world would prove more difficult.

Originally, the Allied convoys went unnamed and unnumbered. After several round trips were successfully completed, a coding system was established. All convoys bound for the Soviet Union were designated PQ, and those returning were designated QP.

At first the Germans had to ignore the Allied crossings because they had few warships available to track the supply convoys. By the end of 1941, seven convoys had delivered 750 tanks, 800 planes, 2,300 vehicles and more than 100,000 tons of general cargo to the Soviet Union. Convoy PQ-8 was attacked by a U-boat but safely reached Murmansk on January 19, 1942. By early February 1942, 12 northbound convoys including 93 ships had made the journey with the loss of only one ship to a U-boat.

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Naval Battles, World War II

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