Operation Dervish (1941)

On 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany and its allies. That evening, Winston Churchill broadcast a promise of assistance to the USSR against the common enemy. On 7 July, Churchill wrote to Stalin and ordered the British ambassador in Moscow, Stafford Cripps, to begin discussions for a treaty of mutual assistance. On 12 July, an Anglo-Soviet Agreement was signed in Moscow, to fight together and not make a separate peace.[1] On the same day a Soviet commission met the Royal Navy and the RAF in London and it was decided to use the airfield at Vaenga (now Severomorsk) as a fighter base to defend ships unloading at the ports of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Polyarny.[2] The First Sea Lord, Admiral Dudley Pound considered such proposals unsound, "with the dice loaded against us in every direction".[3] When Arctic convoys passed by the north of Norway into the Barents Sea, they came well into range of German aircraft, U-boats and ships operating from bases in Norway and Finland. The ports of arrival, especially Murmansk, only about 15 mi (24 km) east of the front line were vulnerable to attack by the Luftwaffe.[2]

Russian map showing Arctic convoy routes from Britain and Iceland, past Norway to the Barents Sea and northern Russian ports

After Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, began on 22 June 1941, the UK and USSR signed an agreement in July that they would "render each other assistance and support of all kinds in the present war against Hitlerite Germany".[4] The USSR turned out to lack the ships and escorts and the British and Americans, who had made a commitment to "help with the delivery", undertook to deliver the supplies for want of an alternative. (In September, after the arrival of Dervish, the main Soviet need in 1941 was military equipment to replace losses because two large aircraft factories were being moved east from Leningrad and two more from Ukraine. It would take at least eight months to resume production, until when, aircraft output would fall from 80 to 30 aircraft per day. Britain and the US undertook to send 400 aircraft a month, at a ratio of three bombers to one fighter (later reversed), 500 tanks a month and 300 Bren gun carriers. The Anglo-Americans also undertook to send 42,000 long tons (43,000 t) of aluminium and 3, 862 machine tools, along with sundry raw materials, food and medical supplies.)[5]

Map showing the White Sea and the Gulf of Arkhangelsk

The transport of supplies to the USSR was more difficult than any of the other theatres of war. Limitations of geography, climate and the nature of sea transport were extremely difficult to overcome but until ports in the Persian Gulf and the overland rail route through Iran were improved, the Arctic route was the only feasible one, apart from the small amount of supplies being sent via ports in the Soviet Far East. The entrepôts of Murmansk and those in the White Sea had not been built for mass cargoes of military equipment.[6]

There were few cranes and none of them were capable of lifting heavy items. Rail links were inadequate, some berths not having rail connexions.[6][lower-alpha 1] The gulf ports were iced from the end of November to the end of May. Further from the front line than Murmansk [30 mi (48 km) by the autumn of 1941] the Soviet authorities claimed that they could be kept open by ice-breakers but could only provide two of the eight to ten they promised and Stalin was bombed on 15 January 1942, leaving five British ships iced in until the spring.[6]

Diagram of the Arctic Ocean

Between Greenland and Norway are some of the most stormy waters of the world's oceans, 890 mi (1,440 km) of water under gales full of snow, sleet and hail.[8] The cold Arctic water was met by the Gulf Stream, warm water from the Gulf of Mexico, which became the North Atlantic Drift. Arriving at the south-west of England the drift moves between Scotland and Iceland; north of Norway the drift splits. One stream bears north of Bear Island to Svalbard and a southern stream follows the coast of Murmansk into the Barents Sea. The mingling of cold Arctic water and warmer water of higher salinity generates thick banks of fog for convoys to hide in but the waters drastically reduced the effectiveness of ASDIC as U-boats moved in waters of differing temperatures and density.[8]

In winter, polar ice can form as far south as 50 mi (80 km) off the North Cape and in summer it can recede to Svalbard. The area is in perpetual darkness in winter and permanent daylight in the summer and can make air reconnaissance almost impossible.[8] Around the North Cape and in the Barents Sea the sea temperature rarely rises about 4° Celsius and a man in the water will die unless rescued immediately.[8] The cold water and air makes spray freeze on the superstructure of ships, which has to be removed quickly to avoid the ship becoming top-heavy. Conditions in U-boats were, if anything, worse the boats having to submerge in warmer water to rid the superstructure of ice. Crewmen on watch were exposed to the elements, oil lost its viscosity, nuts froze and sheared off. Heaters in the hull were too demanding of current and could not be run continuously.[9]

The Dervish convoy was part of a series of operations in the Arctic during August 1941. In July the British had conducted Operation EF, an attack on the ports of Kirkenes and Petsamo by carrier aircraft, while the fast minelayer Adventure had run to Archangelsk with a cargo of parachute mines. At the end of July a cruiser force commanded by Rear Admiral Philip Vian had investigated the Spitzbergen archipelago for signs of German activity and had destroyed a weather station on Hope Island.[10] In August a convoy of six ships loaded with war materiel was to sail to Archangelsk, together with a contingent of RAF personnel to prepare the way for Operation Strength, a plan to fly 48 Hurricane fighters from the aircraft carrier Argus to airfields in Russia in a similar manner to the Club Run operations in the Mediterranean. At the same time Vian was to return to Spitzbergen and evacuate the population in Operation Gauntlet.[11]

The convoy consisted of the merchant ships Lancastrian Prince, New Westminster City, Esneh, Trehata, the elderly (ex-Union Castle liner) SS Llanstephan Castle, the fleet oiler RFA Aldersdale and the Dutch freighter Alchiba.[12] The convoy carried wool, rubber and tin and 24 crated Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft.[13] Captain John Dowding Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) was Convoy Commodore in Llanstephan Castle, which carried most of the 2,700 men of 151 Wing Royal Air Force (RAF), including fourteen pilots. There were several civilians, including Vernon Bartlett MP, the US newspaper reporter Wallace Carrol, the Polish expressionist painter and official British and Polish war artist Feliks Topolski, a Polish legation, a Czechoslovak commission and Charlotte Haldane, a noted feminist and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who lectured on Domestic life in Russia as part of an impromptu course laid on by the civilians.[14]

The convoy was protected by an ocean escort comprising the destroyer Electra and the Anti-submarine warfare trawlers Hamlet and Macbeth. The ocean escort was joined later by the destroyers Active and Impulsive and the trawler Ophelia. The escorts were supported in the first and second stages of the voyage by the anti-aircraft auxiliary ship Pozarica and the trawlers Celia, St. Cathan and Le Tiger. The second stage escorts were replaced in the third stage by the minesweepers Halcyon, Salamander and Harrier which had been posted to north Russia as a local escort force. The convoy was also accompanied by the cruiser Aurora, en route to join the force for Operation Gauntlet. The operations were supported by a Distant Cover Force from the Home Fleet, the carrier HMS Victorious and the cruisers Devonshire and Suffolk, with the destroyers Eclipse, Escapade and Inglefield.[12]

A Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Kondor of KG 40

In mid-1941, Luftflotte 5 (Air Fleet 5) had been re-organised for Operation Barbarossa with Luftgau Norwegen (Air Region Norway) headquartered in Oslo. Fliegerführer Stavanger (Air Commander Stavanger) was responsible for the centre and north of Norway, Jagdfliegerführer Norwegen (Fighter Leader Norway) commanded the fighter force and Fliegerführer Kerkenes (Oberst [colonel] Andreas Nielsen) in the far north had airfields at Kirkenes and Banak. The Air Fleet had 180 aircraft, sixty of which were reserved for operations on the Karelian Front against the Red Army. The distance from Banak to Archangelsk was 560 mi (900 km) and Fliegerführer Kerkenes had only ten Junkers Ju 88 bombers of Kampfgeschwader 30, thirty Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers, ten Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters of Jagdgeschwader 77, five Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighters of Zerstörergeschwader 76, ten reconnaissance aircraft and an anti-aircraft battalion. Sixty aircraft were far from adequate in such a climate and terrain where "there is no favourable season for operations".[15]

Norwegian population readying for evacuation from Longyearbyen

Operation Gauntlet was an Allied Combined Operation to land on the Spitzbergen archipelago, to evacuate Norwegian and Soviet civilians there and to destroy facilities to deny them to the Germans. A force of two cruisers and four destroyers, with the troopship Empress of Canada and a replenishment oiler left British waters on 19 August 1941, arriving at Spitzbergen on 25 August.[21] After evacuating Soviet coal miners at Barentsburg and Norwegians at Longyearbyen, the coal mining and shipping infrastructure, equipment and stores there were destroyed. The Allies also suppressed wireless stations on the archipelago, to prevent the Germans receiving weather reports.[22] The Allies departed the archipelago on 3 September having suffered no casualties, the local civilians were repatriated, several ships were taken as prizes and Bremse, a German gunnery training ship, was sunk on the return journey.[23]

The old aircraft carrier Argus (launched in 1917) took part in Operation Strength (30 August – 14 September) with the heavy cruiser Shropshire and the destroyers Matabele, Punjabi and Somali, protected by the Dervish covering force.[24] Strength ferried pilots, their 24 Hurricanes and other personnel of 151 Wing RAF to Russia; the Hurricanes were flown off Argus direct to Vaenga airfield, near Murmansk. The ships reached the flying-off point safely due to the scarcity of Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft in the region.[16] Normal naval aircraft used a ramp at the end of the flight deck to help get into the air but the Hurricane undercarriage was not robust enough and the first two Hurricanes to take off were damaged. The rest of the aircraft avoided the ramp and the damaged Hurricanes crashed on landing at Vaenga.[25]

The force sailed from Scapa Flow on 24 August and returned on 14 September.[24]

Distant Covering Force[24][lower-alpha 4]

Name	Flag	Ship Type	Notes
Devonshire	Royal Navy	Cruiser
Eclipse	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Escapade	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Inglefield	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Suffolk	Royal Navy	Cruiser
HMS Victorious	Royal Navy	Aircraft carrier	Flagship Rear Admiral Frederic Wake-Walker

The ships sailed from the Clyde on 19 August and returned on 7 September.[33]

Operation Gauntlet[33][lower-alpha 5]

Name	Flag	Ship Type	Notes
Antelope	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Anthony	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Aurora	Royal Navy	Cruiser
Empress of Canada	Royal Navy	Troopship
Icarus	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Nigeria	Royal Navy	Cruiser	Flagship, Rear-Admiral Philip Vian
Oligarch	Royal Navy	oiler

The ships in this operation sailed from Scapa Flow on 30 August and returned on 14 September.[24]

Operation Strength[24][lower-alpha 6]

Name	Flag	Ship type	Notes
Argus	Royal Navy	Aircraft carrier	Transporting 24 Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft of 151 Wing RAF to the USSR
Shropshire	Royal Navy	Heavy cruiser
Matabele	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Punjabi	Royal Navy	Destroyer
Somali	Royal Navy	Destroyer