REMEMBERING THE ARCTIC CONVOYS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2011 :: RMTnews 26 Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22 1941 Britain forged a new anti- fascist military alliance which included the shipping of essential materials to help the beleaguered Soviets to resist. British wartime leader Winston Churchill launched the first Arctic convoy on August 12 1941 as a vital demonstration of solidarity and support, even if the material contribution was insufficient to meet Soviet needs. The first convoy of merchant ships marked the beginning of a dangerous and difficult campaign that would continue until the end of the war with the last convoy arriving at Murmansk on May 22 1945 with no losses. However 104 merchant ships, 19 Royal Navy warships and over 2,700 British seamen had been lost in the fight to supply the Soviet war effort. Initially, the primary contributors of merchant and naval shipping were the British. But the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 led to a steady increase in Allied contributions. By the end of 1943, Allied dominance of the Mediterranean made possible the opening of a new supply route through the Middle East. Although this longer route ultimately became the dominant source of Anglo- US supply to the embattled Soviets, the Arctic convoys continued to run. By the end of the war they had accounted for about 25 per cent of all the supplies shipped to the USSR, and accomplished this in the face of appalling weather conditions and heavy enemy opposition. While shipments of tanks, aircraft and other supplies were standard fare, the convoys occasionally bore other forms of support in the form of a trade union delegation. The German assault on the Soviet Union provoked a wave of sympathetic feeling among British workers. Within weeks of the invasion, the TUC had set up the ‘Help for Russia’ fund and established the Anglo-Russian Trade Union Council to maintain contact with their Soviet counterparts. On October 6 1941, the first TUC delegation sailed for Russia aboard the destroyers HMS Anthony and HMS Norman. This was the first of a number of such visits which continued throughout the war and played an important part in improving understanding and relations between British and Soviet workers. Since the war, the Arctic convoys have received less attention than other campaigns. Perhaps the best-known commemoration of the wartime Arctic experience in modern fiction is Alistair MacLean’s HMS Ulysses, whose harrowing description of conditions greatly influenced perceptions of the Arctic convoys when it was published. Formal recognition of the achievements and endurance of Arctic veterans has been slow, the theatre originally being covered by the Atlantic Star medal. However British veterans were awarded the Soviet-issued Russian Convoy Medal in 1994. In the last ten years there has been a notable escalation in the efforts to achieve greater recognition for Arctic veterans, resulting in the creation of the Arctic Star emblem. The first Stars were presented to veterans in March 2005, and to date several thousand have been issued to veterans or their descendants. Pressure from some quarters for the introduction of a separate campaign medal of equal status to the Atlantic Star continues. To commemorate the despatching of the first Arctic REMEMBERING THE ARCTIC CONVOYS National Maritime Museum launches exhibition which includes the opportunity to meet veterans of the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union undertaken during the war, described as ‘the worst journey in the world’