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World War II: Convoy PQ-17World War II | 2 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post
Shaken by the colossal losses taken by PQ-17, Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, over strong Soviet protest, postponed the sailing of PQ-18 until autumn. When the convoy did sail, it was protected by 53 warships, including two submarines and the aircraft carrier Avenger. Once again, the Germans mounted a major effort to prevent the delivery of supplies and weapons. They managed to sink 13 ships of PQ-18. Bowing to pleas from within the Admiralty and in the wake of such unacceptable losses, all further sailings were suspended until winter. Subscribe Today
With the exception of several months in 1943, when the Battle of the Atlantic was at its peak, the convoys to the Soviet Union ran from 1941 until the war’s end. Campaign ribbons were awarded for service in almost every other theater of the war, but not one was awarded for service in the Arctic. Before the fighting ended, however, Allied seamen had taken 1,526 individual ships in 77 convoys on the Murmansk Run. Nearly 100 ships were lost to enemy action and the unyielding weather. Allied losses in the Arctic eventually exceeded those in the North Atlantic sea lanes, and before the war ended the Arctic route had accounted for nearly 37 percent of all Allied surface ships sunk in all theaters of the war.
After the tremendous losses incurred by PQ-17, the Admiralty developed improved defensive tactics for convoys, including assigning greater numbers of escort vessels for each convoy as well as using radar, sonar and improved weaponry aboard the escort vessels. Because of the Allies’ improved defensive tactics and its own worsening military situation after 1942, Germany would never again be able to dominate the northern seas. Later convoys would still be subject to attack, but no other convoy, before or since, suffered such death and destruction as PQ-17.
This article was written by Raymond A. Denkhaus and originally appeared in the February 1997 issue of World War II magazine. For more great articles subscribe to World War II magazine today! Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Naval Battles, World War II
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2 Comments to “World War II: Convoy PQ-17”
I have a diary of the my voyage on the SS Bellingham . Is this of any interest . I was a Naval gunnery officer on the ship . I was on the ship for the return trip , as you know the all crew survived but the ship went to the bottom
By COMMANDER WILLARD BROWN on Jul 28, 2009 at 2:34 pm
It’s deplorable the way history is being falsified so casually. Not only the Soviets kept thanking the Americans on an official level for the lend-lease program, they actually PAID for all that cargo that sunk to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. As they paid fully for everything that was SOLD to them by the US during WWII. Yes, I said it right – tanks, fighters and bombers were not given to the USSR in a friendly gesture, that was in reality a commercial transaction. I guess there’s a fundamental cultural difference at play here. When you are in the States, you dial a phone number and hear: ‘How can I help you?’, which in reality is a euphemism for ‘What can I sell you?’ Was it what the author meant? The Russians didn’t say thank you after they paid for what they bought? Isn’t a payment ‘thank you’ enough? Just for the record The Soviet Union never used US made tanks and bombers and the number of fighters was around 3000. Overall, according to Averell Harriman, US Ambassador to the USSR the US ‘help’ amounted to only 4% of the Soviet military industrial output from 1941-1945.
So of course the Soviets were mad, 24 ships – 2/3 of the convoy sunk due to a cowardly decision to disband the military escort and they had to pay for it in gold!
By Paul Siebert on Sep 8, 2009 at 8:07 pm