Pages

Praetorium Honoris

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Logistics Ain't Easy, Ask the Men of PQ-17 ...

(Source)

... at its peak over 215,000 men operated the ships of the Merchant Navy. Losses at the end of the war totaled 8,651 crew deaths. The men of the Merchant Marine were killed at a much higher per capita rate than those of the combined United States Armed Forces. Merchant Navy crews were killed at a rate of 1 in 26 (US Navy rate was 1 in 114). The greatest losses were in the Battle of the Atlantic due to U-boat attacks. During the war 3.1 million tons of US merchant shipping were sunk, comprising 733 ships. (Source)

In one of John Blackshoe's recent posts, the topic of casualties in the Merchant Marine came up in the comments. Those folks had a very hard war, the story of Convoy PQ-17 stands out. I wrote about this back in 2019, the story bears repeating. Logistics is important (it's what the professionals study), it can also be very bloody at times ...



Ice forms on a 20-inch signal projector on the cruiser HMS Sheffield while she is helping to escort an Arctic convoy to Russia.
My pop* was of the “greatest generation.” A merchant marine officer, he got paid to sail cargo to the Brits and Russians before the war and during it. Used to sail the Murmansk Run. A tough one, that. Bombers, U-boats. The very sea was an enemy – so cold that it wasn’t worth stopping to pick a man up, if he fell over the side. He’d be dead of the exposure before a boat could get to him, let alone the risk to the convoy.

His ship got hit by a dive bomber, just outside Murmansk – they ran it ashore before it could sink, and he spent six months there on repairs. Got her back to New York. She was sunk in the Indian Ocean on her next float, torpedoed by a sub. My dad had rotated off.

There were times when I was feeling low that I read a letter he wrote me while I was a plebe at the Naval Academy. He talked about being under fire, seeing ships alongside you blow up, or sail beneath the waves with their bows shot off, screws still turning. The screams of the men in the water. The fact that you couldn’t stop. - by Lex   (Yesterday, 08 Dec 03)


After December the 7th his studies were cut short – men were needed to sail ships, move equipment, food and people to the fight. So my father closed his textbooks and went to sea after Pearl Harbor – the Murmansk run from New York, carrying tanks and ammunition for the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany. It wasn’t a milk run. He had classmates from that school that didn’t come back either. He saw some of them die in front of him. A country half our population, with 400,000 dead in three and one half years? Everyone knew someone who didn’t come back. Those were hard times. You had to pull together.

There was a time when I was at the Boat School, plebe year that I was feeling rather sorry for myself that I hadn’t gone to Virginia or Duke – I wasn’t a particularly good plebe, and the upperclassmen were especially fond of pointing that fact out to me. We spoke on the phone, my father and I, and troubled by my evident unhappiness he wrote a letter to me afterwards. Remember getting letters?

I remember this one: He told of a time in the North Sea, the convoy harassed by dive bombers in the daylight hours and threatened by U-Boats around the clock. He told me the story of an ammunition ship getting hit at night alongside him, the way she went up in a column of fire, the strange fact that years later, he couldn’t remember having heard a sound. He told me of another Liberty ship alongside of his, her bow blown off at 15 knots, the way she steamed right under the sea until at last her fantail lifted in the air, the propellor still thrashing. It was a really good letter. He’s been gone for 24 years, but sometimes when I’m feeling low, I pull it out and read it again. It puts things into perspective.

When I was a kid he told me about coming up on deck during the war, the General Quarters alarm sounding, to man his AA gun when his ship was under air attack and seeing a Stuka dive bomber framed in the hatchway at the top of the ladder, growing larger, screaming as it came, the bomb coming loose, falling towards the ship, towards my father.

“Were you scared, dad?” I asked, maybe 10 years old.

“Scared?” he said with a grunt. “I was terrified.” by Lex   (Pearl Harbor, 07 Dec 06)


There are three main types of water masses in the Barents Sea: Warm, salty Atlantic water (temperature >37 °F) from the North Atlantic drift, cold Arctic water (temperature <32 °F) from the north, and warm, but not very salty coastal water (temperature >32 °F).

According to the Minnesota Sea Grant, a person who's thrown into freezing water, at 32 degrees, would only have about 15 minutes before they became unconscious or too exhausted to move; they would only survive for about 45 minutes.

North of the Arctic Circle, in June, there are 24 hours of daylight, the sun never sets. Unless the weather is bad, which it can be, there is nowhere to hide when the Luftwaffe and the U-Boats come-a calling.


There were many who served in World War II who are often forgotten, the men of the Merchant Marine, like Lex's Dad, who manned the convoys moving men, equipment, and other wartime necessities from the factories in the United States to the United Kingdom. Supplies transferred to the Soviet Union from the Western Allies played a key role in the ability of the Russians to withstand the Nazi onslaught in 1941.
Much of the logistical assistance of the Soviet military was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks and by 1945, nearly a third of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge 3/4-ton and Studebaker 2 1/2 ton were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminum, canned rations and clothing were also critical. Lend-Lease also supplied significant amounts of weapons and ammunition. The Soviet air force received 18,200 aircraft, which amounted to about 30 percent of Soviet wartime fighter and bomber production (mid 1941–45). Most tank units were Soviet-built models but about 7,000 Lend-Lease tanks (plus more than 5,000 British tanks) were used by the Red Army, 8 percent of war-time production. (Source)
Many of us know about the Battle of the Atlantic and the long struggle to defeat the German U-Boat fleet. Can you imagine standing on a beach in Florida and watching a commercial vessel burning - towering columns of black smoke, men dying - after being torpedoed by a U-Boat, right off of the American coast?

Now picture the same thing, only in the dark waters of the Barents Sea, where there is little chance of being rescued, where the water temperature alone will kill you in short order.

That was the Murmansk Run.


PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied Arctic convoy during the Second World War. On 27 June 1942, the ships sailed from Hvalfjord**, Iceland for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. The convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, after which it was shadowed continuously and attacked. The First Sea Lord Admiral Dudley Pound, acting on information that German surface units, including the German battleship Tirpitz, were moving to intercept, ordered the covering force built around the Allied battleships HMS King George V and the USS Washington away from the convoy and told the convoy to scatter. Due to vacillation by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, German armed forces high command), the Tirpitz raid never materialised. The convoy was the first large joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command; in Churchill's view this encouraged a more careful approach to fleet movements.

As the close escort and the covering cruiser forces withdrew westwards to intercept the German raiders, the merchant ships were left without escorts. The merchant ships were attacked by Luftwaffe aeroplanes and U-boats and of the 35 ships, only eleven reached their destination, delivering 70,000 short tons (64,000 metric tons) of cargo. The convoy disaster demonstrated the difficulty of passing adequate supplies through the Arctic, especially during the summer midnight sun. Convoy PQ 17 lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships during a week of daylight attacks by U-boats and aircraft. (Source)

Escorts and merchant ships at Hvalfjord before the sailing of Convoy PQ 17.
Map showing the path of convoy PQ-17 and the location of attacks and sinkings.
(Source)
Area of Operations, The "Murmansk Run"
Google Maps
PQ 17 composition:
(Source)
Merchant ships of convoy JW53 passing through pack ice during the voyage. An escort destroyer can be seen in the background. View from the Dido class cruiser HMS SCYLLA.
(Source)
Cold is the sea...

Especially above 66°33' North Latitude!
The United States Merchant Mariner suffered more casualties than any other American service during World War II, 1 of every 26 mariners would not return home. Facing submarines, mines, armed raiders, destroyers, aircraft, “kamikaze,” and the elements. About 8,300 mariners were killed at sea, 12,000 wounded of whom at least 1,100 died from their wounds, and 663 men and women were taken prisoner.  Some were blown to death, some incinerated, some drowned, some froze, and some starved. Sixty-six died in prison camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported to other camps. Thirty-one American merchant ships vanished without a trace to a watery grave. (Source)
Hidden away in the water off Battery Park is one of the most moving memorials you are ever likely to see. The American Merchant Mariner’s memorial, sculpted by Marisol Escobar in 1991, takes the form of three merchant seamen stranded on a sinking ship, terrified, calling for help and trying to reach the desperate hand of one of their shipmates floundering in the water below.
(Source)
To the men of the Merchant Marine, may their memory be ever bright!

Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial, Washington DC
To the strong souls and ready valor of those men of the United States who in the Navy, the Merchant Marine and other paths of Activity upon the waters of the world have given life or still offer it in the performance of heroic deeds this monument is dedicated by a grateful people.





* Carroll F. LeFon, Sr.
**Anglicized spelling.

64 comments:

  1. My dad was on tankers for Standard Oil from 1939 on, he never talked about it. He's been gone since 1975 so I can't ask him...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I completely understand why he wouldn't talk about it.

      Delete
  2. I had the opportunity to have some conversations with a man that sailed on T-2 tankers before, and during, the war. "Tough as nails" barely describes the mettle of the man.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That American Merchant Mariner's memorial is far more stark than the memorial in DC, brings home the losses all the more. Interesting to see that the rescue ships in PQ 17 were of much less tonnage than the rest of the merchant ships Sarge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When you consider that they only needed to carry surviving crew members and not cargo, it makes a little more sense.

      Delete
  4. To my shame I've never bothered to look up their losses. I knew they were high, but not that high. The resolve and dedication of those men is awe inspiring.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Their war has been largely forgotten, yet without them, Britain and the USSR would probably have fallen to the Nazis.

      Delete
    2. Yep. I mentioned to one WWII vet who seemed a bit embarrassed that he spent his entire time in DC at the War Dept in Logistics, that without the shaft, the man holding it, and the horse moving it, that "sharp end of the lance" will just fall to the ground, useless. I guess he had some bad reactions from people when they found out that he was a "REMF" or "Dog Robber" type.

      Delete
    3. Beans, bullets, bandages. Without those an army/navy/air force grinds to a halt. Yes, there are those in the rear areas who don't do their jobs, but the vast majority do. Those who disparage those in support roles need to be stuck on a mountain outpost behind enemy lines overnight with one MRE and one mag, see how long they sing that song.

      Delete
  5. I immediately remembered the story as soon as I read "PQ-17". Need to make sure the next 2 generations do as well.
    The question of " keeping the soviets in the war" can be argued. Yes, they needed all of the things we made, sent and gave them; but really, would they have surrendered? I think it unlikely, but am willing to debate the point.
    Boat Guy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. More to the point, as Patton put it, we supplied them so that they could kill lots of Nazis. Nazis we didn't have to face in France later.

      Delete
  6. Thanks for the fuller write up Sarge - I am sure I read this post, just do not remember it as intensely.

    We discussed it once before, but for those that what to read an account in a fictional form, cannot recommend H.M.S. Ulysses by Alastair MacLean enough. He served on the convoys in WW II, and his descriptions of the environment and the tension will grip you even in your comfortable chair in a warm home.

    (As a side note on those who served in other capacities: my material grandfather had volunteered but due to his job - utilities management - he was considered vital to the home front and did not served. From what my mother said, it always bothered him.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's a reason folks like your grandfather were kept in their jobs, without the infrastructure, the factories, the utilities, then nothing would flow to the front, because there would be nothing to send!

      MacLean was an outstanding writer, I've read that book, puts you there it does.

      Delete
  7. Crusty Old TV Tech here. Two thoughts come to mind about the Russian supply train. At least we (the Allies) did not have to send them fuel, they had that with Baku and their indigenous coal mines. Britain, on the other hand, had to get oil tankers to her shores, or wheels and wings would come to a grinding halt. Second, Norway. The Axis had to have Norway to threaten the Russian convoy routes. It was Goering's unsinkable aircraft carrier. Thus, the Allies' repeated desperate operations to recover Norway.

    Yep, good men and good ships lie in Neptune's realm, beyond full fathom five, in those waters. Salute!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Forgotten by many, remembered by some. I for one will remember them.

      Delete
  8. If you have Apple TV+, Greyhound is worth the time. So is the 1955 book it was based on, The Good Shepherd, by C.S. Forester.

    My uncle was on a convoy gun crew in the North Atlantic. After a number of crossings, he asked for shore duty. The Corps sent him to the invasions of Okinawa and Iwo. Detailers have a twisted sense of humor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I signed up for Apple TV just to watch that film, it was magnificent. I've also read the book. Both are excellent recommendations!

      From convoy duty in the North Atlantic to Okinawa and Iwo Jima, now that's brutal!

      Delete
  9. I notice thaat you quote the Wikipedia article as to the escorts moving westward "to intercept the Tirpitz". The rest of the article is more frank about what Admiral Dan Gallery called " a shameful page in naval history".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The story is about the convoy. Those escorts abandoned their charges, they have to live with the shame of that.

      Delete
    2. The shame shouldn't be on them. Gallery added that they had only carried out "orders...which left them no discretion". Just pointing out the hodgepodge of sources in the Wiki article. There may still be some people who are unaware. Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse.

      Delete
  10. Great post. Goes to show one of the many ways civilians sacrificed and gave their lives to help us win the war. Then again, they were considered Navy during wartime. I will have to research if they were provided any VA benefits, although that's probably a more modern development.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They weren't considered veterans until the 80s or 90s (as I recall)... I remember my Mom telling me.

      Delete
    2. Tuna - They certainly put it on the line every time they went to sea.

      Delete
    3. Rob - Now that right there sucks, typical of the gubmint though.

      Delete
  11. To add to their misery, many of the Merchant Mariners who survived surely carried "survivor's guilt" with them the rest of their lives.

    Full bore, as Phib would say.
    JB

    ReplyDelete
  12. Interestingly, that campaign and losses were a discussion lesson at SAMS. It was a pretty good example of the operational level of war, the connection of Strategy and Tactics. So, we had a pretty good awareness of losses. One of the many reasons I dislike cold weather.
    juvat

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The operational art is important as hell, glad that you learned that back in the day. I wonder if they still cover that?

      Delete
  13. What was sad and tragic was the loss of convoy and escort knowledge from WWI. Or knowledge that was just ignored early on in the war.

    Then there was the brilliant move by FDR's administration to not have even a minimum blackout along the shore, so ships leaving the US were silhouetted against a bright sky for the U-boats to easily see and track.

    Needless deaths.

    What is amazing and powerful was that deck guns quickly mounted on many merchantmen and scratch gun crews fought so savagely against the U-boat scourge. Enough that being on the surface got very dangerous for German subs.

    Men of steel, hearts of iron. Sailing often without enough protection in weather and sea conditions that should have been reason enough to turn around. Attacked from the air, on sea, from land and under water. They got the job done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The German U-Boat crews called those days "The Happy Time."

      When do politicians ever learn?

      The folks who sailed in the Merchant Navy have my everlasting respect, I stand in awe of their sacrifice.

      Delete
    2. There are merchant ships and crews that especially should be remembered for their bravery and sacrifice: MV tanker San Demetrio, abandoned under shellfire from a German cruiser and on fire. Later part of her crew reboarded her and sailed on alone to Ireland. Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins that slugged it out one on one with a much more heavily armed German surface raider and sank it. And the tanker SS Ohio, torpedoed and then under air attack for days that finally came into Malta under tow with her precious cargo nearly intact.

      Delete
    3. Yep. But the Merchant Marines got and get about as much press as the Coast Guard. Few remember the deeds done by the US Coast Guard during WWII. But they were there, piloting and crewing landing craft, mine sweepers, lots of auxiliaries that got the ever-loving snot blown and beat out of them.

      But the Merchant sailors, God, those poor bastids were just hung out to dry, and too often to die, when feckless naval forces failed to protect them.

      As OAFS said above, "Happy Times" indeed.

      Delete
    4. Have to remember, the naval forces were often spread pretty thin. (And the Admiralty was obsessed with German battleships and battle cruisers. WWI/Jutland mentality still ruled.)

      Delete
    5. Also the Coast Guard and Navy gun crews on armed merchant ships. Not part of the ship's crew or under the Captain's authority. They were on gun positions with (within reason) orders to keep fighting until the ship sank under them.

      Delete
    6. Everyone on board a ship is under the captain's authority.

      Delete
    7. Sarge, somehow my comments [Don McCollor] on the three outstanding merchant ship and the armed guard got attributed to "anonymous". In the latter, it is my understanding that the armed guard manning the gun positions were like a second independently commanded vessel riding aboard and that neither ship's Captain nor armed guard Commander could issue direct orders to the other. In practice, they worked closely together (being all in the same boat, as it were).

      Delete
    8. Google playing the fool.

      As to the captain of a ship, he (and she nowadays) has absolute authority aboard his ship. But a smart captain let's those embarked and not part of the crew do their jobs. Command at sea is a really big deal.

      Delete
  14. To study the trade of war, you must master logistics. That provides your troops, and all they need: their meals, kitchens, toilet paper, soap, ... as well as the bullets, bayonets, and bandages. The point of the spear gets the glory ... and does nothing without the head, binding, shaft, mind, will, hand, foot, boot, and so very much more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Winning without logistics is not possible.

      Delete
    2. Getting back to Napoleon and logistics (something that was not mentioned in the movie).

      I found this with a google search...
      >>“An army marches on its stomach,” Napoleon is supposed to have said. Unfortunately for the armies of his time, the food available to the stomachs of those hungry soldiers was neither appetizing nor nutritious–consisting primarily of hard bread and salted meat. Napoleon wanted to feed his army better, so he offered a prize of 12,000 francs to anyone who could invent a better way to store and preserve food.
      The chef, Nicolas Appert, rose to the challenge. After years of trial and error, he eventually perfected a method of putting food in jars and submerging the jars in boiling water to preserve the food and seal the jars. In other words, he invented canning.<<

      Delete
    3. Napoléon's army for the invasion of Russia was massive, unfortunately the logistics of the time weren't enough to support such an army. (Over 450,000 men and 150,000 horses! All of whom had to eat!)

      Delete
    4. Napoleon's Armees were very innovative. As you said, Rob, food storage and food safety was one big innovation. So was battlefield triage. Lots of other little things, like breaking the power of the aristocrats over officer postings (we did that in the RevWar, but France did it at a much larger scale and in Europe and stuck it in the eyes of everyone, proving the common man could be as good or better than the aristocrat. Or not.)

      War can be very innovative.

      Delete
    5. A marshal's baton in every knapsack.

      Delete
  15. Lex's Dad wrote of his experiences on Convoy PQ-15. There is a good discussion of that one here:
    http://ww2eagles.blogspot.com/2011/11/battle-of-convoy-pq-15.html
    and here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_PQ_15

    Twenty two of the twenty five convoy ships arrived undamaged after the attacks on May 2-3, 1942. Sucks to be on any of the other three.

    Lex's Dad graduated in 1942 from what we now call the Merchant Marine Academy, and also commissioned in the U.S. Navy, eventually attaining the rank of Captain in the reserves, a wonderful role model for Lex.

    Coincidentally, he died on 3 May 1982, 40 years after witnessing the attacks sinking SS Cape Corso.
    John Blackshoe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Like father, like son. Both were extraordinary individuals.

      Delete
  16. Imagine the industrial might of the one country that could keep the Italian campaign, the north-west Europe campaign, the Russian front, the Asian continent campaign and the Pacific campaign fully stocked with war materiél. Today the US can't keep the Ukrainians in 155mm shells without strong-arming some of our allies to "donate" some of their war stock.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is what happens when the bean counters determine that it's cheaper to manufacture overseas. Until it's not!

      Delete
  17. When I was working on an AF site (Now Space Force) in Diego Garcia, I had a chance to rub shoulders with the Merchant Marine sailors. Until then I had NEVER heard of their giant contribution to the War Effort, nor the tremendous toll the war took on their ranks. I have a much greater appreciation of these brave, fearless men - more so than the AAF aircrews which got a lot of the glory. Not that the airmen didn't have their own losses and their own brand of bravery, mind you. It's just that the MM had, IMHO, more guts. Just not the glory. Which still to this day rankles them, and I can't say as how I blame them!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And then Congress sold them out to dry, and American shipping is a ghost of what it was after even the Korean War (active combat phase, that is.)

      Delete
    2. Any Mouse - They should have had a greater share of the credit for victory.

      Delete
    3. Beans - When does Congress not sell someone out?

      Delete
    4. OAS - there are/were a whole bunch of Filipinos who were US Army soldiers, fought as US Army soldiers against the Japanese in the Philippines, suffered and survived the PoW deprivations under the Japanese as US Army soldiers--who were NEVER given the entitlements afforded to US Army veterans of WW2. Congress actually voted to make them ineligible for those benefits.

      Delete
    5. To Congress' everlasting shame. Of course, those bastards have a lot to be ashamed about, in damned near every year since the founding of the country.

      Delete
    6. Congress has no shame, that's why this behavior is not unexpected anymore.

      Delete
  18. Just out of interest I checked the number of UK merchant sailors lost in WW2. The figure came to about 32K. There is no doubt that the merchant marine were treated badly, for example pay was stopped from the moment your ship was sunk, it took quite a while for changes to be made in their treatment just as it took time to re-learn lessons from WW1 (and the Napoleonic wars) and introduce effective convoys and escorts. I suppose no dashing RN destroyer captain circa 1939 wanted to spend their time herding merchant shipping.
    The other lesson that is being re-learned is the importance of logistics and stockpiles. The UK got rid of a lot under the auspices of the peace dividend and by listening to consultants sing the praises of 'just in time'. As I heard a retired US General say with regard to war stocks 'make an intelligent guess, double it, put a few noughts on the end and you still won't have enough'.
    Logistics is king as is mass.
    Interesting times ahead.
    Retired

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Just in time" is often way too late. Listening to consultants should make one ineligible for promotion or any high office. Those people have no skin in the game.

      Logistics will be the death of the West unless we fix it.

      Delete
  19. I've been told that during World War 2 my maternal grandfather served in the merchant marine, the US Navy, as well as the coast guard from various relatives who likely have no real idea, and I suspect that is mostly because he just didn't want to talk about it and they never pressed him. A generation later, it's not forgotten but the details are lost. A generation after that, most of what we have are questions. What evidence remains stashed in his sea chest indicates he was Navy and later coast guard, so I suspect the few merchant items were from being attached as a gun crewman. Sort of like those Foxfire books, unless it is written down it's history that is lost, and who in the moment contemplates that eventuality? However, the more important idea in this story is one of logistics. Take a look at the cargo lists. Plate steel. Tanks. Machinery. To make steel from ore you need a blast furnace. Guess how many are around in the US today? To melt recycled steel you can use an electric arc furnace, but you're only recycling, picking amongst the discards of your betters like common scavengers. Eventually you run out of rusty cars and old fencing wire to feed your war effort. I dare say the US hasn't, as a nation, considered the logistics of a war since perhaps the 1960's. Perhaps we thought it a peace dividend that couldn't run dry? Perhaps we thought nukes changed the nature of war forever? Perhaps we even thought technology would make warfare simply pushing a button and we didn't need numbers? Which, we better hope that is the case because in addition to steel you need men, and guess what Churchill used to call Christendom isn't producing? Parents aren't having an average of two or more kids any longer. Our numbers are diminishing in the western world. Sperm counts in men have reportedly diminished 50% over the past generation. Granted, in terms of numbers that's still quite a few on any assault on Ft. Egg, but whereas we used to lament any attack was doomed to success we now struggle, sometimes for years, for the same outcome. You need not be a pessimist to think that western civilization is doomed. We've squandered our logistical base in steel, population, servicemen, transport, and technology. I think of my grandfather farming with horses and feeding a world, with a family of nine behind him, and then reflect upon a neighbor farming tens of thousands of acres with an army of hired hands and easily five millions worth of equipment and yet only one son to inherit the farm. There is a weak link in this logistical chain of steel, food, transport, and people. It's us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great comment, your last sentence is painfully correct.

      Delete
  20. PQ-17 was a catastrophe
    which shows that even worst convoy had better odds than independently sailing ships
    I still wonder sometimes, what if Germans sortied Tirpitz and USS Washington (which was in the distant covering force) made in time to fight for the convoy. What an epic battle it would be!

    ReplyDelete

Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

NOTE: Comments on posts over 5 days old go into moderation, automatically.