Just in

(WW2) Arctic convoys & opening a Second Front.

It did not take Hitler long to repudiate the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact and invade the Soviet Union.

It was also not that long after – with Stalin’s ‘not one step back’ and ‘scorched earth’ strategy – that the Wehrmacht was in trouble.

Stalin implored the Allies to open a second front and the myth has developed that it was the Red Army, by pushing back the Sixth Army of General Paulus, that won the War.

Such a theory ignores the facts that the Luftwaffe was tied up in Germany defending incessant air raids and that the Allied Arctic convoys braved awful elements in order to furnish Russia with much needed ‘materiel’.

Yesterday I watched a Norwegian film called Artic Convoy that brought home the conditions that a poorly-armed freighter in an Arctic convoy bound for Archangel had to endure.

Orders were received to disperse as (incorrect) British intelligence suggested that the German capital ships like the Tirpitz were leaving Norway to attack; the convoy already vulnerable to air attack.

Notwithstanding a mutinous crew and a milky first mate, the captain continued to Murmansk to deliver the much-needed cargo. One member of the crew fell into the water and died of hypothermia. Often these brave merchantmen received little acknowledgment – and less compensation – but convoys made it through the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Arctic in what proved invaluable feats.

It’s been left to films like The Malta Story and The Cruel Sea to record the incredible bravery, dreadful conditions and the threat of U-boats but they delivered their cargo.

The Red Army, of course, played a ’key rôle’ but let us not forget the convoys either.

Avatar photo
About Henry Elkins

A keen researcher of family ancestors, Henry will be reporting on the centenary of World War One. More Posts