Allied Convoys to Northern Russia 1941 - 1945. Policy Strategy and Tactics

[WG Smith]

ALLIED CONVOYS TO NORTHERN RUSSIA 1941 – 1945
POLICY, STRATEGY AND TACTICS
Pen & Sword have today released copies of my latest book for sale.
Although the experiences of the crews and ships who sailed in the Allied convoys to North Russia between August 1941 and May 1945 – and the physical and psychological stresses and dangers they faced in an enclosed environment from weather and enemy action on a daily basis, in both winter and summer operating conditions, are well documented, the wider political, diplomatic and military factors which determined the campaign have arguably receive less attention.
For those individual sailors their day to day lives were dominated by the immediacy of risk and prospects of survival in circumstances over which they themselves had little or no control. One in three of all those merchant ships which sailed were lost on passage or in north Russia. The fates and fortunes of those sailors would ultimately be determined by the decisions taken by politicians, diplomats and admirals sitting hundreds of miles away in London, Washington, Moscow and Berlin.
The principal actors Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin each had their own agendas and expectations, influenced by advisers and competing national priorities. These inevitably gave rise to differences putting pressure in turn on the convoy programme while the varying effectiveness of German counter-action was a significant and unpredictable factor.
‘Allied Convoys to Northern Russia, 1941 – 1945, Policy, Strategy, Tactics’ describes these wider political, diplomatic tensions and competing military operational priorities which influenced their decisions, determined the size and frequency of the sailings, and ultimately their failure or success, and fates of those who sailed in those merchant ships and their naval escorts. In particular it exposes the fragility of Anglo-Soviet relations, which lead at times to a climate of mutual distrust, and the poor treatment of British sailors stationed or stranded in north Russia which prompted Churchill to threaten Stalin with cancellation of the convoys unless their living conditions were improved.
It provides the wider contextual background to my first book ‘Churchill’s Arctic Convoys – Strength Triumphs Over Adversity’ which focussed on the convoy operations themselves which I know a number of readers of that first book were looking for.
JACKET.jpg