During World War 2, after Hitler had overrun the continent and invaded the Soviet Union, the allies had made a treaty with the Soviet Union to supply them with war supplies. Cargo included tanks, fighter planes, fuel, ammunition, raw materials, and food. The early convoys in particular delivered armoured vehicles and Hawker Hurricanes to make up for shortages in the Soviet Union. The Arctic convoys caused major changes to naval dispositions on both sides, which arguably had a major impact on the course of events in other theatres of war. As a result of early raids by destroyers on German coastal shipping and a Commando raid on the Norway coast, Hitler was led to believe that the British intended to invade Norway again. This, together with the obvious need to stop convoy supplies reaching the Soviet Union, caused him to direct that heavier ships, especially the battleship Tirpitz, be sent to Norway, along with submarines.
The Arctic convoys of World War II were oceangoing convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and the United States to northern ports in the Soviet Union – primarily Archangel and Murmansk in Russia. There were 78 convoys between August 1941 and May 1945. About 1,400 merchant ships delivered essential supplies to the Soviet Union under the Anglo-Soviet agreement and US Lend-Lease program, escorted by ships of the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and the U.S. Navy.
Eighty-five merchant vessels and 16 Royal Navy warships (two cruisers, six destroyers, eight other escort ships ) were lost. Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine lost a number of vessels including one battleship, three destroyers, 30 U-boats, and many aircraft. The convoys demonstrated the Allies’ commitment to helping the Soviet Union, prior to the opening of a second front, and tied up a substantial part of Germany’s naval and air forces.
The route skirted occupied Norway on route to the Soviet ports. It was very dangerous. Particular dangers included: the proximity of German air, submarine and surface forces; the likelihood of severe weather; the frequency of fog; the strong currents; drift ice; the difficulties of navigating and maintaining convoy cohesion in constant darkness in winter convoys.
It so happens that a Kinvara Merchant seaman left an unpublished memoir of his experience aboard one of these convoys. His name was Garrett Plunkett Nally, a radio officer on one of the vessels sunk on the Northern convoys. He had learned to fly before the war, but when the Second World War broke out, he was too old for combat flying. Consequently, he went to The United States where he joined the US merchant Navy.
His vessel was one of those around the outside of the convoys bound from New York to Murmansk. These were called “coffin nails” as they were most likely to get hit by torpedoes. His cargo was aircraft parts for the Russians. He came from a family that had always had officers in the British Army. They were all members of the Butler clan. He lived with his sister Christina, neither ever having married, in a beautiful stone cut house called ‘Thornville’ just outside that village.
It is a pleasure to publish part of his memoir, transcribed by his nephew, Peter Charleton,
What follows is an excerpt from a longer manuscript. He called it
SOME DUCKS GET THROUGH: A Memoir of the Arctic Convoys
A beautiful sunset -
After stowing away my gear, I crawled into my upper bunk. I was fascinated by the sun sinking behind the New York skyline, and I remarked, “What a beautiful sunset”. They both laughed and I did not know why until the next day when they greeted me by the name of “Sundown”, a name that was to stick to me for the rest of the trip.
My first day on board was watch. During my watch on deck, we sailed up the East River under the cover of darkness, taking advantage of the safety of Long Island Sound, getting, as it were, the feel of things before going into the sub-infested North Atlantic. I was on the focastle head lookout and I could recognise all the old familiar landmarks as we nosed our way cautiously up stream. As I mused about life in the big city, Slim rolled up along the focastle head in the darkness to relieve me. As the days passed, the weather grew increasingly cold as we held a northerly course, and I was glad to have that old fur coat up there on look out, seventy feet above the rolling deck in the little steel box called the Crow’s Nest, where the wind rises to a shriek and makes you gasp as you try to breathe. My job was to keep a sharp look out through the flying clouds above. I could not put my hands in my pockets to warm them as I had to grasp the sides to balance myself and brace my back against the mast to offset the constant plunge and roll of the ship.
Machine-gunned lifeboats
We were going on the most dangerous run in the world, loaded to the water-line with high explosives and we carried a deck load of planes – an additional incentive for the wolf-packs who waited out there for a long slow pull like ours. We were told that we would have to make up with guts what we lacked in armament. Our top speed was 8 knots. We were in the company of merchant ships and tankers. They had been pressed into service by the Allied countries to replace the terrific loss taken by the subs. Most of them had been obsolete Great War craft were not impressive as fighting ships. They had light-calibre machine guns and some had no guns at all, and we were on our way to meet the best that Hitler could offer.
The deck department would man the guns, and we were an intent, serious group when we received instructions in handling the pieces. The machine-gunned lifeboats we saw each day bore grim evidence of what previous convoys went through.
As the days passed, I learned to love the ships in convoy and I anxiously counted them each morning. From the crow’s nest, they reminded me of a brood of young ducklings under the watchful eyes of their elders, the corvettes that kept circling and advising us what to do. When danger seemed evident, the corvettes quacked several times and we scurried in wild confusion, zigzagging all over the place, belching smoke and thrashing white seas from our propellers.
Safety of a fogbank-
We must have been near the Arctic Circle when we had our first alarm. I got to my station, the 50-millimetre gun, in time to see the Greek freighter go up in black, billowy smoke. We peered through the night that was not night at all, but a weird twilight, until our eyes were red-rimmed. All we could see was floating debris and the bowed heads of seamen sustained by their life-jackets, floating past our wake. We took pot shots at anything that resembled a periscope, and the light from our guns was reflected by the icebergs that took on grotesque shapes as they drifted past. I looked around at my shipmates in their rubber suits and yellow hoods. The strong, silent ones, who professed to have no religion could be heard praying, while the meek, silent ones blasphemed. We sought the safety of a fog-bank and became separated from the convoy. We floundered around helplessly waiting for the “coup de grace” from the wolf pack that waited for strays like ours.
A corvette came alongside and asked over the microphone what ship and number. We told him No. 13. He gave us the course to follow and warned us of the added danger of sea raiders reported in the vicinity. He left us in a cloud of spray. He could not stand by us; he had made contact with the subs and was off to drop depth charges.
After joining what was left of the convoy, we were given an outside position known as “coffin corner”. There were just twelve of the original brood of ducklings left. The intermittent fog gave us a false sense of security. I had a couple of hours sleep prior to going on watch and was having coffee. Charlie was playing poker with some of the jittery ones who could not sleep.
I volunteered to go below for some food and was on my way back when there was a violent explosion like the slamming of the gates of hell.
Blown into the air-
I was blown several feet in the air, but I landed running toward the forecastle for my rubber suit. I could see a gaping hole where once the mess room had been. Poor Charlie and the rest of the poker players never knew what hit them. The forecastle felt very lonely and I felt jittery as I groped around in the darkness for my belongings. The water was already sloshing around on the deck, as the ship rolled and shuddered at every depth charge dropped by the corvette. The door banged shut and jammed tightly.
I had just about given up hope when my hand rested on a little cross given to me years ago by my mother. I clutched it and knelt in the water by my bunk to say a silent prayer. That seemed to steady me somewhat, and I grasped for the fire hatchet and hacked my way through the escape panel. I reached the boat deck which was in wild confusion. Men cursed as they tried to release the last remaining life boat. I helped Slim lower away and when the capacity-filled boat hit the water, he insisted that I go first. There was no use or time arguing with Slim
I slid down the man rope and luckily made the boat. I had torn my rubber suit in doing so, and it would have filled with water and taken me under had I hit the sea. I shoved off as quickly as possible to avoid the suction that would follow the sinking ship. We took some rafts in tow in the darkness and with the dawn’s early light, I sighted Slim sitting on a raft with Smiler tucked inside his rubber suit kangaroo-fashion, showing all his teeth in a proud smile.
We were picked up eventually by the corvette and transferred on board a Panamanian oil tanker manned by men from the four corners of the earth. One beautiful moonlit night, I sighted land, and I knew it was Ireland. I could have cried with them as I remembered what I had gone through. I speculated on the chances of the battered remnants of the brood of ducklings surviving that harvest moon. The moon that I had over me now resembled a huge leering monster and, as I gazed at it,
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I resolved never to shoot a duck again. I would never have the heart to do so.
We hugged the Irish coast for two days. The white-washed thatched cottages seemed so peaceful and so much away from it all that I felt glad my country had stayed out of the war. I had seen the cruel hideous side, and had heard the unforgettable agonizing cries for help come from that world of sea on which I had tried to survive for the past twenty-five days. Then we sighted England.
I telephoned my mother in Ireland the next day, and tried to act as cheerful as possible, as I told her of English hospitality it was worth the trip just to talk with her and have her assurance that all would be well – and to know that she was praying for our safety.
The trip back was uneventful. Once in New York I fought my way into the uptown subway with my sea bag in tow, a couple of Westside mink-attired ladies drew their coats tightly around them when I sat down. Then made as much room for me as the crowded subway would allow, since they didn’t wish to be contaminated by touching me. I could overhear their conversation. They had released their chauffeurs for defence work and weren’t used to riding in subways to their bridge parties. To their own way of thinking, they were making the supreme sacrifice and were the unsung heroines of the war. But compared to my mother’s soul, their mink coats and diamonds were shallow indeed.
After a good night’s sleep, I called a friend in Long Island. and I had only forty-eight hours before shipping out again.
