Convoy PQ17 - June - July 1942

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Arctic Convoy PQ17 was the victim of confusion, uncertainty and ambition by friend and foe. As a result, 153 seamen died, and more than 20 ships – representing almost 100,000 tons of cargo, more than 400 tanks, 210 aircraft and 3,300 other vehicles – were sent to the icy depths of the Arctic seas.
The doomed eastbound convoy – those travelling to Russia were prefixed PQ, those travelling west were QPs – gathered in the Icelandic port of Hvalfiord in late June 1942, the crews apprehensive but reassured by the promise of considerable escort force.
These were to include a close escort of six destroyers, four corvettes, three minesweepers, four armed trawlers and two ack-ack ships.
But the convoy was also to be screened by a force of four heavy cruisers – HMS London, HMS Norfolk, USS Tuscaloosa and USS Wichita – and three further covering destroyers.
And standing well off, spoiling for a fight, was a large part of Admiral Tovey’s Home Fleet, including the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious, battleships HMS Duke of York and USS Washington, two cruisers and eight destroyers.
This collection of major warships was not directly charged with protecting the convoy – instead, they were waiting for a sniff of the German battlegroup based on the battleship Tirpitz.
Tirpitz and her consorts had slipped northwards along the Norwegian coast, from where she and her consorts could wreak havoc on a convoy – or break out into the Atlantic to prowl with greater freedom.
Fears over what the mighty Tirpitz could do went to the highest levels of the wartime British government, and she was seen as a crucial factor in the war at sea.
Sinking her would be a major victory to the Allies – and Hitler was also aware of the consequences of such an action.
So Tirpitz had to be protected, and used sparingly when there was even the remotest of threats – and the threat provided by an Allied carrier group was far from remote.
As PQ17 chugged eastwards, with one ship already out of the group because of an accident on leaving Iceland, the cat-and-mouse manoeuvres between the two groups of heavy warships and their controllers began, egged on by the political strictures of Washington, London and Moscow, who needed to see weapons, equipment and supplies flowing to the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
RAF reconnaissance flights over the known berth of the Tirpitz reported that through breaks in the cloud they could see that their quarry had sailed, but her exact position was unknown.
This information rang alarm bells in the Admiralty, and as a result the Allied fleet was put on alert for a major engagement.
Meanwhile, German reconnaissance flights were giving the German hierarchy an equally incomplete picture; reports of a task group complete with carrier sowed the seeds of doubt, and other reports from German U-boats which were beginning to shadow Convoy PQ17 told of carrier-borne aircraft in the vicinity – a mistake possibly caused by the sighting of a cruiser’s Walrus seaplane.
At that point safety became paramount – the safety of the Tirpitz, and the safety of the Allied cruiser and destroyer force as a vital element of the proposed action – and on the orders of First Sea Lord Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, PQ17 was ordered to scatter and the ships to make their own way to the safety of a Russian port, chiefly Archangel or Murmansk.
It is widely believed that Pound’s decision – a course of action usually taken as a desperate last resort when a convoy was about to be overwhelmed by superior forces – was affected by the brain tumour which was possibly beginning to cloud his judgement, and would kill him before the end of the war.
The ships of PQ17 had already beaten back bombing raids from German airfields in northern Norway, and U-boats were foiled by a combination of clear weather and calm seas, in which they presented easy targets for guns and depth charges, to say nothing of the diligence of the escorting anti-submarine ships.
But with the withdrawal of the cruisers and the screening destroyers, the gathered ‘ice devil’ U-boats were able to shadow the convoy with a great deal more ease, beaming homing signals to other submarines as well as large formations of bombers.
The convoy, still with the smallest escorts (corvettes, armed trawlers and AA ships) split into several groups, and began to spread out seeking the protection of bleak islands or the pack-ice to the north, with the mass of Novaya Zemlaya being the most immediate achievable landfall.
But the stragglers were quickly mopped up, as wave upon wave of bombers and prowling submarines picked them off. The German efforts were unrelenting, as they were looking for a major coup – and PQ17 was the prize.
Ironically, the big German ships never showed up. They were only hours out of Altenfjord when they were recalled, the German Navy unwilling to risk their heavy forces.
And the Allied groups, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, had sped away from the convoy, making it impossible for them to rejoin it – even if they had remained together.
The total destruction of PQ17 was only prevented by the ingenuity and resolve of some of the masters and their crews, and the efforts of the remaining escorts.
With ships that were beached along the way, or abandoned to their fate in mid-ocean, less than a third of the starters actually made it through to the safety of a Russian port.
The fate of PQ17 had far-reaching effects. The need to keep the Soviets supplied was overridden by the need to avoid another disaster on the scale of the convoy, described by Sir Winston Churchill as “one of the most melancholy naval episodes in the whole of the war.”
Summer runs were deemed too risky, because foul winter weather provided far better cover for slow-moving merchant ships.
PQ17 also made an unanswerable case for proper air cover – the doomed convoy had just a catapult-launched Hurricane to rely on.
With escort carriers alongside, the threat of attacks by bombers would be reduced, and the chances of survival of a U-boat sitting on the surface, waiting for its prey to hove into view, would have been as bleak as the chances of the near-defenceless freighters of PQ17.


Attacks made on convoy PQ17 by Luftflotte 5.

From the beginning of June 1942 a PQ convoy was reported by agents to be assembling on the west coast of Iceland but the actual sailing was not observed. It was, however, inferred from the location at 1640 hours on 30th June of a westbound PQ convoy in a position 180 miles north of the North Cape that the PQ was also at sea. Extra air reconnaissance was then laid on in the Jan Mayen area. At 1401 hours on the 2nd July the PQ17 convoy was sighted east of the island and was reported to consist of 38 merchant ships escorted by 10-15 naval craft. In the vicinity was a covering force of two battleships, one or two aircraft carriers, four cruisers and about 12 destroyers.

Air attacks on the convoy were launched on the 2nd July by Ju.88 bomber aircraft and on the 4th by He.111’s carrying torpedoes. Four merchant ships were claimed as sunk by the latter. On the 5th July it was reported by reconnaissance aircraft that the convoy had dispersed and in the opinion of the German War Staff this was considered to have been caused by the operations of the torpedo carrying aircraft. During the afternoon, torpedo and bomber attacks were sent into the general area of the scattered merchant ships. Seven were claimed as sunk with seven more seriously damaged. Attacks continued to be directed on isolated ships as reported by reconnaissance between 6th and 10th July. Five more ships were claimed as sunk and two damaged.

In all, the “Luftflotte 5” claimed to have sunk one cruiser, one destroyer, two escort vessels and twenty-two merchant ships (this compares with the actual British loss of 13 merchant vessels by air attack) against the loss of five torpedo carriers and two reconnaissance aircraft. The total number of attacking aircraft was 130 – Ju.88’s, 43 – He.111’s and 29 – He.115’s. In the course of the attack 212,500 kegs of bombs were dropped and 61 torpedoes released.


Details of “Operation Rosselsprung” the abortive sortie by TIRPITZ HIPPER and six destroyers against convoy PQ17. July 1942.


On the 30th June from 1650 hours, air and then U-boat reports confirmed the position of convoy QP13 after leaving Archangel and on the 1st July U-boats reports from 1615 followed by air reports confirmed the position of PQ17 after leaving Iceland. PQ17 was then accurately shadowed and reported by 9 U-boats.

From these reports it was calculated that PQ17 would pass longitude 5 degrees east during the forenoon of 2nd July and at 1257 hours the executive for the preliminary move was made by the Operation Division of the Naval Staff. The Narvik group consisting of the LUTZOW, SCHEER and six destroyers, BIETZEN, Z24, Z28, Z29 and Z30 left Bogenfjord on the night of the 2nd proceeding northwards but the LUTZOW grounded in Tjelsund putting her out of action for the operation. The other ships of the group carried on and arrived in Altenfjord during the morning of 3rd July. The Trondheim force consisting of the TIRPITZ, HIPPER and six destroyers, IHN, LODY, GALSTER, RIEDEL, ECKOLDT and STEINBRINK left Trondheim on the 2nd and arrived Gimsoystraumen on 3rd July. On the way into this narrow channel three of destroyers LODY, RIEDEL and GALSTER ran aground sustaining damage that rendered them unfit for action. The remainder of the force moved on to Altenfjord in northernmost Norway during the night of 3 - 4 July.

On the forenoon of the 5th July the convoy was known to be scattered apparently because of the air and U-boat attacks. The heavy units of the British support forces were well to the west of Bear Island. At 1137 hours on the 5th the executive for the operation was made from the Operational Divisional Headquarters. Orders were given for the TIRPITZ, HIPPER and six destroyers to leave the leads at appoint as far east as possible – namely at Nordkyn – to avoid being spotted or attacked by hostile submarines.

At 2006 hours intelligence, reported that the German force had been sighted by an enemy submarine (The Russian submarine K.21) and a little later that another enemy submarine had also made a sighting at 2029 hours. These reports prematurely divulged the operation and the direction in which it was proceeding. The C. in C. Fleet in the TIRPITZ considered that it was just possible to operate against some portions of the scattered convoy and get back to the North area, under a fighter umbrella before a possible interception by the British heavy units who had an aircraft carrier in company.

However, the operational division of the Naval Staff refused approval because of the presence of the aircraft carrier in the British heavy support forces and because in the meantime the convoy had been scattered and reduced by air and U-boat attack to such an extent that only a very limited success could be expected and this no longer justified the risk. Therefore, at 2132 hours the order was passed to C. in C. Fleet to break off the operation and return to harbour by the Nordkyn route and finally withdraw through the leads into Vestfjord.

The force put back into Altenfjord, refuelled and on the 7th July the whole fleet proceeded towards Vestfjord. On the journey they put in at Arnoy on account of fog and when getting underway again at 1045 hours, were spotted by a British aircraft which made a jumbled report which, however, led to no development. The fleet steamed without incident through Gimsoystraumen and Tjeldsund into Bogen where they arrived during the night on 7 – 8 July.

The apprehension of the Germans to engage whenever an aircraft carrier was known to be present dated from the fate of the BISMARCKin May 1941, the loss of the PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE from air attack and the carrier borne air attack on the TIRPITZ in March 1942. Henceforward all operation orders made out by the Naval Staff stressed the necessity for major units to break away if reconnaissance revealed any risk of interception by heavy enemy ships which included an aircraft carrier amongst them.

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