Forgotten Sacrifice: The Arctic Convoys of World War II

CHAPTER 1

BRIEFING

The words Murmansk Run conjure visions of ice-laden ships and thoughts of freezing to death in minutes. Formally this was the Arctic Convoy run, fought primarily between three countries: Britain, the Soviet Union, and Germany. Numerous other forces also joined the convoys, including those from the United States, Canada, France, Holland, and Norway, and even as far away as Panama and India.

For five years, thousands of men and women from these countries and their allies battled ferociously in the coldest corner of hell on earth. Some fought for survival and some to help others survive, while many fought to crush their enemies. It was war without mercy. If manmade death didn’t get you, the Arctic’s weapons of ice and cold would. These natural weapons killed regardless of whose side you were on or how just was your cause. No one escaped unscathed the conflict’s bitter essence—an essence distilled from fear, anger, killing lust, courage, self-sacrifice, and agonizing death, mixed with blood-stained, oil-tainted water.

Before we start this voyage into the heart of terror, death, and heroism, we’ll first take a look at convoys, convoy escorts, the threats to the convoys, intelligence, the geopolitical landscape, and other related information.

CONVOYS

A convoy is two or more naval auxiliary vessels, merchant vessels, or both, assembled and organized for an operation or passage together; or a single naval auxiliary vessel or merchant vessel under escort of one or more warships.

Ships are the only way to move large amounts of material across an ocean. In peacetime, they sail alone and follow well-established routes between ports. The best way to protect merchant ships during war is to travel in a convoy with a screen of escorting warships for protection.

Going to sea any time is dangerous. Storms, ice, and fog, along with the risks of fire, mechanical breakdown, or collision await a ship. Crippling or fatal injuries are the penalties for a moment’s inattention. War brings the added dangers of being torpedoed, bombed, or attacked by gunfire, or destroyed by a mine.

The best way to protect merchant ships is to gather them into a convoy. This way, fewer escorts can protect more ships at one time. However, convoys draw submarines, predatory aircraft, and enemy warships, increasing the danger. An analogy is a herd of sheep protected by sheep dogs. Trouble comes when there are too many predators and not enough sheep dogs—unless you’re one of the predators.

History

The concept of convoying merchant ships in wartime dates back to the First Punic War between Carthage and Rome during the third century B.C. In England, convoys under the command of a naval officer were first employed by Edward III in the mid-1340s. During the following centuries, merchant convoys were employed during war or to protect against attacks by pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. When the threat was gone, the convoy system was abandoned. This was the case for England from the end of the Napoleonic Wars until well into World War I.

From August 1914 to November 1918, the first generation of German U-boats (Unterseebooten) sank 5,798 merchant ships. The losses threatened to starve Britain into submission. It wasn’t until 1918, almost at the war’s end, that the British Admiralty established convoys. That bitter lesson wasn’t forgotten when World War II began in September 1939 and the Royal Navy immediately instituted a wide-ranging system of convoys.

Each convoy route was designated by a two- or three-letter code followed by the sequential convoy number. Initially, the Arctic convoys were assigned the letters PQ for the eastward voyage and QP for the return voyage to the west. The code PQ was chosen from the initials of Commander Phillip Quellyn Roberts, an operations officer in the British Admiralty. Later, the designations were randomly changed to JW for the eastbound and RA for the westbound convoys.

Convoy speed was governed by the slowest ship. In general, the Arctic convoys traveled at 8 knots. The distance from Reykjavik, Iceland, to Murmansk, Russia, is approximately 1,500 nautical miles (nm) and an additional 374 nm to Arkhangelsk. Thus, under ideal conditions, the voyage took roughly eight days to Murmansk and ten days to Arkhangelsk. Conditions were never ideal, however. Ice, storms, and German attacks forced diversions that often added days to each trip.

Organization

Convoys varied in size from as few as three to more than a hundred ships. The ships were positioned in columns 1,000 yards apart (one half of a nautical mile), and each ship in the column was positioned 500 yards astern of the ship in front of it. Each ship was identified not by name, but by a pennant flag number. The first was the column it was in, followed by the position in that column. For example, pennant number 64 was the fourth ship in the sixth column.

A medium-sized, 48-ship convoy arranged in 8 columns of 6 ships each covered an area almost 4 miles wide and 3.5 miles deep. Add the escort screen, and the convoy encompassed nearly 36 square miles of ocean.

Convoys were organized into two groups: the merchant ships under the direction of a civilian convoy commodore, in charge of the civilian ships when at sea, and the military escort commander, in charge of the accompanying warships.

The convoy commodore and a small staff of assistants rode on one of the merchant ships designated as the convoy’s flagship. The military escort commander did not have authority over the commodore. He could ask for, but not order, changes in the convoy operations or arrangement. The escort commander had the final say if there were any disagreements, however, and this command structure worked very well throughout World War II.

A major part of the commodore’s responsibility was to retransmit any messages from the escort commander to the convoy at large directing evasive maneuvers. Because radio signals were easily picked up by the enemy, all messages were transmitted either by signal flags during clear weather or in Morse code by signal light when visibility was poor or at night. Traditionally, the only time a ship’s captain was permitted to use his radio was to send a distress call if his ship had been torpedoed, attacked by a surface ship or aircraft, or if severely damaged by storms and in danger of sinking.

Before a convoy left port, a Navy officer held a briefing for all merchant ship captains. During the meeting, each master, as most merchant ship captains are called, was given copies of the convoy organization, the defensive zigzag patterns to be used, emergency communication instructions, and myriad other details needed to operate successfully in company with a city-sized flotilla of ships.

Rescue Ships

Before the addition of one or more rescue ships to a convoy in October 1941, the rear ship of each column was to serve as a rescue ship in the event of the sinking of one of the ships ahead of her. Although the rescue of survivors is an automatic reaction of any seaman, the task imposed considerable danger to the rescuer. In addition, the freeboard of a freighter or tanker in ballast and the unwieldy nature of merchant ships’ boats made recovery of men in the water difficult.

With the increased sinkings of ships after mid-1940, the Admiralty sought to requisition certain small vessels for the specific duty of rescue ships. Principally small freighters with passenger accommodation, a good deal of work was required to fit them for their new role. To this end, they were equipped with special rescue boats (eventually one on either beam to guarantee a lee away from the wind), recovery equipment, cargo nets, and a properly equipped sickbay and operating theater staffed by a registered nurse surgeon officer and a sick berth attendant.

Within the ship, small, two-berth cabin accommodations were provided for officer survivors, while bunk-fitted messdecks were created in the tween decks for ratings. Additional, properly fitted washing and toilet facilities were provided for both sets of accommodations, and the original catering facilities of the ships were expanded. Staffing was increased to cope with the added numbers. Eventually, most rescue ships could accommodate some thirty officer survivors in cabins and in excess of 150 ratings in individual bunks.

Given that all survivors had only what they wore when rescued and all clothing was frequently fouled by oil fuel, replacement kits in rescue ships were essential. Every survivor received a set of underwear, socks, shoes, trousers, a jersey or cardigan, a raincoat or oilskin, a cap, and gloves. A toilet kit included razor, blades, soap, and toothpaste.

The completed vessels were allocated to convoys as specific rescue ships and usually were stationed at the rear of the center column of the convoy.

Unlike hospital ships, rescue ships were neither painted white nor identified with a Red Cross emblem on their sides or decks. Instead, painted gray and featuring the blue ensign of naval auxiliaries, they were targets like any other Allied ship. Another significant difference was that the rescue ships were heavily armed, including a 12-pounder, 40-mm Bofors, and 20-mm Oerlikons.

An additional benefit of the rescue ships was that almost all were eventually fitted with High Frequency Direction Finding equipment (see below), and three radio officers specially trained in its use were embarked in addition to the normal complement. These officers were able to take bearings on enemy radio transmissions and pass them to the senior officer escort (SOE) in order to provide a cross bearing in conjunction with his set. This facility added materially to the defense of the convoy and was of great value to the escort.

Arctic Convoy Bases

The primary Allied bases for the Arctic convoys were in Iceland at Faxaflói (Faxa Bay) off Reykjavik and at Hvalfjödur (Whale Bay) just north of Reykjavik, as well as secondary assembly and refueling bases at Seydhisfjordhurd on the east coast and Akureyri on the north coast; Loch Ewe and the River Clyde in Scotland; Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands; and Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union.

In the west, Reykjavik and Hvalfjödur were the primary assembly and destination bases from August 1941 through June 1942. After June 1942, operations were initially shifted to Loch Ewe and, later, south to the River Clyde.

At the eastern end of the route, convoys sailed to and from Arkhangelsk only in the short summer months since the Dvina River and the White Sea freeze during the winter. The Soviets strove to keep both Arkhangelsk and the neighboring unloading berths at Molotovsk, Ekonomiya, and Bakaritza open during the winter by the use of icebreakers, but during the first winters of the convoys, they couldn’t accomplish the mission. Also, Arkhangelsk lies almost 400 miles further east from Reykjavik than Murmansk, which added several days to each voyage.

Murmansk is the only western Russian port to remain free of ice all year. The city is situated on the eastern side at the head of the Kola Inlet, 200 miles southeast of the North Cape of Norway. The facilities there were primitive. For example, there was no crane with a lift of more than 11 tons, which was needed for unloading tanks, so a crane ship had to be sent from Britain to do the job. The city itself was built largely of wood and, in consequence, suffered severely from the incendiary bombing raids by the Luftwaffe; only a few concrete buildings survived the bombing.

A few miles below Murmansk on the eastern shore of the inlet lies Vaenga Bay, where the oiler from which the British ships refueled was moored. It afforded a poor anchorage, the water being deep and the holding ground bad. At the time, the Soviets were unwilling to allow Allied warships other than submarines the use of their naval base at Polyarnoe, so the convoy escorts were obliged to anchor there. At the head of the bay was a pier, alongside which two destroyers could berth. Survivors from torpedoed ships were accommodated inside a hutted camp that had been constructed on shore.

The Soviet Northern Fleet naval base at Polyarnoe was a narrow, deep inlet off the Kola Inlet north of Murmansk. It afforded excellent shelter to the ships berthed at its wooden jetties. However, its facilities were not offered to the Allies for two years.

Convoy Routes

Three routes were available for getting supplies to the Soviet Union. The shortest but most dangerous was north around German-held Norway to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The second went south around Africa to the Persian Gulf, which seemed preferable, but there weren’t the necessary rail lines or roads to move material quickly into Russia from the Persian ports. The third was into Vladivostok in Siberia. This was the longest and involved transiting Japanese-controlled waters. Also, from Vladivostok material had to be moved across thousands of miles by means of the Siberian Railway.

Almost all military deliveries went to the Soviet Union exclusively through Great Britain through the Barents Sea to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. It took between ten and twelve days for each voyage.

The Arctic Convoy Route

Between the coasts of Greenland and Norway lies one of the most turbulent stretches of water in the world. Across it a never-ending succession of gales sweep northeastward, lashing the sea with their fury and pushing up waves to a tremendous height, which hurl themselves against the gnarled and rocky coast of Norway. Speeding round the North Cape, these storms enter the Barents Sea where, their destructive mission accomplished, the high barometric pressure over the polar icecap forces them into the upper atmosphere.

The warm waters of the Gulf Stream flow past the east coast of Iceland and on up the coast of Norway, where they divide: one stream turning north past Bear Island and along the west coast of Spitzbergen, the other flowing along the Murman coast and into the Barents Sea. The mingling of these comparatively warm waters with the colder and less saline waters of the polar region not only covers the region in frequent fog, but also provokes unusual variations in the thermal layers and the density of the sea, both of which are a great handicap to the operators of underwater sound detection apparatus searching for submarines that lie hidden in the depths. Furthermore, the temperature of the sea in these latitudes rarely exceeds 40 degrees Fahrenheit: A man unfortunate enough to find himself immersed in these icy waters has little chance of survival unless rescued within minutes.

The drift ice that forms the northern boundary of this tempestuous area advances and recedes with the seasons. During winter, the southern edge sometimes approaches to within 80 miles of Norway’s North Cape, whereas in summer, clear water may be found around the shores of Spitzbergen, especially on the west coast, which, as already mentioned, is washed by an offshoot of the Gulf Stream.

An additional hazard of navigation in these latitudes arises from the freezing of the spray as it falls on a ship buffeting her way through the angry sea. If allowed to accumulate unchecked, the weight of ice thus formed can add so much weight to the superstructure and masts that a small ship becomes unstable and capsizes.

Finally, in time of war, when ships navigate without lights, the almost perpetual darkness which persists in latitude 77 degrees North, for instance, for 115 days in each year makes station-keeping in convoy or formation at these times one long nightmare throughout the voyage. And although concealing darkness for all its difficulties makes it harder for enemy aircraft to locate the ships which they are searching to destroy, the long summer days when the sun never sinks out of sight for the whole twenty-four hours enables them to attack all round the clock until defenders are worn out and ammunition runs low.

ESCORT OF CONVOY

The number and types of warships comprising the Escort of Convoy varied with the availability of warships as well as the convoy’s destination. Arctic convoys were more heavily escorted compared to those sailing the North Atlantic routes or to those from England to the Mediterranean.

By February 1942, organization of the ocean escorts had been formalized into American, British, and Canadian groups, with each national group designated alpha-numerically The British Royal Navy primarily covered the western approaches to England; the U.S. Navy protected the mid-Atlantic from its bases in Newfoundland and Iceland; and the Royal Canadian Navy protected the convoys as they departed or arrived off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Thus, the British Royal Navy was tasked to continue its role as the primary Arctic Convoy protector.

The Arctic convoy escort typically was divided into two forces. One was the close escort, initially composed of a cruiser accompanied by destroyers, corvettes, armed trawlers, and minesweepers. Later an escort carrier (see below for more information) was added to provide air support and extended antisubmarine warfare (ASW) coverage. The second was the covering force, positioned away from the convoy to counter attacks by German battleships, cruisers, and their accompanying destroyers. This second force was made up of battleships, heavy cruisers, and an accompanying screen of destroyers.

Providing ocean escort for the convoys fell to the Royal Navy. The Soviet Northern Fleet and Air Force were to provide local escort through the White Sea, and later when operations shifted to Murmansk, also along the Murman coast. The reason for this seemingly uneven distribution of responsibility was simple: the Soviet Northern Fleet did not have the resources or experience for long-range escort work.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on June 22, 1941, the Northern Fleet, commanded by Rear Admiral Arseni G. Golovko, was a relatively small force. It consisted of eight destroyers, seven frigates, fifteen submarines, fifteen patrol boats, and several torpedo boats and minesweepers. There were 116 Northern Fleet Air Force aircraft, mostly older types.

The Northern Fleet’s primary missions were to protect local Soviet convoys, interdict German convoys along the northern Norwegian and Finnish coasts, and provide support for the Soviet Army fighting on the Kola Peninsula. These missions were accomplished with great valor and sacrifice. As the war progressed, the fleet grew with the addition of aircraft, patrol boats, minesweepers, submarines, destroyers, a cruiser, and a battleship. Some of these were provided by the Allies or produced by the Soviets themselves.

CONVOY THREATS

U-boats

U-boats were the primary threat to convoys during World War II. A U-boat on the surface at night was virtually invisible. By keeping only its conning tower above water, it could get close to the flanks of a convoy or slip in between the columns without being detected. Because sonar and ASDIC (the British sound-detection system) only worked if a U-boat was submerged and until the escorts had radar, the night surface torpedo attack was perfect. To make the attacks more deadly, several U-boats would hit the convoy from different points in a coordinated action. This was the wolf pack.

The wolf pack concept (die Rudeltakic) was developed by Kapitän zur See (later Grossadmiral) Karl Donitz in the late 1930s. Through radio communications, operations officers coordinated the attacks of multiple U-boats against a convoy. When information about a convoy’s location, course, and speed was received from reconnaissance aircraft or by decoding radio signals at the shore-based operations center, messages were sent to selected boats directing them to locate the convoy precisely. The first U-boat to locate the convoy would transmit a homing signal for the others and then continue to shadow the convoy until the pack gathered. When the pack was gathered, the attack began.

The wolf pack’s favored position was on the dark side of the convoy with a moon illuminating the ships, leaving the U-boat in the shadows. After attacking, the boats would pull away to regroup, rest, and report to headquarters. If contact with the convoy were maintained, they would surface out of visual range and trail behind or attempt to get ahead of the lumbering ships in order to gain a favorable position for the next night’s work.

Aircraft

Arctic convoys faced the threat of two types of attacks not often encountered by their brethren in the Atlantic. The first was bomb-and torpedo-carrying aircraft. Luftwaffe bases in Norway enabled twin-engine Junkers Ju-88, Heinkel He-111, and Heinkel He-115 aircraft to reach the convoys throughout most of the voyage. In addition, Blohm & Voss BV-138 flying boats and four-engine Focke-Wulf FW-200 Condor long-range reconnaissance aircraft shadowed the convoys, providing the attackers with accurate location information. Both BV-138s and Condors often carried bombs and were direct threats to ships. These aircraft would be joined by single-engine Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers when the convoys approached land.

He-111, He-115, and Ju-88 aircraft often teamed up for simultaneous high-altitude bombing and low-level torpedo attacks. While the bombers made their runs, the torpedo planes attacked from several different directions. This forced the convoy to split its anti-aircraft defensive fire power, which increased the chances of one or more ships being damaged or sunk.

Surface Ships

German Kriegsmarine (war navy) surface ships, including the battleship Tirpitz and battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Lützow, and Admiral Scheer also operating from Norwegian bases, posed a significant threat to the convoys. German destroyers were more heavily armed than British destroyers, which gave them a significant advantage in ship-to-ship engagements. Although attacks by surface ships were rare, the threat was real for almost every convoy that sailed.

Surface ship tactics were fairly simple: Get past the escorting warships and destroy merchant ships with gunfire and torpedoes. Executing these tactics was more complex, however. First, the ships had to sortie from their Norwegian bases without being spotted either by reconnaissance aircraft or submarines. Often, word of these sorties was obtained by radio interception of coded signals (see "Intelligence" below).

After getting to open water, the ships needed accurate information as to the convoy’s course and speed. This information had to be updated regularly in case of any significant change in the convoy’s course or speed. Even then, though, interception wasn’t guaranteed.

CONVOY DEFENSE

In addition to the escorting force of warships, merchant ships were fitted with guns of various quantities and sizes. When war broke out, the British Admiralty began arming merchantmen (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships [DEMS]).

The Admiralty had laid aside surplus weapons and equipment that had survived the disarmament process at the end of World War I. The initial supply of weapons being very limited, many small ships in coastal waters received only machine guns, even then frequently on a loan basis, the guns withdrawn when the ships moved to less dangerous areas.

On British and Allied ships, these guns were manned either by merchant seamen or by crews from the Royal Navy or Regiment of Royal Artillery.

At first Soviet ships’ gunnery crews were made up of soldiers from elite Red Army Guards units because they were the most reliable in the political sense and because Soviet authorities feared that ordinary seamen would desert as soon as they got to England. However, the Guards’ lack of preparedness for sea service was quickly revealed, and they had to be replaced by ordinary sailors. Gun crew training was conducted by the Commissariat of the Navy.

When the United States entered the war in December 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor, her merchant ships were armed with a variety of weapons manned by teams of U.S. Navy Armed Guard. The teams, comprised of gunners, signalmen, and radiomen, served on both U.S. and Allied merchant ships.

No matter if they were British, American, or Soviet, the gunnery teams suffered higher percentages of casualties than their comrades assigned to warships since they were in combat situations during convoys more frequently.

Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW)

Depending on the size of the escort force and the convoy, two or more escorts typically swept across the front of the convoy, one or more on each side and at least one astern. If weather permitted, one or more escorts would be detached from the screen to range far ahead or to the sides during the day as much as 20 miles from the convoy, looking for ships that had either pulled ahead of the convoy (rompers) or lagged behind (stragglers). Additional sweeps would be made in hopes of surprising a surfaced U-boat. The key was to find the U-boat and at least prevent it from attacking the convoy, and the tactics to accomplish this varied with the number and experience of the escorts assigned to the convoy.

If the U-boat was on the surface, gunfire and ramming were used to destroy her. Ramming almost always disabled the escort, but the trade-off was deemed worth it. It was a different story, however, if a submarine was submerged.

ASDIC and sonar were the only means of detecting a submerged U-boat. Once contact was made, the escort went to full speed for the attack. Sonar could determine the range but not the depth, and, as the escort approached, contact would be lost as the vessel passed over the object. To counter the lack of depth information, a pattern of depth charges would be dropped, set to explode at different depths. Until the introduction of the forward-firing mouse-trap and, later, the Hedge-hog, whose charges only exploded if they hit a submarine, nothing could be done by a single escort to avoid losing the contact as it passed over the target. If there was the luxury of two escorts working a contact, one could feed range and bearing information to the second as the other swept in for the attack. No matter which approach was used, the exploding charges created a wall of bubbles that was impenetrable by sonar. This complicated follow-up attacks.

Sometimes when an escort got a doubtful contact, she would drop what were called embarrassing charges on the chance it was a U-boat and that the charges would either cause damage or at least keep it away from the convoy. A depth charge was lethal for a radius of less than 100 feet. Usually it was the accumulated pressure of several charges that cracked the U-boat’s pressure hull.

The British began equipping their escorts with radar in 1941, but the sets weren’t reliable and had a limited range. Even in moderate seas, a U-boat’s conning tower was too small a target to be detected. Until a reliable surface search radar set was developed, there was no way to detect a surfaced U-boat at night except by eye. The best hope was to keep them far enough away during daylight so an attack could not be mounted at night.

During night attacks, specially designed ammunition-carrying magnesium flares attached to parachutes, known as Star Shells or Snowflakes, were fired to illuminate the area and, with luck, a surfaced U-boat. Often, however, the only result was to give the U-boat better visibility for its attack.

Anti-aircraft, Antiship, and Countermine Measures

Massive firepower is the only effective means of defeating an air attack. As the threat from aircraft escalated, so did the number of anti-aircraft guns mounted on both navy and merchant ships.

Also, as air attacks increased, the British outfitted anti-aircraft ships equipped with the latest air search radars and guns designed to fire at high angles. In addition, these ships had more than the normal number of 20-mm Oerlikon and 40-mm Bofors anti-aircraft weapons. Two anti-aircraft cruisers, the HMS Scylla and HMS Charybdis, were outfitted in 1942 to counter the increasing number of air attacks on the convoys.

Early in the war, strictly defensive items supplied were kite balloons and kites, designed to be flown as a barrage to deter low-flying aircraft; wiping and degaussing, the former a temporary and the latter a permanent defense against magnetic mines; and the Admiralty Net Defence fitted to certain vessels as a partial protection against torpedoes. Paravane gear, which streamed out on both sides of a ship, was fitted to many merchant ships as a defense against moored contact mines also.

In the early days of the convoys, several devices were provided, whose principal purpose was the maintenance of morale; however, danger from the devices was more likely to strike the user than the intended recipient. These included the Holman Projector, with which a primed hand grenade would be ejected by steam pressure from a metal tube aimed at an aircraft; PAC (parachute and cable), a rocket-propelled device that ejected a small parachute with a dependent wire into the track of an approaching aircraft; and Pigtrough, which, both trainable and with variable elevation, launched a series of small rockets at a target.

Ship-borne fighter aircraft also were used. Initially these were carried on modified merchant ships known as Catapult Aircraft Merchant (CAM) ships. CAM ships were equipped with a rocket-propelled catapult launching a single Hawker Mark 1 Hurricane mounted on the forecastle (fo’c’sle) and carried their normal cargoes after conversion. The catapult could be moved from ship to ship as needed. The Royal Air Force pilot who flew the Hurricane could not land back on board, so he had to either bail out or ditch his plane when his mission was accomplished. In both cases he had to survive in the Arctic water, buoyed by his parachute and lifejacket, until rescued by the nearest escort vessel. CAM ships carried one Hurricane mounted and ready to launch as well as a second crated one stowed in the hold to be mounted when the ship reached its destination. As escort carriers became available, CAM ships were phased out.

In mid-1943, an escort carrier was usually assigned to each Arctic convoy. The escort aircraft carrier or escort carrier, also called a jeep carrier or baby flattop in the U.S. Navy or Woolworth Carrier (referring to the then-famous five-and-dime stores) by the Royal Navy, was a small and slow type of aircraft carrier built using merchant ship hulls and typically half the length and one third the displacement of the larger fleet carriers. Although they were slower, less armed and armored, and carried fewer planes, they were less expensive and could be built in less time. This was their principal advantage, as escort carriers could be completed in greater numbers as a stop-gap when fleet carriers were scarce. However, the lack of protection made escort carriers particularly vulnerable and several were sunk with great loss of life.

For Arctic convoy escort duty, the escort carriers usually carried between fifteen and twenty aircraft, typically a mixture of Hawker Sea Hurricanes, Grumman F4F Wildcats (referred to as Martlets by the British), or biwing Fairey Swordfish, or Albacore torpedo/ reconnaissance/dive bombers. The escort carriers were used for close support of the convoy while larger fleet carriers accompanied the covering force.

Attacks by surface warships needed to be countered by opposing warships with their greater firepower. Although this is another ideal situation, on several occasions, merchant ships fought gun duels with enemy warships. Rarely did the merchant ship survive these encounters.

Impact of Convoy Loses

The following summary from a 1943 U.S. Naval Air Training Manual sheds some light on the significance of the loss of just three ships. Although it mentions U-boats, the impact also applies to losses caused by aircraft and surface ships:

If a submarine sinks two 6000-ton ships and one 3000-ton tanker here is a typical account of what we have totally lost: 42 tanks, 8 six-inch howitzers, 88 twenty-five-pound guns, 40 two-pound guns, 24 armored cars, 50 Bren [weapons] carriers, 5210 tons of ammunition, 600 rifles, 428 tons of tank supplies, 2000 tons of stores, and 1000 tanks of gasoline. In order to knock out the same amount of equipment by air bombing, the enemy would have to make three thousand successful bombing sorties.

INTELLIGENCE

Knowing what your enemy plans to do and where his forces are is a crucial part of warfare. There are many ways of gathering this information, but four types formed the intelligence backbone for the Arctic convoys: spies, radio direction finding, crypto analysis, and visual observation.

Probably the oldest way to get information is by using spies. During World War II, both the Allies and the Axis powers had agents who either passed along information when convoys were leaving port or when a U-boat was about to go out on patrol. Once ships began carrying radios, it became possible to locate them through