Part 1.3. A Modest Man - War Action North Sea 1941

A Modest Man

Henry DeGraw's recollections are but a very short version of the role he played.

Across the world, young 20 year old sons, were signing u p to serve their country, firstly, for many in the Merchant Navy.

By 1941, he had enlisted in the American Navy, and was once again sailing to the North of Scotland.

Henry was involved in the aftermath of one of the worst Battles of the War.  He was on a ship in the PQ 17 Combat formation.

Operation Dervish was the first of the Arctic Convoys of World War II by which the Western Allies supplied material aid to the Soviet Union in its fight with Nazi Germany. The convoy sailed from Hvalfjörður, Iceland on 21 August 1941 and arrived at Archangelsk on 31 August 1941. The Convoy Commodore was Captain JCK Dowding RNR. On board Llanstephan Castle were two journalists, Vernon Bartlett and Charlotte Haldane of the Daily Sketch, also the artist, Felix Topolski.

This convoy consisted of six merchant ships loaded with raw materials and 15 crated Hawker Hurricane fighter planes: Lancastrian Prince, New Westminster City, Esneh, Trehata, the elderly Llanstephan Castle, the fleet oiler RFA Aldersdale, and the Dutch freighter Alchiba. The convoy was escorted by the destroyers Electra, Active, and Impulsive; the minesweepers Halcyon, Salamander, and Harrier; and the anti-submarine Shakespearian class trawlers Hamlet, Macbeth, and Ophelia. Distant cover consisted of the heavy cruiser Shropshire and the destroyers Matabele, Punjabi, and Somali. At the same time the old aircraft carrier Argus, a veteran of World War I, delivered 24 Hurricanes of the Royal Air Force's 151 Fighter Wing, which landed at Vaenga (renamed Severomorsk in 1951) airfield, near Murmansk. Largely owing to the scarcity of Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance forces in the region at the time, all of the ships arrived safely.

Convoy PQ 18 was an Arctic convoy of forty Allied freighters from Scotland and Iceland to Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany. The convoy departed Loch Ewe, Scotland on 2 September 1942, rendezvoused with more ships and escorts at Iceland and arrived at Arkhangelsk on 21 September.

The convoy handed over its distant escorts and Avenger to the homeward bound Convoy QP 14 near Archangelsk on 16 September and continued with the close escort and local escorts, riding out a storm in the Northern Dvina estuary and the last attacks by the Luftwaffe, before reaching Archangelsk on 21 September. Several ships ran aground in the storm but all were eventually refloated; unloading the convoy took a month.

Because of its losses and the transfer in November of its most effective remaining aircraft to the Mediterranean to oppose Operation Torch, the Luftwaffe effort could never be repeated.

 12 September 1942: Convoy PQ 18 escort HMS Faulknor sank U-88 near Bear Island. U-405 and U-589 sank Liberty ship Oliver Ellsworth and 3559-ton Stalingrad on 13 September; while KG 26 and KG 30 bombers sank 5432-ton Wacosta, 4826-ton Oregonian, 6131-ton Macbeth, 5441-ton Africander, 6209-ton Empire Stevenson, 7044-ton Empire Beaumont and 3124-ton Sukhona. U-457 sank 8992-ton Atheltemplar on 14 September; and HMS Onslow sank U-589. HMS Impulsive sank U-457 on 16 September. The 5446-ton Kentucky was sunk and 6458-ton Troubador damaged before the convoy reached Murmansk.

  13 September 1942: Convoy QP 14 sailed from Arkhangelsk. On 20 September U-435 sank HMS Leda, U-255 sank 4937-ton Silver Sword, and U-703 sank HMS Somali. U-435 sank 5345-ton Bellingham, 7174-ton Ocean Voice and 3313-ton Grey Ranger on 22 September

While Henry downplayed his time in the Arctic, one fellow officer wrote his story

JULY 1942

27th June-28th July - Destruction of Convoy PQ17 - Convoys PQ17 and return QP13 both set out on 27th June. PQ17 left Reykjavik, Iceland with 36 ships, of which two returned. The close escort under Cdr J. E. Broome included six destroyers and four corvettes. Two British and two US cruisers with destroyers were in support (Rear-Adm L. H. K. Hamilton), and distant cover was given by the Home Fleet (Adm Tovey) with battleships "Duke of York" and the US "Washington", carrier "Victorious", cruisers and destroyers. The British Admiralty believed the Germans were concentrating their heavy ships in northern Norway

. In fact pocket battleship "Lutzow" had run aground off Narvik, but this still left battleship "Tirpitz", pocket battleship "Admiral Scheer" and heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper" - all formidable adversaries, which reach Altenfiord on the 3rd. At this time PQ17 had just passed to the north of Bear Island, after which German aircraft sank three merchantmen. Fear of attack by the German ships led the First Sea Lord, Adm Pound, far away in London, to decide the fate of the convoy. In the evening of the 4th the support cruisers were ordered to withdraw and the convoy to scatter. Unfortunately Adm Hamilton took the six escorting destroyers with him.
The merchantmen were now to the north of North Cape. Thirty-one try to make for the isolated islands of Novaya Zemlya before heading south for Russian ports. Between the 5th and 10th July, 20 of them were lost, half each to the aircraft and U-boats sent to hunt them down. Some sheltered for days off the bleak shores of Novaya Zemlya. Eventually 11 survivors and two rescue ships reached Archangel and nearby ports between the 9th and 28th.

In fact "Tirpitz" and the other ships did not leave Altenfiord until the morning of the 5th, after the 'convoy was to disperse' order. They abandoned the sortie that same day. History suggests the vital decision on the future of PQ17 should have been left to the commanders on the spot. The US reacted strongly to the Royal Navy apparently leaving its merchantmen to their fate. Meanwhile all went well with QP13's 35 ships from Murmansk, until the 5th.

Approaching Iceland through the Denmark Strait they ran into a British minefield. Escorting minesweeper "NIGER" and five merchant ships were lost. The rest got in. No more Russian convoys run until September..

Convoy PQ17, Iceland - Russia, is well documented in World War 2 annals as the convoy that didn't get through. What is not well documented is exactly why the convoy was decimated by the German forces based in Norway and how much of a role was played in this by the Tirpitz and Hipper. Or to be more accurate, NOT played by the Tirpitz and Hipper! Convoys were designated PQ for the outward trip, and QP for the return.

In Hvalfjord, Iceland PQ17 consisting of 35 merchantmen, including the CAM ship Empire Tide, were assembling. Hold packed with tanks, ammo and supplies for the beleaguered Red Army. Force commander was Commodore Dowding, sailing in the river Afton. In his pre convoy speech Dowding remarked on the large escort and the fact that they would "not always be seen but will be out there, in close support throughout". The assembled masters were enthusiastic on hearing this news.

There is some great information available at the following site.  A few excerpts follow.

http://www.39-45war.com/convoypq17.html

Starting Point - Hvalfjord, Iceland

27 June 1942 PQ17 set sail. 3 days later the close escorts fell into line and they steamed eastwards towards Murmansk and Archangel, and the waiting German forces based in Norway. An accompanying bombing raid on Norwegian airfields had no effect. German Intelligence was aware of the convoys departure but contact was not established until 1 July when escorts engaged the U-255 and the U-408 which were successfully driven off. Other U boats were directed towards the convoy and take up "patrol lines" ahead. There were 8 of these. About noon on 2 July the first shadowing aircraft appeared, and, fog apart, kept in constant touch. QP13 had by now left Russia on the homeward journey and the 2 convoys passed each other on July 1st, the Grey Ranger detaching from PQ17 and latching onto QP13.

In the evening of 1 July attacks began from the air. nothing got through and the Germans lost 1 aircraft. The crew being rescued by a He 115 under the guns of the destroyer Wilton. Thus the start of the attacks began and to have such far reaching consequences later on. Tovey had been spotted by German reconnaissance aircraft but Tirpitz & Hipper, and 1 destroyer, proceeded northwards along the coast to Altenfjord to join Scheer. 3 of their escorting destroyers ran aground and had to be left behind! Lutzow ran aground in Tjelsund, suffering severe damage.  On 4 July PQ17 lost her first ship, the Christopher Newport being torpedoed from the air. Later, the U-457 finished her off and sank the deserted hulk.

With Tovey in command at sea, and Pound in command behind a desk, signals were beginning to conflict. Hamilton's (4 cruisers) orders were changed by London, to enable him to continue past previous limits unless ordered otherwise by Tovey! Tovey regarded this as a change of policy that had previously been agreed with Admiral Pound. Tovey disliking his ships being ordered around. There was a "certain friction" between the 2 men. Tovey signalled "At 1345 hrs I received a signal giving CS permission to proceed beyond 25 degrees E. This is a reversal of the policy agreed between their lordships and myself in your 0157B/27. No information in my possession justified this change".  Hamilton was tasked by Tovey to leave the Barents Sea unless he could be assured that Tirpitz was not at large.

Hamilton complied at 2200 hrs, 4th July, once his destroyers had been refuelled. Pound, behind his London desk, then countermanded this by ordering Hamilton's cruiser screen to remain with the convoy until "further instructions". Meanwhile another air attack against the convoy was thwarted by the "very aggressive" tactics of the USS Wainwright under the command of Cmdr Moon USN. Broome, commanding Keppel and the close Escorts, later wrote: This ship lent valuable support with accurate long range AA fire. I was most impressed for the way she sped around the convoy worrying the circling aircraft and it was largely due to her July 4 enthusiasm that the attack completely failed. 1 German aircraft was lost. Leutnant Kaumeyer being rescued by the Ledbury who told them that he had been informed that the convoy was in thick fog (the weather was transparently clear) and that the convoy would put up little resistance. Another more successful attack soon appeared.

Azerbaijan disappears in smoke, them re-emerges, still going strong. The lifeboat
astern contained a few crew who prematurely jumped ship!!

The Soviet tanker Azerbaijan is worthy of particular mention here. Being hit, she became engulfed in a huge cloud of dense smoke and witnesses feared the worst.  however, she emerged "holed but happy" at 9 knots. The presence of women on board this tanker being a never ending source of wonder to the other merchantmen. It was rumoured that the tankers boatswain was delivered of a healthy child on arrival at Murmansk. Her engine room had got the engines going again but 2 other ships hit were lost. Meanwhile, the German capital ships were still swinging around their buoys at Altenfjord, but things were about to go sadly wrong at PQ17. 

During the convoys to Russia men dared not go outside without extra protection.  Gunner's Mate Roland Smith recalled that standard outerwear for the North Atlantic was a heavy fur-lined parka and fur-lined overall-type pants in addition to heavy gloves, an alpaca fleece-lined hat, face mask, and fur-lined goggles.  Underneath, men would pile on whatever warm clothing they could find, including jackets, sweaters, wool pants, and thermal underwear.  Howard Long remembered wearing special boots made from a type of rubberised canvas because the extreme cold caused leather boots to crack.  Beneath these boots, men wore heavy felt bootees that came almost to their knees. 

Henry survived the Arctic Waters.  The men were picked up by minesweepers.  The schedule of one is below.

July

                12th        Carried out post refit trials before resuming deployment with Flotilla

                18th        Deployed for Atlantic convoy defence and passage to Iceland.

                                (Note: Some ships of the Flotilla were deployed for escort of ships between UK

                                and Iceland

                26th        Deployed with HMS SALAMANDER and HALCYON to assist in saving

                                ss ATLANTIC CITY which had been hit by torpedo in NW Approaches during

                                passage to Freetown with Convoy OS1. Carried out anti-submarine operations.

                30th        Deployed in Iceland with same ships as part of Local Escort Force for defence

                                of ships on entry or departure from Seidisfjord.

August                  Iceland deployment in continuation.

                                Nominated for service in North Russia after German invasion.

                20th        Sailed from Hvalfjord to provide anti-submarine protection with HMS HALCYON

                                and HMS SALAMANDER for ships of first convoy to North Russia.

                                (Operation DERVISH)

                                (Note: Other ships deployed for escort were:

                                HM Destroyers ELECTRA, ACTIVE and IMPULSIVE till 29th. with Home

                                Fleet ships providing Distant Cover between 24th and 30th August.

                                For full details of all Russian convoy passages with names of the escorts and

                                mercantiles see CONVOYS TO RUSSIA by RA Ruegg, THE RUSSIAN CONVOYS

                                by B Schoefield, CONVOY ! by P Kemp and ARCTIC CONVOYS by R Woodman.).

                31st         Detached from DERVISH convoy on arrival at Archangel.

September             Deployed for minesweeping in North Russia,

                28th        Joined Convoy QP1 with HMS HALCYON and HMS SALAMANDER as Local Escort

                                for first stage of outward passage to Orkneys.

                                (Note: This was first return convoy from North Russia. See references.)

                30th        Detached from QP1 with Local Escort and returned to Archangel.

October                  North Russia deployment in continuation

                10th        Provided Local Escort for inward convoy PQ1 for entry into Archangel.

                                Nominated for return to UK for “Arcticisation” and made independent passage

 The reason that President Roosevelt instigated the changes.   Brave young men.  Left on their own, according to many reports, sitting ducks, who faced on a daily basis the threat of being sent to the bottom of the ocean.  History is best told by those who were there.  Another of his mates also recollected the times

The PQ17 Story  The Worst Journey in the World

John Beardmore, Navigating Officer in H.M.S. Poppy recounts his personal experiences of the worst Arctic convoy disaster of the Second World War[

In the summer of 1942 I was a 22 year old R.N.VR. Naval Sub-Lieutenant, serving as Navigating Officer on board the newly built Flower Class Corvette, H.M.S. Poppy, part of the close escort of the ill-fated convoy to Russia, P.Q.17.

PQ17 was probably doomed from the start. A whole chain of events was set off by a number of what are now clearly seen to have been mistaken decisions, which once put into effect could not be reversed.

To begin with the convoy was sailed against the express advice of the Admiralty, who had been obliged to withdraw aircraft carriers from the Home Fleet to support the already hard pressed Malta convoys, leaving no effective air cover at all for the Russian convoys once they had entered the Barents Sea.

Stalin, supported by Roosevelt, had insisted to Churchill that the northern convoys to Russia be continued during the summer months of 1942 a period of continuous daylight when air cover was important, if not imperative, and reluctantly Churchill agreed, knowing the need of the Russians, for one must remember at that time the Red Army were particularly hard pressed fighting with their backs to the wall at Stalingrad.

The convoy, consisting of 36 heavily laden Merchant ships mostly American, plus three British tescue ships, the Rathlin, Zamalek and Zafferan, who were to cover themselves with glory later on, sailed from Hvalfjiord in Iceland on the afternoon of 27th June, 1942, and proceeded under escort through the treacherous Denmark Straits, round the north coast of Iceland to be joined two days later by the rest of the escorts sailing from Seydisfjiord on the east coast.

In all there were 21 British warships closely escorting the convoy: H.M.S. Palomares and Pozarica, two 2000 ton, 15 knot converted peacetime West Indies Banana Boats now each equipped with eight 4 inch anti-aircraft guns and called Ack Ack ships; there were six experienced Western Approaches destroyers, three Minesweepers, four Corvettes, three Anti-submarine trawlers and two submarines taking passage to Russia. Distant cover at 10 to 20 miles was provided by two cruiser Squadrons, one British, one American, while long range cover was provided by the Home Fleet Admiral Jack Tovey, C. in C. in the battleship Duke of York. The fleet carrier Victorious and the U.S. battleship Washington, plus two cruisers and 14 destroyers who were hovering between Scapa Flow and Jan Mayern Island just in case! A grand total of 61 warships defending a convoy of 35 M/S. In the middle of the convoy steamed the two British Submarines on passage to Russia, but significantly no aircraft carrier with the convoy.

The Senior Officer Escort was Commander Jack Broome, RN, an experienced Western Approaches convoy leader in his First World War destroyer H.M.S. Keppeil. He was to become even more famous 30 years later in the famous Old Bailey libel case of 1971 that went to the House of Lords when he sued Cassels, the publishers, and David g who wrote "The Destruction of Convoy P.Q.17."

He won his case but the £40,000 damages awarded were never paid as Cassels conveniently went bankrupt.

We sailed upon a note of optimism in spite of a warning report through ULTRA at Bletchley Park (the code breaking Centre) that there was a strong chance of the German battleship The Admiral von Tirpitz being deployed against the convoy from her base in northern Norway, A Decoy convoy, E.S., consisting of five Minelayers and four ancient colliers had been simultaneously sailed from Scapa Flow and was boldly skirting the Norwegian coast in an attempt to draw the German fleet into the arms of the Royal Navy's Home fleet. Unfortunately convoy E.S. became completely enveloped in fog and passed completely unnoticed and returned to Scapa Flow, mission unaccomplished.

In the meantime PQ17 had settled down to a steady 7 knots on a north easterly course and with its escorts covered a sea area of 25 square miles, which it must be admitted is an awful lot of sea if one hopes to pass undetected. Needless to say the convoy was soon reported by shadowing Blom and Voss reconnaissance aircraft, and patrolling U-Boats, as it proceeded to the south of Jan Mayen Island upon its fateful voyage.

"This is Jarminy calling! Jarminy calling!" (Now you know who that was.) Within a few hours Lord Haw Flaw's nasal tones could be heard on the ships' radios in the convoy, giving the names of most of the ships in the convoy and the dire fate that awaited them at the hands of the German fleet and Luftwaffe. So much we thought for "Mum's the word, the enemy is listening" but I seem to recall that we merely blamed those unfriendly Icelanders, for after all Iceland was known to be full of German agents!

The Bloom and Voss German reconnaissance planes continued to circle the convoy out of firing range until one exasperated destroyer Captain called to his yeoman, "Tell that bugger to go round the other way." So the yeoman of the exasperated destroyer flashed, "Please go round the other way." The Bloom & Voss flashed back in English, "Anything to oblige an Englishman," and did so! You could be forgiven for thinking it was "all a game!"

During the next three days several U-Boat attacks were driven off by our own destroyers, as was a rather half-hearted attack by seven Heinkel 115 torpedo carrying aircraft, who dropped their torpedoes and scurried off when they met the intensive barrage put up by the convoy and its escorts.

During this action an enemy plane, shot down by the destroyer H.M.S. Fury landed on the sea a mile or more ahead of the convoy. Out of firing range, we watched as a German float plane swooped down and landed like a gnat alongside the sinking aircraft, picked up its crew and flew off again. We watched in wonderment. Our CO. muttered in admiration, "Bloody marvellous!"

So P.Q.17, its hopes rising, to the sound of its depth charges exploding and the thud-thud of the pom pom guns continued on its way. The convoy had now left behind the treacherous drift ice and dangerous seas of the Denmark Straits and was entering the strange, becalmed Summer world of the Arctic Ocean with its mirages, its refractory images of upside down ships upon a calm iridescent sea, in a rarefied almost intoxicating atmosphere in which the sun at midnight burned our faces, in spite of an air temperature well below zero. We began to pass majestic icebergs and saw polar bears basking themselves upon ice flows which sailed silently by like giant water lilies.

We even passed the partly iced over remains of a German aircraft which had been shot down on a previous convoy and which had crash landed upon an ice flow, and was silently drifting about the Arctic wastes like sbme ghostly Marie Celeste. The convoy had now assumed an easterly course and was skirting the Great Ice Barrier in order to distance itself from the enemy. We suddenly realised that we were less than 800 miles across the ice from the North Pole!

At midnight between the 3rd and 4th of July the convoy passed to the nor'ward of Bear Island and at about 5 a.m. suffered its first casualty directly attributable to the enemy. A U.S. Liberty ship, the Christopher Newport was torpedoed by a single enemy aircraft which appeared suddenly out of a cloud bank.

The top masts of the covering British and U.S. cruiser squadrons could be seen far away to the northward, hull down on the horizon. We felt secure to know that they were there!

Shortly after breakfast the Admirals of the U.S. and Royal Naval cruiser Squadrons exchanged somewhat platitudinous but friendly greetings on the T.B.S. (ships to ship short range telephone), forerunner of that modern convenient menace, the mobile phone.

"Glad to have you with us - old boy."

"Glad to be here - Buddy."

It was Independence Day - July 4th The American Merchant ships in the convoy having hoisted brand new large "Stars and Stripes" were singing songs and waving to us - it was to be a day many would remember with sadness but just at that moment, "A National day of pride and defiance".

The convoy was now entering the zone of the Barents Sea where enemy surface attack was most likely to happen. Lt. Beckley (P614), the senior Officer of one of the two British Submarines taking passage in the middle of the convoy, flashed to Senior Officer Escorts, "In the event of attack by enemy forces propose to remain on the surface." Commander Jack Broome in H.M.S. Keppel (ever the humourist) promptly flashed back, "So do I!"

Throughout the day there were sporadic attacks by groups of torpedo carrying Heinkel 115s and Junkers 88 and there was a splendid teatime display of pyrotechnics and rapid anti-aircraft fire by the U.S. destroyer Wainwright when she came over from the U.S. squadron to fuel from our fleet oil tanker, the Aldersdale. She did however shoot down one enemy aircraft.

Later on that evening PQ17 received attention from two low level bombing attacks by 30 Heinkel 115s, each carrying two torpedoes Which were driven off with the loss of only two Merchant ships, The Navorino and the Liberty Ship William Hooper. Still outstanding in one's memory of that dramatic half hour (even after 60 years) was the inspiring display of suicidal courage shown by the leader of the enemy squadron, who deliberately diverted the convoy's fire to himself by flying straight up between the columns of ships at bridge level. Of course he and his aircraft were totally blasted to smithereens by the intensive barrage of fire at close range and crashed into the sea in flames just ahead of the convoy, but instead of inspiring his squadron to press home their attack many of them dropped their torpedoes and turned away.

We in Poppy counted our blessings as we watched two torpedoes approaching our ship in the clear water on either bow. Our engine room in jittery language reported hearing their motors as they passed under us with about a foot to spare, and sped on toward the convoy.

In the meantime the Russian Tanker Azerbjaijan, carrying a cargo of crude oil, had been torpedoed forward and set on fire. As some of her crew abandoned ship the women gunners left on board turned a machine gun onto the departing lifeboat, fired a couple of bursts and forced the panicking crew back oh board where they set to, fought and extinguished the fire and being capable of 15 knots caught up again with the convoy. How we cheered them! Then just as the convoy was settling down again feeling rather pleased with itself, having accounted for a couple more aircraft, the survivors picked up, and the two stricken U.S. Merchantmen astern sunk by our escorts own gunfire, the following significant and baffling signal was received at 9. 11 p.m. from the Admiralty, addressed to the cruiser Squadron still 10 miles to the northward:

"Most immediate. cruiser force withdraw to the Westward at high speed". A few minutes later came a further signal:

"Immediate. Due to threat from surface ships convoy is to disperse and proceed to Russian Ports."

Exactly thirteen minutes later the Admiralty sent what was to become the most lethal and ominous signal of the entire war at sea.

"CONVOY IS TO SCATTER."

Arriving in quick succession these three signals which in the end proved to be misconceived and inaccurate created an atmosphere of considerable alarm, to all present. The enemy fleet was clearly near at hand. What the Admiralty did not appreciate was that the Tirpitz and the German fleet were 300 miles away still at anchor in Altenfjiord, having arrived from Trondheim and Narvik.

Intercepting and breaking the German ENIGMA signals at the secret code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, whose brilliant wartime work shortened the War by at least a year and saved thousands of lives, had reported no flurry of wireless signals associated with the departure of the German fleet. There were no sightings by our own submarines patrolling the Norwegian coast and the entrance to Altenfjiord, all of which indicated that the German ships had not sailed.

To this negative evidence Naval Intelligence agreed. However the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound (a dedicated and conscientious officer slowly dying of cancer) was utterly convinced otherwise and chose to ignore Bletchley Park's assurance. There had also been a complete breakdown in our own aerial reconnaissance for several vital hours over Altenfjiord due to adverse weather conditions. The Tirpitz pilz did not in fact sail until fifteen hours after the convoy had been scattered. By which time 14 merchant ships had already been sunk by U-Boats and aircraft, more than the total numbers of ships sunk on all the previous convoys to Russia.

The German Admiral Raedar immediately cancelled KNIGHTSMOVE (the codeword for the German operation) and Tirpilz soon returned to harbour after a brief coastal sortie. The scatter signal was naturally interpreted by us on the spot to mean that the Tirpitz and a strong enemy force was fast approaching us from the South West and just over the horizon.

The only other case of a convoy being scattered was that in October 1940, when the German Battle cruiser Admiral Scheer was actually shelling the convoy of 37 ships in the North Atlantic when the decision to scatter was taken by the only Naval ship present, the armed Merchant cruiser The Jervis Bay, who immediately engaged the enemy and sacrificed herself heroically. The decision to scatter the convoy successfully was taken on the spot by the Captain of The Jervis Bay and the convoy had a chance to disperse.

So it was not difficult to imagine the feelings of Commander Jack Broome (Senior Officer), on the bridge of his ancient destroyer H.M.S. Keppel for those indeed were the feelings of all the Escort Commanders and the Commodore of the convoy (Commodore John Dowding, D.S.O., R.N.R.) who so completely disbelieved his eyes that he demanded that the signal should be twice repeated before he would pass the order on to the convoy to scatter. And all this was in spite of the fact that there were the two powerful allied cruiser Squadrons within 10 miles and the capital ships of the Home Fleet were 150 miles off Jan Mayern Island. All this happened when a wave of great confidence had passed through the convoy following the two abortive attacks an hour or so earlier.

The convoy and its escorts were in fine fettle, in close formation, making good speed and ready for anything. I well remember on my own ship the Poppy, the First Lieutenant saying to the captain, "My God - we can't just leave these poor devils to their fate and shove off," but this was exactly what we were being ordered to do. To an escort vessel on convoy duty the very thought of abandoning its charges is utterly unthinkable.

It was now nearly 10 p.m. when Commander Broome signalled his flotilla of destroyers "Join me" and sped off to the westward in the hope of joining the cruisers and hopefully intercepting the enemy in a "death or glory" battle.

As he sailed away he signalled to Commodore Dowding in the River Aft on, "Sorry to leave you like this. Looks like a bloody business." Commodore Dowding signalled back, "Goodbye and good luck." Within one hour the scattered convoy was spread out on a 25 mile front heading in all directions from north to south east, and it would have been virtually impossible to re-form it. The remaining escorts were ordered to proceed independently to Archangel. However...

We in Poppy joined up with the Corvettes Lotus and La Malouine when we were ordered to screen the anti-aircraft ship Pozarica (carrying the late Godfrey Winn as War Correspondent) and together we retired (if that is the correct word) to the eastward at our maximum speed of 15 knots. The brave little corvette Lotus (Lt. H. J. Hall, R.N.R.) however, in spite of the Admiralty's directive, decided to turn back into the presumed path of the enemy and rescued some 85 survivors (including Commodore Dowding) as soon as the harrowing S.O.S. messages started coming in from the Merchant ships under attack. Retiring eastward we overtook M.V. Bellinghani also heading east, who when invited to join up with our group replied "Go to Hell." Our CO. remarked "I don't blame him."

Two days later a mixed bag consisting of all but two of the remaining escorts, plus six Merchant ships, plus the rescue ships Zamelek and Raihlin already loaded down with survivors, crept into Matochkin Straits, a narrow channel in the peninsular of Novaya Zambia, that straight finger of land that sticks up into the Arctic wastes where the main continent of Siberia begins. This bleak area was to become within the next decade the locale of the first Russian nuclear tests.

We found however only a small rather startled settlement of fishermen and meteorologists, who first thought that they were being invaded by the Germans. A Russian naval officer came out in an old fishing boat with an ancient machine gun in its bows. We quickly took stock of the situation (the Corvettes, now very low in fuel, fuelling from one of the Merchant ships) and decided to slip away before we were spotted and mined by the enemy. So we continued southwards in a reformed convoy through fog banks which were to our advantage and throUgh pack ice, which was not.

We were soon spotted by a German "reccy" plane as we cleared the fog. The Fuhrer had already ordered his crack air squadrons from Sicily to Finland in order to destroy PQ17and every available U-Boat was out on patrol in the Barents Sea. We subsequently learned that the German Command had deployed some 240 air sorties against PQ17and that there had been over a dozen U-Boats out looking for us. It was probably just as well that we did not know this at the time.

As we proceeded on our southerly course we were attacked and bombed for nearly seven hours by wave after wave of Junkers 88s, who fortunately failed with their poor aim and we lost only two more Merchant ships which were abandoned after near misses (Hoosier and El Capitain) and after two more days we reached the small port of Lokanka at the entrance to the White Sea, our decks bulging with survivors like a Bateman drawing. But here to our astonishment we were tartly ordered away by a Russian pilot boat as this was a "Secret port" and no foreigners were allowed in. This was the first indication of the Soviet's true attitude to its Allies - total suspicion and total insularity.

So we limped round into the almost enclosed White Sea, where we were once more attacked by a couple of Junkers 88s, and not a Russian fighter in sight, and so on until we reached Archangel. And all this time we had been asking ourselves, "What happened to the Tirpilz?" Why no news of a great naval battle between the capital ships. Had something gone wrong?

As we approached the delta of the Dvina River our exhausted Yeoman of Signals turned to our Commanding Officer, who had never left the bridge for days on end, and said, "If you'll pardon me for saying so, Sir, I think there's been a balls up!" The Captain (Lt. N. K. Boyd, D.S.C, R.N.R.) breathed heavily and replied, "Yeoman, I think you're right."

After landing our survivors, refuelling and taking breath, the Corvettes within a couple of days had proceeded to sea again to continue the search for other survivors and any ships that had not fallen into the hands of the enemy or been sunk. We in Poppy carried on board the convoy's Commodore, iohn Dowding, a man well past middle age who had already become a survivor himself when his Commodore Ship River Aflon had been torpedoed under him. He was determined to search for and bring in the remnants of his convoy. He was subsequently torpedoed again on the homebound convoy later in the year and became a survivor once more.

The Corvettes reached and re-entered our former "funk hole", the Matochkin Straits and 20 miles up this uncharted inlet found five more Merchant ships, Silver Sword, Trouhador and Ironclad, Benjamin Harrison and the Russian Azerbyjam, being guarded by the 500 ton Anti-submarine Trawler Ayrshire commanded by a brave and eccentric barrister yachtsman Lt. "Leo" Gradwell, R.N.V.R. They were tucked up against the ice wall, having earlier in the northern ice fields painted themselves "white" to avoid detection by German reconnaissance planes. This they succeeded in doing before breaking out of the ice field and heading eastward, arriving at Matochkin a few days after we had left. Gtad Well's bravery and Initiative was highly praised by the Commander in Chief (Tovey) and he was awarded with others the D.S.C. Years later Leo Gradwell also achieved fame of a different sort as the presiding London magistrate in the famous Ward - Profumo affair.

In the meantime we formed yet another small convoy of remnants and proceeded south again, Commodore Dowding having transferred to the Russian ice breaker Murnian. We were sooti joined by the British CAM ship Empire Tide which had refloated herself after running ashore in the fog in Moller Bay on our previous flight southward.

Earlier on we had found a U.S. Merchantman Winston Salem stranded in a little bay further down the coast. Her terrified Captain and crew had spiked her guns, thrown overboard the breeches and were camping out ashore under tarpaulins, having washed their hands of the whole affair and declared themselves neutral. They declined our offer to pull their ship off the sandbar on which it had lodged and demanded rescue by air. We could not persuade them to chance their luck with us so were obliged to leave them. I am glad to say that they were later rescued by Catalina and a British volunteer crew put on board who brought their ship in safely. The story of the Winston Salem affair was of course a disgraceful incident, a sorry affair. When the Russians learned what had happened, they demanded that the Winston Salem's captain be shot for cowardice - he wasn't, of course.

Unfortunately, some of the American merchant ships had been on their maiden voyages and were crewed by men who had never been to, or even seen the sea before many of whom were ex-farm hands from the prairies who had been tempted by the enormous bonuses offered.

In a few cases relations between the U.S. survivors and their British rescuers became somewhat strained as the Americans expected a far higher standard of treatment than we could offer. Some declined to help out in the now cramped quarters of the small escorts and generally made themselves unpopular. "We're survivors man - our Union says so -so we don't do nothingl" The U.S. Merchant ships were Union ridden and there was a lack of discipline. Others were both helpful and grateful for being rescued. However we noticed that the white U.S. survivors all refused to sit down to eat at the same mess tables as their black compatriots. This really astonished us as we were simply trying to feed them with our own rations.

Finally some two weeks after the scatter signal the remnants of convoy PQ17 were eventually shepherded into Archangel, making a grand total of 11 Merchant ships and over 1,300 survivors some badly injured, others frost bitten, who subsequently lost their limbs in Russian hospitals, many without anaesthetics.

We had lost 24 Merchant ships, one Rescue ship, 450 tanks, 200 fighter planes, 300 Army vehicles and one hundred thousand tons of war supplies, over 450 million pounds worth (at present day values), all at the bottom of the Barents Sea. Enough to equip a whole army, enough perhaps to have saved Stalingrad which, of course, eventually the Russians did themselves. Added to this there were 156 brave allied seamen killed or drowned, frozen to death, and another 50 taken prisoner. It seemed a heavy toll indeed to pay for a human error. The Russian Tanker Azerbyjarn, which had shown such bravery and determination, berthed at nearby Molotosk. Those who had prematurely left the ship in the lifeboat were marched off under guard - their fate only to be guessed at.

(A RUSSIAN SUMMER)

The Allied Navies had lost neither ships nor men. A furious Marshal Stalin wrote to Churchill, "Has the British Navy no shame?" Churchill disdained to reply. Small wonder that the Russians were bitter - they rightly reminded us that their glorious Red Army were holding the Eastern Front, and were fighting a final battle at Stalingrad; that there was still no sign of a promised Second Front;

that they, the Russians, were carrying the whole brunt of the war (they did not recognise or count the war against Rommel in the Western Desert or Japan) and that we, the Allies, should double the flow of supplies on the Arctic route. Instead the Admiralty postponed all further sailings to Russia during the continuous daylight of the summer months. Stalin was livid of course.

The British escort vessels now marooned at Afchangel were soon moved down river to isolated wooden berths near the wooden village of Ekonomia. As it turned out we were not entirely sorry about this as later that summer there were several intensive fire blitzes on the largely wooden city of Archangel, which blazed away like the 1812 Overture.

Somewhere in the wood piles of Ekonomia was a small NAAFI type shack, misnamed in Russian 'the Welcom In'. Here our sailors could drink "gut rotting raw Vodka" and smile at but not chat to the waitresses there. Our lads rapidly tired of this and rarely went ashore except to play organised games on the wooden jetties under the eyes of the unfriendly Russian sentries. I am afraid that the soldiers of the Red Army were positively hostile towards us. They were completely unaware that we were also fighting in the Far East and in the Western Desert.

The military guards that had been placed upon all ships gangways were a particularly tiresome lot. They prevented all intercourse with the Merchant ships, and the female sentries were particularly zealous in their duties. Our Gunnery Officer (a former music teacher at a public school) who had been able to identify the Merchant ships of the convoy in the fog banks by the notes of their sirens, ("F sharp Captain, that's Empire Tide,") was sent ashore by the Commanding Officer one day to try to telephone the British Naval Base in Archangel from a hut on the jetty and was confronted by a large woman sentry who shouted to him in Russian. Lt. Freddy Waine, R.N.V.R., just smiled, said, "Good afternoon," and walked on. The next thing that he knew was he had a bayonet up his arse and came running back on board covered in blood and a very surprised look on his face.

The civilian population, however, were most friendly towards our sailors, less so towards the officers, who they identified with their own much feared green capped commissars, who strutted about arrogantly and were shown great deference. The workers on the Dvina River banks, however, invariably waved to us as we passed and the Russian ships always dipped their flags in salute.

One day in Archangel I saw a group of women queuing up, not for bread but for the latest war poster to be issued of a Russian mother defending her child from a Nazi bayonet. They were clearly taught to hate the Germans much more than we were.

Although relations with civilians were not encouraged by the Soviets, I did manage to meet a young, rather serious school teacher interpreter named Katrin, who spoke some English and seemed anxious to learn more. After a few meetings she brought along her text book of English literature to show me. It was a potted version of 'Oliver Twist' (Dickens being Russia's most popular English author), but written in the present tense. It was, therefore, evident that the description of Fagin's kitchen, the slums, the poverty and the crime were pictures of mid-twentieth century London. I explained that this, of course, was not so and that anyway Dickens had lived 100 years previously in Victorian London and was writing about an even earlier period. She was incredulous but believed me. 

Unfortunately, she went away and told her friends. Sadly! never saw her again but I learned that for her folly in listening to and repeating "false Western propaganda" she had been sent away - where to I did not discover. 

In order to placate the Russian authorities and to be in a better position to beg food from them, the Corvettes undertook certain sea duties: Reluctantly Lotus, La Malouine and Poppy were sent out to search for a suspected Japanese raider, which had allegedly shelled the lighthouse at Kanin Point in the Kara Sea. Russia was not at war with Japan until just before V.J. Day. Fortunately we did not encounter it but returned with a small supply of cod, upon which we had wasted a depth charge when passing through their fishing grounds.

So the summer wore on, and we were reduced to even shorter rations. The crews of the Naval vessels grew despondent and lost interest in the many sporting events arranged to occupy them during their spare time. They had long since run out of Tombola tickets, the ward room's stock of gin was perilously low and rationed. Our daily diet of rice and a little corned beef grew monotonous and, of course, there were no green vegetables, apart from the odd cabbage and a few potatoes stolen at considerable risk from a guarded farm in the Dvina Delta.

Although some ships still had flour there was no yeast, so they could not bake bread. We continued to scrounge from one another and finally opened up the emergency tins of ships biscuits lashed in our lifeboats we were on 'hard tack'. For the troops however the final blow came when their 'rum' ran out.

The Admiralty eventually sailed two of its fastest destroyers to the White Sea, the Maine and the Martin. They brought us much needed ammunition, medical supplies, mail, and some stores which bolstered up our rations ibr a while.

The British and American survivors ashore fared even worse than we did. After hospitalisation many had been herded into compounds, issued with shabby institutional clothing in lieu of their own clothes, which were taken away from them, and put on Russian rations, Needless to say they (especially the Americans) felt very bitter about their treatment, particularly after all they had endured. We used to visit them and pass on any cigarettes and chocolate that we could spare through the railings.

The Dieppe raid occurred in August and the Russian authorities, thinking that this was the beginning of the long awaited Second Front, showed their delight by delivering to the ships a few bags of cabbages and some scraggy, evil smelling carcasses of yak. The cabbages were welcomed but the men refused to touch the yak, as they were convinced that these were the corpses of German soldiers. When a rumour actually went round the ships that an Iron Cross had been found in one - that clinched it. They burnt the carcasses in the ships' furnaces.

As soon as it was known that the Dieppe raid had been a failure ("Just like P.Q. 17," said the Russians) they demanded their yak back. They said it had all been a mistake!. Too late!

One must remember that this area of the Arctic continent was entirely frozen over for much of the year and conditions of living were like something out of a Mrs. Gaskell novel, or worse. Russian civilian rations were bare subsistence with one foodless day a week to help the Red Army, though I suspect the Commissars and officer classes probably fared much better.

When we first arrived earlier in the Summer we had noticed old women with long fishing nets, who waited for the waste food to be tipped through the chute over the ship's side nearest the jetty. Immediately they fished out the soggy bread remains, dried it in the sun and ate it all up.

We were deeply shocked and afterwards saved our scraps for these wretched people who were civilians who had no rations cards, because they were too old or useless to work and contribute to the war effort and so lived by begging.

There were also dozens of young war orphans, who lived wild on the wooden jetties, having lost their parents in the war or in air raids. These children were as astute as adults and bartered pockets full of Red Star badges for cigarettes and chocolate, until these too became in short supply. Many of the ships adopted these 'water babies'. Our sister corvette Dianella adopted a seven your old orphan called Woofga who they, of course, quickly renamed 'Vodka'. The sailors made him a little Petty Officer's uniform complete with badges, he had his own small hammock and Bosun's pipe and ate with the crew. They grew very fond of him. When finally in September we sailed away we had to leave behind our small adoptees who watched us with tears running down their cheeks, their arms clutching presents and woollies for the oncoming winter. I need hardly add that there were quite a few tears on the weathered cheeks of the Petty Officers who had cared for and loved these lost children, as they watched them growing smaller on the wooden jetty, waving their woollen comforts.

Under pressure from Stalin, Churchill had agreed, entirely against the advice of the Admiralty, to sail yet another large convoy to North Russia, during the prolonged daylight of the late summer and before winter darkness had set it. So on the 2nd September, P. Q.18, consisting of 40 Merchant ships (the largest convoy ever) sailed from Loch Ewe on the west coast of Scotland in foul weather. in addition to a large escort was also included an Escort Carrier, H.M.S. Avenger, carrying 12 operational Hurricanes. Unfortunately the enemy had full details of the router timing and composition of both P.Q. 18 and our home, bound convoy Q.P. 14, from captured documents found in a shot down Hampden bomber (en route to Russia) in northern Norway. 13 Merchant ships were sunk in the convoy and a further five on arrival in the Kola Inlet, nearly half the convoy. Even the enemy's losses were high - four U-Boats sunk, a further five severely damaged, 45 enemy aircraft shot down. A high cost on both sides. However the inclusion of an Escort Carrier had proved its worth and this was to be the pattern of futun convoys to Russia.

On September 7th we sailed with our homebound convoy from Archangel, Q.P. 14, consisting of 15 Merchant ships in ballast. We met bad weather and suffered further heavy losses. Six more ships were torpedoed including Commodore Dowding's ship Ocean Voice; Silver Sword and Bellingham, both survivors of P.Q. 17, plus the R.F.A. Tanker Grey Ranger, the destroyer Somali and the Minesweeper Leda, all with heavy loss of life, and many were drowned in the icy seas, including survivors from P.Q. 17. Of the 36 Merchant ships that had so gloriously set out for Russia in PQ17 only seven got back to the U.K.

Due to the self imposed silence on the subject of PQ17 by both the Admiralty and the Ministry of Information, extravagant accounts had spread like wild fire throughout the United States and in the Press in neutral countries of how the British Navy (the Limeys) had yellowed and ratted on the convoy and left it to its appalling fate. This of course was partly true.

Throughout the War nothing was done to explain these half truths, which continued to spread, fermented by anti-British Americans and isolationists, and later by some few returning embittered survivors who had been taken prisoner by the Germans, who had indoctrinated them.

The Admiralty put out evasive statements without accepting any of the blame itself. P.Q.17 had become 'sub judice' and it was not until 12 years after the War had ended (and long after the death of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound whose mistaken decision had scattered the convoy) when Admiral Tovey, who had been C. in C. Home Fleet at the time of P.Q. 17, was allowed to publish his own despatches in the London Gazette, that the whole truth was finally told.

The Admiralty's admission of error came too late to repair the hurt caused at the time, no was it made sufficiently widely known to absàlve those who took part. The Merchant Navy never really forgave the R.N. for P.Q. 17, which did more to harm Anglo-American relations than anything before or since.

I have always regarded the past 60 years as a 'bonus to living'. The tragedy of PQ17 will go down in history books as a second Balaclava. To us who were there July 4th has become a kind of St. Crispin's Day when "old men will remember the feats they did on that day" - for we took home only our memories. 

© 2002 John Beardmore

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