Artic ( Russian ) Convoys

[Fred Saunders]

I have a friend, whose late Father served in The M.N on ships of the Russian Convoys.
Is there anyone out there that can suggest some factual books that has been written abut
the convoys.
Any suggestions much appreciated.
Fred Saunders

[j.sabourn]

Fred most of us of a certain age sailed with those same survivors so only had to ask them but one could not say with certainty if one would get an answer. like most survivors of any theatre of war most preferred to keep quite, unless occassionally might be lucky when under the influence of one too many. Books on the subject no doubt there are so should get a good list of titles. Cheers JS
An example of this was I sailed with an ex stoker out of the R.N who climbed to the dizzy heights of Lieutenant and had the distinction of being the oldest commissioned lieutenant in the British Navy or so he said. He served most of his time as such in submarines . There was only one time I heard him talk about bad experiences this was in his cups , was when he was serving on a surface warship on a Maltese convoy which was torpedoed in the Meddy. Warships have a lot of people on board and the boats that got away were overloaded and the ensuing panic of those in the water trying to get ingress to such threatened to overturn them . The crews of these boats were using their oars to actually splitting the heads open and killing their past ship mates . There are mostly bad experiences in war at sea amongst the few real bravery efforts picked up by authors of naval victory’s. JS

[Brenda Shackleton]

Hello
Richard Woodman (RN) sailed with survivors of PQ17 and his book, ARCTIC CONVOYS 1941-1945 is an excellent read. The Foreword was written by Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Lewin of Greenwich.
I quote his final paragraph;- " Most of us who served in the Royal Navy during the War had experience of convoy and watched , often with sinking hearts, often with frustration that we could not do more, as the merchant ships in our charge were hit by bomb or torpedo. From that experience was born an admiration and respect for our merchant seamen that the years can never dim."

Then, of course, there is THE RESCUE SHIPS by Schofield and Martyn. Another excellent easy read. Out of print but often available on Amazon. The Arctic Convoys are well documented; no cut and paste here .....
Brenda

[Rodney Mills]

The Ghost Ships of Archangel. The Arctic Voyage That Defied the Nazis. by William Geroux. Viking, Copyright 2019

Imprinted with the quote, "Death barred the way to Russia but you crossed" -John Masefield, "For All Seafarers"

Damn good read and chock full of interesting facts on the Arctic convoys.
.

Rodney Mills

[j.sabourn]

Cargo wise going to Murmansk for Iron ore in the winter war or no war, the biggest problem was deballasting. I had one trip off in the winter after had done a few trips up there in sequence for a break and the company got a Mate for one trip to relieve me. He loaded what he thought was a full cargo , the discharge in the Mersey was a few thousand tons out and he put this down to the conveyor belt giving a poor weight reading ,which normally was never really that accurate . In this case it wasn’t it was frozen ballast . On the ore carriers it was common practice to partially de ballast , ballast due to the usual fast loading and to move things along to completion faster. In Arctic waters it was prudent to completely empty a tank , tank by tank, in this case the mate didn’t and the partially full tanks froze over at a couple of feet soundings and his sounding line which he thought was hitting the bottom of the tank was hitting the frozen ice. Most iron ore cargoes are allowed a certain water content and also the Russians used to use that to put water hoses down the holds adding water to the cargo and when you kicked up about it they would point out the clause in the charter party where it said they were allowed 5%water content and this further complicated the situation . Anyhow the Russians were funny people in the first instance and most receivers think must have expected problems if you weren’t wise to their ways. JS.

[chris taggart]

My Father Hugh Taggart served in the M.N. right through the war, mainly on tankers. He was posted to Empire Tristram in Sunderland at the completion of build and subsequently sailed via the Tyne and Loch Ewe for Murmansk on P.Q. 18.
I’ve read two accounts of this Convoy , one by Alfred Grossmith Mason “Artic Warriors” and the other “Artic Victory” by Peter C. Smith. Two contrasting accounts. For general Artic Convoy description and chronology “Convoy !” By Paul Kemp is also useful.

[WG Smith]

My book :Churchill's Arctic Convoys - Strength triumphs Over Adversity" published by Pen & Sword provides a factual account of the Arctic Convoy Programme and dispels some of the inaccurate statistics etc previously published. See https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Chur...rdback/p/21514. If he has any specific questions I can answer from my extensive database I would be happy to help.

[Dennis Billaney]

Hi Fred,

We had another thread with a few good links to books and also clips on youtube here:

https://www.merchant-navy.net/forum/...=Arctic+convoy

Cheers

[Rodney Mills]

Back as the wall was coming down between East and West Germany. My late wife and I were backpacking around Europe. We obtained a visa to go to Poland that had just been separated from Russia, though the country still had Russian troops there. We then went to the Soviet embassy and told them we had come to get our visas (which we hadn't applied for) telling them we got approved by the Soviet attaché in New York. In all the confusion and Soviet government collapse, after shuffling up the beurocratic tree collecting stamped pieces of paper enroute we got approved and visas for transit and A THIRTY DAY entry visa.

We travelled by train from W. Berlin to Warsaw and had to cross through East Germany we wangled a visa to visit East Germany on the strength of our Russian visa telling them that we needed it to cross East Germany from the Soviet to the West. In all the turmoil going on at that time, when we got refused we just demanded a letter of refusal. none of the officials wanted to sign anything. so we actually got the visas to get rid of us. I still have my old passport with the visa and entry and exit stamps.

We crossed from Gdynia, Poland to Kaliningrad, USSR. and later into main Soviet and Exited via East Berlin. I don't think Kaliningrad had changed much since you who visited it on the Arctic convoys. At least it was their summer for us. The Soviet was poorer than most countries of the Middle East. We could obtain things to eat because we had dollars, if we hadn't we would have starved. The going rate for a worker was the equivalent of (official exchange rate) of $15 a month salary in rubles. I could get 3 times that per dollar on the street. Before we went behind the Iron Curtain we each exchanged about $300.00 in one dollar bills. I think we came out still with $200 each left.

We had a guide and driver which was necessary (that cost us about $25) unless you could read Cyrillic, we gave them $15 tip each and paid for their lunches, they damn near fainted A months gross salary. The difference between Poland and Russia and the West was like day and night, absolute poverty. People would come up to us wanting to by our clothes and sneakers.

Today from what I read Russia is one of the most expensive in Europe to visit. We went back to Poland three times after that and it only took the Poles about 18 months to catch up to the West, with cars, houses, restaurants, clothes, everything.

I still have a piece of the wall I nicked as a keep's sake.

The only bummer I had was I put a new roll of film (36 frames) and screwed the thread up and had 36 shots of nothing, still I did get about 10 OK on the first roll of film, showing Kaliningrad harbor where you guys went, plus beautiful downtown Kaliningrad (not!).

Oh! there was a bust of Yuri Gagarin, first man in space, in the park and people saw me taking a photo of it and were quite impressed that we two yanks knew who he was as they were told the Americans refused to admit that he was the first man in space. I laughed and told them through the guide that we weren't happy about coming in second, but the whole country knew he was the first up and they all gave us a big round of applause and we all went our ways laughing.

Cheers, Rodney
Cheers Rodney

[Doc Vernon]

See also my Post of earlier please! In another Sub Forum
Cheers

Forgotten Sacrifices (merchant-navy.net)