The Road to Russia

The Road to Russia PDF Author: Bernard Edwards
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 0850528984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Bernard Edwards, the formidable naval historian, has researched the fate of Convoys PQ13 and PQ17 bound from Iceland to Northern Russia as well as the westbound Convoy QP13. Attacked relentlessly by aircraft and U-boats, the former lost a total of thirty ships while QP13 ran into a British minefield off Iceland, losing seven vessels. The Road to Russia is an important addition to the bibliography of this bitterly fought campaign.

The Road to Russia

The Road to Russia PDF Author: Bernard Edwards
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 0850528984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Bernard Edwards, the formidable naval historian, has researched the fate of Convoys PQ13 and PQ17 bound from Iceland to Northern Russia as well as the westbound Convoy QP13. Attacked relentlessly by aircraft and U-boats, the former lost a total of thirty ships while QP13 ran into a British minefield off Iceland, losing seven vessels. The Road to Russia is an important addition to the bibliography of this bitterly fought campaign.

Arctic Convoys 1942

Arctic Convoys 1942 PDF Author: Mark Lardas
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472852419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
A new history of the most crucial few months of the Arctic Convoys, when Germany's air power forced the Allies to retreat to the cover of winter. Between spring and autumn 1942, Germany was winning the battle of the Arctic Convoys. Half of PQ-15 was sunk in May, PQ-17 was virtually obliterated in July, and in September 30 percent of PQ-18 was sunk. The Allies were forced to suspend the convoys until December, when the long Arctic nights would shield them. Mark Lardas argues that in 1942, it was Luftwaffe air power that made the difference. With convoys sailing in endless daylight, German strike aircraft now equipped and trained for torpedo attacks, and bases in northern Norway available, the Luftwaffe could wreak havoc. Three-quarters of the losses of PQ-18 were due to air attacks. But in November, the Luftwaffe was redeployed south to challenge the Allied landings in North Africa, and the advantage was lost. Despite that, the Allies never again sailed an Arctic convoy in the summer months. Fully illustrated with archive photos, striking new artwork, maps and diagrams, this is the remarkable history of the Luftwaffe's last strategic victory of World War II.

Arctic Convoys, 1941–1945

Arctic Convoys, 1941–1945 PDF Author: Richard Woodman
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526714264
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
The story of Allied merchant ships and crews who braved the frigid far north to extend a lifeline to Russia, filled with “sheer heroism and brazen drama” (Literary Review). During the last four years of the Second World War, the Western Allies secured Russian defenses against Germany by supplying vital food and arms. The plight of those in Murmansk and Archangel who benefited is now well known, but few are aware of the courage, determination, and sacrifice of Allied merchant ships, which withstood unremitting U-boat attacks and aerial bombardment to maintain the lifeline to Russia. In the storms, fog, and numbing cold of the Arctic, where the sinking of a ten thousand–ton freighter was equal to a land battle in terms of destruction, the losses sustained were huge. Told from the perspective of their crews, this is the inspiring story of the long-suffering merchant ships without which Russia would almost certainly have fallen to Nazi Germany.

Forgotten Sacrifice

Forgotten Sacrifice PDF Author: Michael G. Walling
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782002901
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Award-winning historian Mike Walling captures the essence of the Arctic Convoys of World War II. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies, Britain and the United States launched an ambitious operation to resupply the Soviet Union using convoys sent through the Arctic. Their journey was punctuated by torpedo attacks in freezing conditions, Stuka dive bombers, naval gun fire, and weeks of total darkness in the Arctic winter, with ships disappearing below the waves weighed down by the ice and snow on their decks. Drawing on hundreds of oral histories from eyewitnesses and veterans of the convoys, plus original research into the Russian Navy archives at Murmansk, historian Michael G. Walling offers a fresh retelling of one of World War II's pivotal yet largely overlooked campaigns.

Forgotten Sacrifice

Forgotten Sacrifice PDF Author: Michael G. Walling
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781472895868
Category : Naval convoys
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description


The Royal Navy and the Arctic Convoys

The Royal Navy and the Arctic Convoys PDF Author: Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134730101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
The book is a masterpiece of operational history, and is written with surprising candour, given that the author was a member of the Naval Staff. The men who took part in these operations were drawn from Britain, Canada, America (particularly for the merchant service). This book provides a detailed account of naval actions (with maps) based on close examination of all relevant documentation and interviews with principal participants.

The Ghost Ships of Archangel

The Ghost Ships of Archangel PDF Author: William Geroux
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593511379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
An extraordinary story of survival and alliance during World War II: the icy journey of four Allied ships crossing the Arctic to deliver much needed supplies to the Soviet war effort. On the fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic split from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice field of the North Pole. They were seeking safety from Nazi bombers and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and giant bergs. Despite the many risks of their chosen route, the four vessels had a better chance of reaching their destination than the rest of the remains of convoy PQ-17. The convoy had started as a fleet of thirty-five cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel--the only help Roosevelt and Churchill had extended to Joseph Stalin to maintain their fragile alliance against Germany. At the most dangerous point of the voyage, the ships had received a startling order to scatter and had quickly become easy prey for the Nazis. The crews of the four ships focused on their mission. U.S. Navy Ensign Howard Carraway, aboard the SS Troubadour, was a farm boy from South Carolina and one of the many Americans for whom the convoy was a first taste of war; from the Royal Navy Reserve, Lt. Leo Gradwell was given command of the HMT Ayrshire, a British fishing trawler that had been converted into an antisubmarine vessel. The twenty-four-hour Arctic daylight in midsummer gave them no respite from bombers or submarines, and they all feared the giant German battleship Tirpitz, nicknamed the "Big Bad Wolf." Icebergs were as dangerous as Nazis as the remnants of convoy PQ-17 tried to slip through the Arctic to deliver their cargo in one of the most dramatic escapes of World War II. At Archangel they found a traumatized, starving city, and a disturbing preview of the Cold War ahead.

My Sea Lady

My Sea Lady PDF Author: Graeme Ogden
Publisher: Bene Factum Publishing
ISBN: 1909657182
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
A remarkable wartime memoir, unusually personal and frank, chronicling the bleak and arduous journeys onboard an anti-submarine trawler in the Arctic ocean during World War IIGraeme Ogden's memoir is the story of HMS Lady Madeleine, an ocean-going trawler converted to an anti­submarine role as part of the convoys to supply the Soviet Union as it faced the savage onslaught of the German army. This was a voyage fraught with storms, icebergs, and sub­zero temperatures in peacetime alone, but now the convoys faced worse—the fearsome gauntlet of German aircraft, submarines and surface raiders strung out along the coast of Norway, waiting to meet them. Ogden commanded the vessel in question, keeping diaries of his harrowing experiences of those years, which also cover his time on the equally perilous Atlantic convoys. These accounts were rediscovered and published as a memoir in the 1960s, illustrated with exquisite line drawings by Richard Elsden, who also sailed on these voyages. This is a very different kind of war memoir, vivid and bittersweet, in which the human elements take centerstage against the backdrop of great events.

Red Sky in the Morning

Red Sky in the Morning PDF Author: Michael Pearson
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783460822
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
The Arctic convoys that sailed through the cold malevolent waters of the Barents Sea ran the gauntlet of German air and sea attacks as they struggled to transport vital supplies to Britains Russian allies. Convoy JW51B sailed in December 1942 with a small close escort of five destroyers, plus a reserve of two light cruisers, which shadowed the main convoy at a distance of seventy miles. The convoy was attacked on 31 December by a powerful German force that included the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, the pocket battleship Ltzow and six destroyers. The ensuing engagement proved the worth of the British destroyers and the bravery of the men who sailed in them.It was a naval engagement that had far-reaching consequences and resulted in many capital ships of the Kriegsmarine being decommissioned for the rest of World War II.A gripping tale of the war at sea under the direst of conditions.

Through Ice and Fire

Through Ice and Fire PDF Author: Leona J. Thomas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781781554401
Category : Naval convoys
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
On the Russian Arctic convoys in 1942, Leonard H. Thomas kept a secret notebook from which he later wrote his memoirs. These contained many well-observed details of life onboard his ship, HMS Ulster Queen. He detailed observations of the hardships that followed when they endured being at action stations and locked in the engine room, under fire from the skies above and the sea below, and only able to guess at what was happening from the cacophony of sounds they could hear. Thomas tells of how the crew suffered from an appalling lack of food, the intense cold, and the stark conditions endured for weeks on end berthed in Archangel in the cold of the approaching Russian winter. There are also insights about the morale of the men and lighter moments when their humor kept them going. These stories can now be told as his daughter has edited them into an account that illustrates the fortitude and bravery of the men who sailed through ice and fire to further the war effort so far from home.