Stalin s Lifeline The Allied Convoys Through The Arctic Worst Journey In The World

My name's Dan Snow and I want to tell you about History Hit TV. It's like the Netflix for history. Hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians. We've got an exclusive offer available to fans of Timeline. If you go to History Hit TV, you can either follow the information below this video or just Google History Hit TV and use the code Timeline. You get a special introductory offer. Go and check it out. In the meantime, enjoy this video. In August, 1941, the allies launched Operation Dervish. It might not be the most famous operation of the second world war, but Dervish and the operations that were to follow would prove to be some of the most important of the entire war effort. It wasn't a commando strike or an air raid. Operation Dervish was the first of the Arctic convoys. These were convoys full of ships carrying supplies from the Western allies destined for the Soviet Union. From the UK up through the treacherous North Atlantic, passing Nazi occupied Norway into the Barents sea. It was a perilous journey, but one of the utmost importance. The Arctic convoys were vast logistical operations involving huge amounts of international cooperation. These ships kept a vital lifeline to the Soviet Union open, allowing supplies to flow in and keep up the fight against Hitler on the Eastern front. 1,400 ships in 78 convoys, carrying those supplies that would bolster the Soviet war effort and bring Britain a hope that victory was on the way. In June, 1941, the Axis powers launched a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa. Hitler had rolled the dice. In 1941, Great Britain may have been battered, but she stood firm. And now he ordered his forces to overthrow Soviet Russia, even before the end of the war against England. The shock was immediately felt across the world. As Hitler predicted, when Operation Barbarossa is launched, the world will hold its breath. The early days of the invasion was savage. Nazi tanks made hundreds of kilometers in days. Thousands upon thousands of Soviet troops were killed, wounded, and captured and their supplies of tanks, aircraft, and weapons were decimated. It looked like Soviet resistance might give out any point. Back in London, Churchill was watching the invasion very carefully. Churchill was certainly no fan of the Soviet Union, but as the old saying goes, my enemy's enemy is my friend. And that's why on the 7th of July, Churchill issued this note to Stalin. He stated that he had a desire for mutual aid and support against Hitler. In it, he stated there was genuine admiration for the tenacity of the soldiers and the people of the Soviet Union. He went on to say, we shall do everything to help you. That time, geography and our growing resources allow. It was one of the many messages between London and Moscow in the summer of 1941, messages that discussed the ability of the UK and the USSR to support each other in their time of desperate need. I've come to meet Dr. Will Butler at the National Archives, who can show me some of these amazing early communiques. Well, what's the British government archives tell us about what was going on between Churchill and Stalin? Well, they tell us an awful lot, actually, about their relationship, about what both British representatives and Soviet representatives are trying to do for one another immediately after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. And, you know, they give us an awful lot of detail about some of the specifics and what that might mean for the future relationship between Britain and the Soviet Union. Right, let's have a look. So what we have here is a list, a set of communiques, correspondence really between the Foreign Office and Moscow, and then also some personal telegrams between Stalin and Churchill. And the first one of these telegrams is dated the 24th of June, immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. And already they are talking about mutual arrangements for assistance, particularly what Britain can do in what is an incredibly trying time for the Soviet Union to provide assistance to it. There's discussions about whether they're going to have a political agreement, cooperation. And Stalin apparently is reporting back that they want the maximum possible economic support and obviously military support as well. Yeah, that makes it very clear. I mean, the ambassador said his government was glad to accept our suggestion that we should send military and economic missions to Russia. So, you know, it's from the beginning, they're obviously quite keen to get any help they can. Absolutely. And they're very keen early on to formalise some sort of relationship. The Soviet Union and Stalin in particular is incredibly keen to ensure that some sort of arrangement is made for the Soviet Union to also provide assistance to Britain in some way, in any way that it can. But, you know, ultimately they're united in their common enemy at this point. And that's where a lot of this comes from. They call it an era of collaboration. Absolutely. And that's straight from the off. It's remarkable. These two are quite hostile to each other. Only weeks before, suddenly. Absolutely. Right. So how does that relationship progress? So even as early then as the 29th of June, only a few days later, both representatives, the representatives of both sides are starting to talk about some specifics, particularly from a military point of view. And Russia almost provides a list of requirements. So, you know, in particular, this relates to aircraft. That's what they're really keen to obtain in some way, whatever that might be. Because their air force was devastated in the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, wasn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, and they're asking for huge numbers here. Three thousand fighter aircraft, three thousand bombers. You know, these are not small numbers. That's more than the number of fighter aircraft took part in the Battle of Britain for the RAF. That's a lot. And also then anti-aircraft guns. They're again being paralysed really by the German air force at this stage. So they're again incredibly keen to obtain as well, essentially as much as they possibly can. Well, I love it. It's like one specimen aircraft, our latest night fighters are designed with full war equipment. They want all that. They want the good stuff, don't they? They do. They're absolutely cutting edge technology. And it's not just then about the military side of things. War materials are a massive part of what Britain can contribute to to the Soviet Union. So we have here on the 31st of July another communication between Churchill and Stalin, and he starts talking about specifics. So in particular, how Britain might supply rubber to the Soviet Union. The Soviets, Stalin in particular, talks a lot about that, how that is the raw material which they're missing, which they need in large quantities. And Britain is able and happy to provide that as best as they can as well. Churchill doing the classic power move there. Following my personal intervention, arrangements now complete for the dispatch of 10,000 tonnes of rubber from this country to one of your northern ports. There we go. There's the Arctic convoy. British ships carrying this rubber and certain other supplies will be loaded within a week. Then 10 days we'll sell to one of your northern ports as soon as the Admiralty can arrange convoy. There we go. There's the Arctic convoy coming in. It's like he's desperately trying to show Stalin that he's, you know, he's doing everything he possibly can. And realistically, at this point in the war, it's really the limit to what Britain can actually provide from this point of view. Well, there we go. Well, thanks very much, Will. That was fascinating. These documents chart the first steps towards a plan to supply the Soviet Union with the war material they desperately needed. But exactly how they could do it still needed to be decided. The obstacles facing Churchill and Stalin were as large as they were obvious. In the summer of 1941, the Axis powers controlled the vast majority of the continent of Europe, basically all the territory between the UK and the Soviet Union. Therefore, no supplies were coming across by land. This also ruled out sending them by air, even if planes had had the heavy lift capability to take the sheer number of supplies needed. There was no way the aircraft would be able to fly across this Axis dominated airspace without taking ridiculously high losses. That left taking things by ship. Now, there are a few options for that. The first option is leaving the UK, coming down the Atlantic coast of Europe into the Mediterranean, came via Malta, the Suez Canal, round to the Persian Gulf, up through Iran, overland through the Caucasus and into the heart of the Soviet Union. Another way would be to do that route, but go even longer down around the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean and that way into the Persian Gulf. Option three, the longest of all, would be to send ships across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, right across the Pacific. This is before the Pacific War is broken. That's before Pearl Harbor and to the Asian coast of the Soviet Union, where supplies could then be brought across the Trans-Siberian Railroad to where the supplies were needed, where the fighting was around here. The last option was short and direct. British convoys could go out here into the Arctic Ocean, around the top of occupied Norway and into the Soviet port of Mammans, right on the northern tip of the Soviet Union or the port of Archangel here, whichever way they chose. They were presented with some serious difficulties. Churchill quickly became intrigued by the directness of this northern route and tasked his leading naval men, First Sealord Sir Dudley Pound and Commander of the Home Fleet Sir John Tovey, with working out the feasibility of sending British convoys into the Arctic. In mid-July, Rear Admirals Philip Vian and Geoffrey Miles headed to Russia. Their first stop would be Mammansk. They were not impressed. The port of Mammansk was in a terrible state. It had been pummeled. It was just 10 minutes flying time from the Axis Air Force Base Hetsamo. The civilian population had been evacuated, the shore facilities had been smashed, there weren't enough cranes and they weren't heavy enough to deal with the huge volume of supplies that Stalin was demanding. As well as all that, the Finns fighting alongside the Germans were trying to push into northern Russia to seize the rich natural resources. And on top of it all, Mammansk was only connected to the rest of the Soviet Union by this train line that ran down here through Leningrad, which was itself a key target of Operation Barbarossa. The other alternative was the port of Archangel. This had one great advantage. It was further from German bomber bases, so it hadn't been as badly damaged. But its port facility still needed a lot of work if it was going to deal with the amount of supplies that were expected. But there was a key downside. It was 400 miles further by sea than Mammansk. And that meant two extra days for these big old lumbering cargo ships. Now, the key disadvantage was that ships had to pass through this very narrow channel into the White Sea. That was the perfect targeting zone for German planes and U-boats. There was nowhere to hide as they were making that narrow transit. On top of all that, in the winter, the White Sea freezes solid, becomes completely impassable. So you can see why Admiral Pound said, the dice were loaded against us in every direction. But Churchill didn't care. Mammansk and Archangel were to be prepared as best they could. The Soviet Union needed help, and the most direct way of doing that was via the Arctic. It's important to remember that at this stage of the war, Britain was not faring well. She was isolated in Western Europe. Her army had had to beat an undignified retreat from the continent just a year earlier. The Axis powers were also making great strides in the Mediterranean and North Africa. The USA was yet to enter the war officially, and despite Stalin's insistence on the opening of a new front to divert Axis forces away from the Soviet Union, Britain was in no position to launch an assault on Hitler's Festung Europa. It meant a convoy of goods to the USSR was imperative. It ensured the Soviets could continue to fight. It also showed Stalin the UK was trying to help in whatever way she could, at some cost to herself. There were massive logistical issues associated with the Arctic convoys and an additional burden placed on the already strained shoulders of the Royal and Merchant Navies. Churchill gave it the green light. As Churchill put it in one meeting, Russia was a very welcome guest at a very hungry table. Britain was also desperate for resources. It needed to replace all the aircraft it lost, for example, during the Battle of Britain and other operations. It also had to find replacements for the mounting of vehicles and ammunition that had been abandoned during the retreat from Dunkirk the previous year. The Soviet Union couldn't just be allowed to absorb all Britain's resources. For this to work, for it to be sustainable, Churchill needed to have a chat with Roosevelt. The American president had signed off on the Lend-A-Lease program in early 1941. It supplied the UK with American-made planes, tanks and other material for war. It helped to bolster the British manufacturing industry, although doing the best they could was small and were under constant threat of bombing raids. However, with a new mouth to feed at the table and one as voracious as the USSR, new quotas would have to be negotiated between the US and the UK to ensure that the new allies on either side of Europe were adequately provisioned. And of course, that the USA was happy with the eventual destination of their goods. On August the 15th, Churchill and Roosevelt issued a joint statement to Stalin. Here it is. We are at the moment cooperating to provide you with the very maximum of supplies you most urgently need. Already, many shiploads have left our shores and more will leave in the immediate future. We realise fully how vitally important the defeat of Hitlerism is the brave and steadfast resistance of the Soviet Union. And we therefore feel that we must not in any circumstances fail to act quickly and immediately in this matter on planning the programme for the future allocation of our joint resources. There was now a supply system in place. It looked like these convoys might actually work. And so it was that as that statement of joint cooperation was issued, the first of the Arctic convoys, codenamed Dervish, was steaming for the Russian port of Archangel. It left Liverpool the 12th of August. I was comprised of half a dozen old freighters supported by a handful of escort vessels. It wasn't perhaps the most impressive sight in the world, but it was the first trickle in what would become a flood of supplies to the Soviet Union during the war. On board were tons of wool, of rubber, of tin. Nearly 50 hurricane aircraft designed to intercept any German bombers that tried to attack the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel. Of course, being Churchill, he always had an eye for the propaganda effect of everything, how it would play to the wider world. So on board, there were also writers, journalists and artists to capture the moment. Northwards to the Arctic Circle rides the convoy and escort bound for ports in northern Russia. As Churchill had so shrewdly identified, it was the political aspect of the convoys that would have the greatest impact. In the UK, the men and women in factories knew their guns, planes and ammunition might be getting shipped to the Soviet Union to support their new allies in the fight against the enemy, rather than being stockpiled in the UK. It also demonstrated to the Soviets that they were not alone. And together, the UK and the USSR could defeat the Nazis. To foster closer relations between the two countries, a propaganda campaign was launched right across the UK and its heart, obviously, with the Arctic convoys. Posters like this one showing a valiant British fleet supported in the skies above by Soviet fighters. And then magazines, newspapers were given special access, splashing pictures of the Arctic convoys all across their front pages like this one here. There was even an exhibition curated called Comrades in Arms. Pictures of the Soviets at war. And there were various images of Soviet service personnel in the hour of need and a big image of Churchill and Stalin as brothers in arms. Despite the scepticism surrounding the convoy, Dervish made it to Archangel on the 31st of August 1941, fully intact. The success of Dervish spurred on the Navy to continue this convoy route. In the last months of 1941, a further nine convoys now codenamed PQ, after the man in charge of the early planning, PQ Edwards, departed the UK bound for the USSR. By the end of the year, a third of a million tonnes of supplies had reached Russia. Of the 57 supply ships that had been sent eastbound, only one had been lost. It was a huge boost to the fledgling UK-USSR alliance. But as 1941 turned to 1942, the sailing of the Arctic convoys wouldn't be quite as smooth. I'm meeting with naval historian and curator at the Imperial War Museum, Rob Rumble, who can tell me a bit more about the convoy system and the particular threats that face ships on the Murmansk run. Well, Rob, we've come to the right place to talk about the Arctic convoys. Here we are on the mess deck of HMS Belfast. She was at the heart of it. Yes, HMS Belfast was one of the most famous Royal Navy warships from the Arctic convoys. Re-commissioned in December 1942, Belfast sailed to the Arctic from January 43 up until April 1944. In fact, she sailed 12 operations across the Arctic Circle during that period. So we're down here where the crew would have slept and eaten. I can imagine them huddling down here for warmth. Yes, at least down here in the mess deck, they would have been sheltered from the horrendous Arctic weather on deck. These mess decks would have been warmed by steam pipes to at least provide the sailors with a small amount of comfort whilst off duty. But once they climb up these ladders, they are in some of the most harshest conditions that war had ever been fought in. The conditions during the Arctic convoys were horrendous. Up to minus 30 degrees Celsius in temperature, towering seas, gale force 10 winds and 50 foot waves, constant darkness and freezing snow. Some of the harshest conditions any sailors would face during the Second World War. So let's talk about the word convoy. It's very familiar to me, but let's demonstrate what it actually means. We've got all our exciting models here. What's the idea behind gathering ships together in convoy? Well, at first, it would seem counterintuitive to have all of your ships in one place where the enemy could attack them all in one go. But the convoy system was remarkably successful. How it worked is a convoy of 20 to 50 merchant ships. These little ones can be merchant ships, even though it's not appropriate because they're warships. But now they're not armed. They've got no no particular weapon. Not not not much. They're very slow, relatively slow, only sailing at about eight to ten knots, which is about nine to 11 miles per hour. Filled to the hold with supplies for the Soviet war efforts. So tanks, aircraft, machine parts, ammunition, even railway locomotives chained to the decks. When they were together in formation in convoy, that meant you could have an escort screen of warships in close proximity to the convoy at all times. Now, these escort ships, destroyers, corvettes and the like would have been armed with four inch guns, four inches being the diameter of the gun barrel bore, depth charges, anti-aircraft guns, and by the time of the Arctic convoys were equipped with ASDIC, which is better known as sonar today to detect enemy submarines. So we've got these anachronistic aircraft here. So please don't send any letters to us. But so enemies would have tried to use air and surface ships, e-boats and bigger ships and then submarines. We don't have any submarines, but let's use one of these little things here. So all different ways of attacking this convoy. Indeed. And it was the job of the escort vessels to detect the enemy and to then engage them before they could launch attacks on the merchant ships. So you mentioned the Germans here trying to interdict this flow of supplies. How seriously did they take it? Well, how much of an effort was it for them? Well, at first, the Arctic convoys were relatively small in number, but they soon increased in frequency. By September 1941, Hitler himself was concerned about the flow of supplies from the Western allies to the Soviet Union. And he issued Führer Order 36, ordering German armed forces within Scandinavia to focus on attacking the Arctic convoys, as they sailed around the Norwegian coast. The interesting thing about these Arctic convoys is even more than the convoys going back and forth across the Atlantic to Canada and the US. You're passing a lot of enemy held territory. The geography is not good, is it? No, the Germans at this stage of the war occupied the Norwegian coast and from major bases such as Alpenfjord, the German surface fleets could sally forth and cause significant damage to the convoys. But similar to the Battle of the Atlantic, the U-boat threat was the most serious to the convoys. U-boats sailing from the Norwegian coast could lie in wait and torpedo any unsuspecting merchant ships. It's worth remembering that because of the horrendous weather, there was always a danger of convoys being broken up in the darkness and in the storms. So the U-boat threat was a very serious one. So we've got these convoys, particularly in the winter. Presumably there's pack ice. It's not just terrible weather and snow. I mean, it's actual. Can they always get through to Murmansk? Well, Murmansk was the only Russian port to be open and free of ice all year due to the Atlantic drift currents, which kept the ice at bay. But you're right. Further north, there was pack ice completely blocking access to the seas north of the Norwegian coast. So the convoys had to sail much further south and comfortable to be free from the ice. However, that meant that they were in closer range to German forces sailing or flying out of Norway. As the Arctic winter led into spring, the ice started to break up. So another hazard that the ships had to deal with were icebergs. And there are accounts of sailors sleeping in messes within the forward sections of their ships, being kept awake by the thud of icebergs as the as the ship sailed through them. Banging on the hull. That's it. Exactly. Yes. What was the effect on Belfast and these other ships? Was that environment really, really difficult? And did Belfast have to go in for regular refits? Yes. The biggest problem they had was ice forming on the superstructure and on the mechanisms. If you imagine the spray of the water hitting freezing the freezing steel of the ships, gun turrets froze up, gun barrels froze up. And the crew during the short Arctic day were all employed on trying to break off the ice. Regular refits were required, but these weren't always possible sailing between Britain and Soviet Russia. So when Belfast was taken off the Arctic convoys from April 1944 onwards, she received a welcome refit ready for further operations in the war. I mean, her crew must have been quite happy to stop doing that. Yes, the shore leave afforded when Belfast went back into refit was was most welcome. Belfast was refitted up for scythe in Scotland. So shore leave to Edinburgh was very popular with the crew to finally see their families and go and see a film or a show. And maybe go to the pub. I think many of them stayed there for most of their leave. Yes. For the rest of the war, these Arctic convoys kept plying the northern route, departing from Liverpool, the Clyde and Loch Ewe. But it wasn't just the men on the ships who made these convoys possible. Hundreds of British specialists were sent to Murmansk and Archangel in order to get the port facilities ready to accept the volume of supplies needed. Meanwhile, the Soviet defenders of Murmansk and the areas surrounding fought a brilliant and desperate defense in spite of the overwhelming odds against them. They kept the city free and allowed the port to be used. Over the course of the war, nearly four million tons of supplies was delivered to the Soviet Union via the Arctic route. It was a phenomenal amount. What's all too often forgotten are the stories of the men who had to take it there. The men who had to go on what Winston Churchill described as the worst journey in the world. I'm joining Captain David Parsons of the Merchant Navy Association, who can tell me more about the men who lived and died on these convoys. So, David, who were these men? They were civilians, as simple as that. Many of them had been at sea all their lives. A lot of them had been through the 1930s recession. So they were actually glad to have permanent employment. But they hadn't signed up to... But they hadn't signed up for the Russian convoys. And I think a lot of them were unaware of how brutal war was going to become anyway, in a more general sense. Their ages ranged between 14 and 70 plus. Those at 70 plus, quite a lot of those came back to sea from retirement. So, you know, by that time, they were elderly people, but wanted to do their bit because they had the experience and the skills for their country. Huge variety in age. Absolutely. Huge social mix. Huge social mix. Yes. I mean, you know, officers, crew, some of the crew came from obviously very poor backgrounds. Many of them came from overseas as well. We had in those days, we had a lot of Alaskans, Chinese and African crews. So they were primarily ratings, but there was also a lot of British ratings as well. What sort of conditions did they face? Pretty, pretty basic on a lot of cases. I mean, most of the ships that were on those convoys were not designed to be in Arctic waters. So some were cargo liners, which had been on the traditional trades between mostly our country and the Commonwealth. Some were tramps, which could go anywhere. The crew, the seamen themselves, could live in the focsal, which is the fore part of the ship or the after part of the ship, depending on who they were, in very, very basic accommodation, six or more in a cabin. Very rudimentary heating. They had straw mattresses, affectionately known as donkey's breakfasts. They were issued with one of those at the beginning of every trip and two blankets. And when they were in the Arctic convoys, they just never got undressed. Two reasons. One, to try and keep warm. The other, if they had to abandon ship, at least, you know, they had some warm clothes to do so. And you've talked to so many of these veterans. What are their memories and stories about being in those northern latitude waters? Well, the very positive side of it, and it was always true of the British Navy, was the camaraderie. Ships are like a little community. And you normally sail with really good people that you become very close friends with and never see again when you leave the ship. And that was amazing. That's what kept them going. But I think it was also a terrifying experience. I mean, they were in freezing cold waters. Their biggest worry was if they had to abandon ship. If if they went into the water, they would have a few minutes to survive at best. Do you think the Arctic convoys was the worst posting, the worst job they had to do? I think it probably was. I mean, none of them signed up to do that. They didn't know where the ships were going. Nobody told the crew where the ship was going until it sailed. They may have an idea when they saw what the cargo was, but they didn't know. And of course, when they got there, it was horrendous. I mean, they had open bridges, a lot of the lookout posts were open. They were out there in all weathers. They they frequently had to turn to to knock ice off of deck machinery and deck housing. Are there any names up here on the on these memorials that you are particularly drawn to? There are. I'll point out, too, if I may, on this one here. All right, David, which one are we looking at here? So we're looking at the Gulistan out of Newcastle on Tyne. Almost certainly a tramp. She was lost with all 51 hands just off Spitsbergen. Deep into the Arctic. Yeah. The master's name at the top of the list at the very bottom of the list, only in alphabetical order is Peter Wilson. He was 16. Wow. Kind of brings it home. So we can imagine the last few minutes of that ship in the Arctic, freezing cold, November dark. Yeah, probably some got off, but didn't survive. It's all November in those waters. You're caught between the devil and deep blue sea. It's either the heat or the fire of the scalding steam coming from rupturing pipes or you're into the freezing cold. Yeah. It's a vision of hell, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It is. Kind of brings it home. They'd still been at school now. The brutal Arctic route claimed the lives of an estimated 3,000 sailors, including 16 year old Peter Wilson. The Soviet ambassador in London, Ivan Mayski, said the Arctic convoys were a northern saga of heroism, bravery and endurance. One of the most striking expressions of collaboration between allied governments, without which our common victory would have been impossible. This is the Soviet War Memorial in South London. It's the only one in the UK. The inscription reads Vishnaya Vampamyat. Eternal memory to you. The Arctic convoys were a remarkable feat. They helped sustain the Soviet war effort. They eroded Axis resources. And in the end, they contributed to allied victory in the war. It's worth remembering that all of these war materials that were delivered to the Soviet Union went to arm and equip millions of young Soviets as they fought against Hitler's forces and sustained terrible casualties. Although the tanks and guns and aircraft cost Britain and America a lot of money, as one Soviet Red Army veteran, Viktor Kravchenko, said, God knows we paid it back in full in Russian lives.