Sacrifice for Stalin: The Cost and Value of the Arctic Convoys Re-assessed

230 Pages·2006·2.16 MB·English

by  Wragg

First published in Great Britain in 2005
by Pen & Sword Maritime
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © David Wragg, 2005
ISBN 1 84415 357 6
ISBN (ebook)
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Map: Locations along the Arctic Convoy Route
Introduction
Chapter 1: Norway and Iceland – the Keys to the Arctic
Chapter 2: Russia Shows its True Colours
Chapter 3: Burying His Head in the Sand
Chapter 4: Convoys
Chapter 5: The Protagonists
Chapter 6: Stalin Becomes an Ally
Chapter 7: The Convoys Begin
Chapter 8: Encouraging our Allies
Chapter 9: The Tirpitz Ventures Out
Chapter 10: The Threat of the Tirpitz
Chapter 11: Hard Pounding
Chapter 12: Changing Tactics
Chapter 13: Convoy is to Scatter
Chapter 14: The Escort Carrier Arrives
Chapter 15: Hiatus
Chapter 16: The Arctic Sea Battles
Chapter 17: Stalin Prepares to Dominate Europe
Appendix I: The Convoys
Appendix II: The Merchant Navy and Shipping
Sources and Bibliography
Acknowledgements
In researching and compiling any such book as this, an author is heavily
dependent on the help and assistance of many others. In particular, I am indebted
for the provision of photographs to the Photographic Archive team at the
Imperial War Museum and to the Sound Archive for promptly unearthing first
hand accounts by those who sailed with the convoys.
No work on something as vast as our wartime history can cover every inch
of ground, and for those whose appetite is whetted by this book, I would draw
their attention to the bibliography at the back. There are accounts of the war at
sea from every perspective, including the all-important personal accounts, as
well as volumes of sheer factual matter.
David Wragg
Edinburgh
27 April 2005
Glossary
AA anti-aircraft
CAM-ship catapult-armed merchant vessel
CAP combat air patrol
DEMS defensively equipped merchant ship
E-boat German motor torpedo-boat or motor gunboat
HMS His Majesty’s Ship
HMCS His Majesty’s Canadian Ship
KG Kampfgeschwader, Luftwaffe equivalent to an RAF Group
KriegsmarineGerman Navy
Luftwaffe German Air Force
MAC-ship merchant aircraft carrier (a merchant vessel with a flight deck)
MOWT Ministry of War Transport
MRA Maritime Regiment of Artillery
panzerschiff armoured ship known to the British press as a ‘pocket battleship’
RAF Royal Air Force
RCAN Royal Canadian Navy
RN Royal Navy
RNR Royal Naval Reserve
RNVR Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
SBNONR Senior British Naval Officer North Russia
SO(E) senior officer, escort
U-boat German submarine
USAAF United States Army Air Force
USN United States Navy
USS United States Ship
Locations along the Arctic Convoy Route
Introduction
Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, marked
a turning point in the Second World War that was second only to the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor. Although Stalin had been warned, he had chosen to
ignore the warnings, and overnight the Soviet Union was transformed from a
country that might not have been an ally of Nazi Germany, but was at the very
least a co-conspirator in the occupation of Poland, into an ally of the United
Kingdom; but what an ally! This was a country that had already occupied the
Baltic States and incorporated them into its own territory, and had been to war
with Finland. Comparisons with the Third Reich were not hard to find.
Enemy action apart, the convoys to northern Russia were undoubtedly the
grimmest of the convoy routes maintained during the Second World War. On
these, sailing past occupied Norway and north of the Arctic Circle, the weather
was as much an enemy as the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe. A total of 811
ships sailed in the Arctic convoys to Russia, of which 720 completed their
voyages, another 33 turned back for one reason or another, and 58 were sunk,
giving a loss rate of 7.2 per cent. Of the ships that reached Russia, 717 sailed
back (some were being delivered to the Soviet Union), and of these, 29 were
sunk, a loss rate of 4 per cent. This was the price of delivering to Russia some 4
million tons of war stores, including some 5,000 tanks and more than 8,000
aircraft through the Arctic convoys.
The truth was that the Soviet Union was a demanding ally incapable of
seeing the broader picture or of seeing the sacrifices being made by others. Much
of the blame for the initial successes of the German thrust eastwards must lie
with Stalin, who, pre-war, had purged the Soviet armed forces of many of their
best and most experienced senior officers. Although Russian forces had invaded
eastern Poland to provide a ‘buffer zone’ between the Soviet Union and German-
occupied territory, Stalin had steadfastly ignored warnings of German intentions
and failed to order the appropriate dispositions of his forces.
Soviet demands for help came while the UK was struggling to cope with
the demands of war and had seen defeat in Norway and France, Greece and
North Africa. The only bright spot was that now Germany was fighting on a new
and demanding front, and the first benefit to the British was the ending of the
blitz as the Luftwaffe’s efforts were redirected to the east.
In London and Washington, the fear was that Stalin might surrender at least
part of Soviet territory, allowing the Germans access to much-needed fuel and
agricultural produce, and giving them the means of continuing total war against
the UK. Stalin desperately needed equipment, and the main route for equipment
originating in the UK and the eastern United States was via the treacherous seas
around the North Cape to the ports of Archangel and Murmansk.
Here, not only is the operation of the convoys considered, augmented by
eye-witness accounts, but for the first time, the whole question of whether or not
the sacrifice was worthwhile is examined.
Soviet naval and air force units played little part in the protection of the
convoys, leaving this to the Royal Navy and, to a lesser extent, the United States
Navy, while the Royal Air Force had to base maritime reconnaissance aircraft in
the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force had to defend Malaya against
Japanese attack using obsolete and at best obsolescent aircraft, including such
failures as the American-built Brewster Buffalo, as it was denied the better
equipment sent to the Soviet Union.
It was the poor preparation of the German armed forces for the vast
distances of the Soviet Union and the harshness of the Russian winter that undid
Hitler’s plans for conquest. These factors were compounded by the late start due
to Hitler having to rescue his Italian ally from the misadventures in the Balkans
and by the decision to divide the German advances.
Was British and American equipment really necessary? Few Soviet
accounts mention its use, still less its value. In fact, most of the equipment used
by the Soviet armed forces was produced in their own factories, although in
some areas, such as aircraft, the technology was not state of the art. Could Allied
aid have been put to better use elsewhere? Was the sacrifice of so many lives
and so many scarce ships on the Arctic convoys worthwhile or a terrible waste at
a time when the effective closure of the Mediterranean meant that supplies for
the British Eighth Army in North Africa had to be sent via the Cape and the Suez
Canal? Would Stalin have surrendered part of his realm?
Here the evidence is examined and argues that without Western help, the
Soviet Union could not have moved so quickly in overcoming the German
armies, with the result that Soviet occupation of central and Eastern Europe
could have been prevented. By helping the Soviet Union, the British and French
decision to issue an ultimatum to Germany over the occupation of Poland was a
nonsense, because it simply left Poland to exchange one style of jackboot for
another.