Arctic Convoys in World War II
—Jason
Listen here: https://historywiththeszilagyis.org/hwts167
The June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union was a turning point of that part of World War II. The Nazis, by that point, occupied Belgium, France, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Greece, and Yugoslavia, locking most of Europe formally under German control. The United States had not yet declared war on any of the Axis Powers, leaving Great Britain as the last major power fighting against Nazism and Fascism.
The sheer scale of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, was staggering, with over three million Axis soldiers attacked along a frontline that stretched from the Arctic to the Black Sea. The proposed area of occupation encompassed the western half of the Soviet Union to the Ural Mountains. This region contained most of the USSR’s heavy industry and would potentially cripple any chance for a Russian counterattack.
The first months of the German invasion took considerable territory away from the Soviets, as well as destroying significant portions of the Red Army and Red Air Force. Leningrad, the second largest city in the USSR, was under threat of encirclement and occupation by October. The fall of the birthplace of the Soviet Union would be both a military and morale crushing loss for Josef Stalin. By November, Leningrad had been cut off from almost all outside aid as German and Finnish forces created a perimeter around the city and Lake Lagoda.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill quickly expressed his support of Stalin and the Soviet people, pledging to send what supplies and war materials were available. Britain itself was engaged in the brutal Battle of the Atlantic against the Germans during this period. This was, in part, to protect and maintain supply lines. Merchant ships sailing from the Americas, Africa, and Asia had to organized into large convoy groups to protect themselves from German surface raiders and U-boats. Most of the supplies coming into Great Britain were being produced across the Atlantic in still-neutral United States.
Despite the peril his own country was facing, Churchill and the War Cabinet decided that supplies must reach the struggling Red Army. A series of arctic convoys would run from north Great Britain and Scotland, around Scandinavia, and unload their cargo at either Arhkangelsk or Murmansk. After being taken off ship, the weapons, vehicles, and supplies would then be taken toward Leningrad by train, truck, or sled. Once on the shores of Lake Lagoda, these would be then loaded for shipment, onto boats in warm weather or on trucks or reindeer-pulled sleds when the lake was frozen.
The physical conditions facing the convoys and their crews were extreme and presented unique challenges. During the summer months, the arctic region has nearly day long sunlight and is in near-constant darkness during the winter months. Ice flows, the frozen Norwegian and Arctic Seas, and ice blocked ports prevented transit of ships during the coldest months. If a ship was sunk, the water was so cold that survivors would most likely freeze to death before rescue could even be attempted. The warships that escorted the merchant ships also faced the possibility of capsizing if ice built up along the weapons and deck. Sailing without lights in heavy seas, fog, and snowstorms also required the most experienced captains to pilot their ships.
On top of the natural dangers facing the Allied crews, the Nazis had built a fearsome set of defenses to intercept any ships attempting to make the Arctic Run. The Germans stationed the battleship Tirpitz, battlecruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, cruisers Admiral Hipper, Admiral Scheer, Lutzow, Prince Eugen, and many destroyers along the Norwegian coast. This powerful surface force was a major threat to Allied convoys: if these warships sortied together, they could potentially overwhelm any escort force. In addition to these warships, several U-boats were also stationed in northern Norway to help intercept Allied ships. The Luftwaffe deployed squadrons of bombers, torpedo bombers, fighters, and reconnaissance aircraft to patrol the region.
The Royal Navy was thus forced to divert heavy surface units, as well as smaller escort ships, to form effective defenses for the Arctic convoys. A British small task force, usually consisting of one or two battleships, a battlecruiser, numerous cruisers, and destroyers, would shadow an arctic convoy. These ships were not part of the convoy, but rather an emergency response force that would only move in the merchant ships’ direction if German surface forces were actively deployed. This meant that the Royal Navy forces guarding the Home Islands and participating in Atlantic convoys were seriously reduced.
Despite the threat of German surface warships, very few of the Arctic convoys were attacked by them. Most of the merchant ships and warships lost by the Allies were the result of aerial or underwater attack. The German High Command felt that the few heavy battleships, battlecruisers, and cruisers they had were too valuable to lose without a chance of victory: so, these ships spent most of the war in the Norwegian fjords without ever actively sailing. However, that did not mean the Arctic convoys escaped unscathed.
The convoy PQ-17 suffered the heaviest losses of any convoy making the run from Great Britain to the Soviet Union: 24 of the 35 merchant ships were sunk. The convoy’s escort and covering force commanders received reports that Tirpitz and her fellow German warships had sailed into the Norwegian Sea to intercept PQ-17. Rather than risk the loss of all the escorting warships, the escort and covering forces turned around and headed back to Great Britain, the merchant ships were ordered to scatter after which they fell victim individually to German attack. The horrific losses forced a suspension of Arctic convoys until more escorts could be effectively organized.
When the Arctic convoys resumed their sailing, the covering and escort forces had been heavily reinforced, and their commanders would not abandon future convoys. The final time the German surface ships left the Norwegian fjords was in December 1943. The battlecruiser Scharnhorst, along with a small group of escorts, attempted to intercept convoy JW-55B. Unknown to the Germans, a powerful British surface force was waiting. The engagement, the Battle of the North Cape, was fought on 26 December 1943 between the British battleship HMS Duke of York and Scharnhorst; latter was sunk with only 36 survivors.
All told, 1400 merchant ships were organized into 78 convoys between August 1941 and May 1945. 85 Allied merchant ships and sixteen warships were lost while the Germans lost four warships and thirty U-boats. The Arctic convoys during World War II essentially kept the people of Leningrad supplied and fighting against the Germans for over 900 days.