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Author: John R. McKay
Publisher: Pen and Sword Maritime
ISBN: 1399013041
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell saw much more than his fair share of action during the Second World War. He was present at the 1942 landing in North Africa (Operation TORCH), D-Day and the liberation of Norway. But his main area of operations was that of the Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant ships taking essential war supplies to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. In addition to contending with relentless U-boat and Luftwaffe attacks, crews endured the extreme sea conditions and appalling weather. This involved clearing ice and snow in temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees Celsius. No wonder Winston Churchill described it as ‘the worst journey in the world’. Fortunately, Charlie, who served on two destroyers, HMS Milne and Savage, kept a record of his experiences and is alive today to describe them. His story, published to coincide with the 80th Anniversary of the first convoy, is more than one man’s account. It is an inspiring tribute to his colleagues, many of whom were killed in action. No-one reading Surviving The Arctic Convoys could fail to be moved by the bravery and endurance of these outstanding men.
Author: John R. McKay
Publisher: Pen and Sword Maritime
ISBN: 1399013041
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Get Book Here
Book Description
Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell saw much more than his fair share of action during the Second World War. He was present at the 1942 landing in North Africa (Operation TORCH), D-Day and the liberation of Norway. But his main area of operations was that of the Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant ships taking essential war supplies to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. In addition to contending with relentless U-boat and Luftwaffe attacks, crews endured the extreme sea conditions and appalling weather. This involved clearing ice and snow in temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees Celsius. No wonder Winston Churchill described it as ‘the worst journey in the world’. Fortunately, Charlie, who served on two destroyers, HMS Milne and Savage, kept a record of his experiences and is alive today to describe them. His story, published to coincide with the 80th Anniversary of the first convoy, is more than one man’s account. It is an inspiring tribute to his colleagues, many of whom were killed in action. No-one reading Surviving The Arctic Convoys could fail to be moved by the bravery and endurance of these outstanding men.
Author: John McKay
Publisher: Pen and Sword Maritime
ISBN: 9781399013031
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell saw much more than his fair share of action during the Second World War. He was present at the 1942 landing in North Africa (Operation TORCH), D-Day and the liberation of Norway. But his main area of operations was that of the Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant ships taking essential war supplies to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. In addition to contending with relentless U-boat and Luftwaffe attacks, crews endured the extreme sea conditions and appalling weather. This involved clearing ice and snow in temperatures as low as minus thirty degrees Celsius. No wonder Winston Churchill described it as 'the worst journey in the world'. Fortunately, Charlie, who served on two destroyers, HMS Milne and Savage, kept a record of his experiences and is alive today to describe them. His story, published to coincide with the 80th Anniversary of the first convoy, is more than one man's account. It is an inspiring tribute to his colleagues, many of whom were killed in action. No-one reading Surviving The Arctic Convoys could fail to be moved by the bravery and endurance of these outstanding men.
Author: John R McKay
Publisher: Pen and Sword Maritime
ISBN: 9781399036603
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This superbly researched book tells the story of one of the most significant maritime operations of the Second World War. The importance of the Arctic convoys providing the Soviets with the necessary equipment needed to win the war on the Eastern Front has too often been underestimated. This book puts that right. Following PQ17, the worst Allied maritime disaster of the Second World War, it was imperative that PQ18 got through. So when the convoy left Loch Ewe on 2 September 1942 the stakes could not have been higher. The Battle of Stalingrad was hanging in the balance. Had the convoy suffered unacceptable shipping and war supply losses, the Arctic route would have had to be suspended with potentially war-changing consequences not just for the Soviets but the whole Allied war effort. Consequently, as this work vividly describes, it was both the most heavily defended and the most heavily attacked convoy of the whole war. The author draws on contemporaneous accounts of the combatants from both sides including U-boat crews, airmen and, of course, the crews of the warships and merchantmen. Offering newly discovered facts about the convoy's turbulent passage, this book is a valuable addition to the history of the campaign which will appeal to historians and laymen alike.
Author: John Lewis-Stempel
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 9781472137937
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
During the terrible voyage, from the extreme north-west of Scotland to Russia's Arctic coast, the sailors faced 50- and even 100-foot waves, icebergs and hurricane-force winds. Such winds could peel the steel shields from the ships' guns and regularly blew men overboard. In summer, Oerlikon gunners would be at their guns for twenty hours a day; in the winter they often froze to death. Even when the convoys reached Murmansk or Archangel there was no respite. Murmansk was about 25 miles from the front, which meant that there were enemy raids all day and food was short. Despite all this the Royal Navy stuck to the convoys for four years, supplying Russia with planes, oil and other vital material, but, more importantly, by reassuring Stalin of Britain's commitment, the men of the Arctic convoys succeeded in keeping Russia in the war. This is a book about the men of the convoys, about life aboard ship, drawing extensively on letters, diaries and reports, many from previously unpublished archives, as well as new interviews with the last surviving veterans. The Worst Journey shadows the experience of the sailors on the seventy-eight Arctic convoys: from enlistment, through training, joining a ship, shore leave, action and death - or survival - at sea. It follows the fortunes of twenty-five sailors drawn from the bottom, middle and top of the navy's ranks. A sailor's position aboard ship played a critical role in whether he survived an attack or sinking, depending on where the ship was hit, or holed.
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.
Author: David Kenyon
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300275013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
An incisive account of the Arctic convoys, and the essential role Bletchley Park and Special Intelligence played in Allied success Between 1941 and 1945, more than eight hundred shiploads of supplies were delivered to the Soviet Union protected by allied naval forces. Each journey was a battle against the elements, with turbulent seas, extreme cold, and the constant dread of torpedoes. These Arctic convoys have been mythologized as defenseless vessels at the mercy of deadly U-boats—but was this really the case? David Kenyon explores the story of the war in the Arctic, revealing that the contest was more evenly balanced that previously thought. Battles included major ship engagements, aircraft carriers, and combat between surface ships. Amid this wide range of forces, Bletchley Park’s Naval Section played a decisive role in Arctic operations, with both sides relying heavily on Signals Intelligence to intercept and break each other’s codes. Kenyon presents a vivid picture of the Arctic theater of war, unearthing the full-scale campaign for naval supremacy in northern waters.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781909751637
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
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.
Author: Julie Grossmith Deltrice
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1783030372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
In mid-1942 Alfred Grossmith Mason became Navigation/Gunnery Officer on SS Empire Baffin, a 6,978 ton cargo ship assigned to carry essential war supplies to the hard pressed Soviet Union. Fortunately he compiled this remarkable diary of the dramas and disasters that befell the ill-fated Convoy PQ18. This inspiring story follows the movement of his ship and the other merchantmen together with their Royal Naval escorts from the mustering point at Loch Ewe to their destination Archangel.??Daily German attacks from the air and sea and long periods at action stations deprived crews of sleep. The loss of many ships and comrades and the ever-present prospect of death through drowning and hypothermia took their toll. Having to function while exhausted, ill-nourished and freezing cold demanded that every man gave of his utmost over a prolonged period. Yet remarkably, as this book shows, humour remained intact.??Once in Archangel his insight into the hardships faced by the Russian population is revealing. For the surviving sailors there remained the awesome challenge of the return journey without any escort. Unlike so many, the Author finally reached Britain in December 1942.??Arctic Warriors is a rare and graphic personal account that captures the atmosphere of this infamously costly convoy and others like it. If any doubts remain of the terrible conditions and dangers that merchant seamen aced in the hostile waters of the North Atlantic and Barents Sea, this superb record, published in the Year of the Convoy, will surely put them to rest.
Author: John R McKay
Publisher: Pen and Sword Maritime
ISBN: 1399036645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book Description
This superbly researched book tells the story of one of the most significant maritime operations of the Second World War. The importance of the Arctic convoys providing the Soviets with the necessary equipment needed to win the war on the Eastern Front has too often been underestimated. This book puts that right. Following PQ17, the worst Allied maritime disaster of the Second World War, it was imperative that PQ18 got through. So when the convoy left Loch Ewe on 2 September 1942 the stakes could not have been higher. The Battle of Stalingrad was hanging in the balance. Had the convoy suffered unacceptable shipping and war supply losses, the Arctic route would have had to be suspended with potentially war-changing consequences not just for the Soviets but the whole Allied war effort. Consequently, as this work vividly describes, it was both the most heavily defended and the most heavily attacked convoy of the whole war. The Author draws on contemporaneous accounts of the combatants from both sides including U-boat crews, airmen and, of course, the crews of the warships and merchantmen. Offering newly discovered facts about the convoy’s turbulent passage, this book is a valuable addition to the history of the campaign which will appeal to historians and laymen alike.
