By 1942 the war wasn't going too well for the Allies. The USSR had been invaded by Hitler and needed supplies from the West desperately. The Germans were only fifteen miles from Moscow.
Host Jeremy Clarkson brings us a globe that explains why the quickest way to get supplies from Britain and America was up into the arctic, around German-held territory, and into the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel.
Then, using little models, he demonstrates the organization of the convoy system that, for the most part, "worked," as he says. In the center of the convoy would be several dozen aging freighters and tankers, slow and overloaded with supplies. In his book, "Monsarrat at Sea," Nicholas Monsarrat describes the old freighters beating against a head wind at the speed of a man walking. One doesn't have to imagine what easy targets these unarmed, rusty, and extremely important ships were for German bombers, torpedo planes, and U-boats because Clarkson makes it very clear.
The convoys did have protection. Miles away, in a circle around them, were British and American warships designed to fend off attacks by enemy surface vessels. Closer around the convoy was a circle of destroyers and other escort vessels armed with anti-aircraft weapons and depth charges.
Yet PQ17 left Iceland for Archangel and lost two thirds of its ships on the way. Clarkson pins the blame on one man in the Admiralty, suffering from a brain tumor that would kill him three months after the disaster.
A rumor was circulating that the German battleship Tirpitz was leaving its shelter in Norway and heading for the convoy. The rumor was unsubstantiated by any evidence and contradicted by naval intelligence. But the Admiralty, realizing that none of the accompanying Allied ships could possibly win an engagement with the superb German battleship, withdrew the entire escort and ordered the convoy to scatter at once. They scattered, got lost, and were picked off by bombs and torpedoes. The Tirpitz, of course, remained in port.
Host Clarkson takes us on a cruise through the same northern waters on a modern British warship. It's terrible. The seas are monstrous and the sea water rushing over the decks freezes and droops in stalactites from every fixture, immobilizing weapons and all other equipment. If enough of it accumulates, the ship becomes top heavy and capsizes.
Clarkson retraces the route of a gallant little armed trawler leading three American ships through the pack ice of the northern passage to a large island called Nova Zemblya. The island is uninhabited. The reason it's uninhabited is that it's uninhabitable. You have never seen such a bleak, wintry landscape, with no vegetation and nothing to eat but however many sea birds you're able to catch. The Americans want to scuttle their ships but the British skipper of the trawler talks them out of it and the little group makes its way finally to port.
There are talking heads of survivors, most of them now gone, and their stories are chilling. One British seaman managed to make his way from his torpedoed ship into a lifeboat. There were thirty-two men in the lifeboat with him. All but four died, within thirteen miles of land.
It's a vivid, honest, and shocking story of a tragedy that should never have happened.
