The Grand Alliance (105 page)

On August 12 the first “P.Q.” convoy of six ships for Russia sailed from Liverpool by Iceland to Archangel.

Henceforward convoys to North Russia ran regularly once or twice a month. They were strongly escorted and not yet interfered with by the enemy. When Archangel became icebound, Murmansk was used. There was too much jubilation and publicity about the successful passage of supplies to the Russian Army, and heavy forfeits were to follow in another year.

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With the Russian entry into the war the German air attacks on shipping near our coasts somewhat lessened. The Focke-Wulf ranged widely, but our fighter-catapult ships, devised for this very danger, were now coming out, and soon gained successes. The converging homeward routes from Gibraltar and Sierra Leone became the target of German air and U-boat attacks, costing us during August and September thirty-one ships and three escort vessels.

Among these was the famous destroyer
Cossack
of
Altmark
and
Bismarck
fame. The first true escort carrier, H.M.S.

Audacity,
operating six aircraft from a flying deck, came into action in September, and immediately proved the value of her type. Not only could she destroy or drive off the Focke-Wulf, but by air reconnaissance in daylight she could keep the U-boats down and give timely warnings about them.

The
Audacity
became the model on which in later years large numbers of vessels were built in the United States to play a vital part in the U-boat war and later in amphibious operations.

The
Audacity
herself had a short career. She was sunk by a U-boat on December 21 after a most gallant action while escorting a homeward-bound convoy from Gibraltar.

Commander F. J. Walker, who commanded the convoy escort, greatly distinguished himself on this occasion in a combat lasting several days and nights, during which four U-boats were destroyed out of about nine, besides two Focke-Wulfs. One night his ship, the
Stork,
pursued and rammed a U-boat in the darkness. The two ships were side by side and so close together that the four-inch guns of the
Stork
could not be sufficiently depressed and the guns’ crews were “reduced to fist-shaking and roaring curses,” until depth charges did their work. Commander Walker was promoted and became our foremost U-boat killer. Before

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his untimely death from illness in 1944, he and the several groups he commanded had sunk twenty U-boats, six of them at one go.

Further relief was given to us in the Atlantic Ocean by the German decision to send U-boats into the Mediterranean.

Five of these were destroyed in the Straits of Gibraltar, and six others damaged and forced to return, but twenty-four successfully made the passage, and, as will be seen in a later chapter, became a grievous factor there.

War on our ocean commerce was also maintained by the disguised German merchant ships. The Australian cruiser
Sydney
encountered “Raider G” off the west coast of Australia. The German, thanks to his disguise, succeeded in enticing his adversary to point-blank range before opening fire. Both ships were sunk. Twenty-five Germans were picked up later, and others eventually landed in Western Australia. Of the
Sydney’s
crew of over seven hundred none survived. This was a sombre sacrifice in lonely waters.

A few days later “Raider C,” which had destroyed twenty ships, of about 140,000 tons in all, was caught and sunk in the South Atlantic by the cruiser
Dorsetshire.
The losses inflicted by the disguised German surface raiders, of whom there were from first to last nine, were as follows:

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We had therefore solid reasons, even in 1941, for satisfaction at the whole trend of the ocean war upon our commerce. In November, 1941, our losses from U-boats fell to the lowest figure since May, 1940. In spite of all Hitler’s boasts and the multiplication of his U-boat and air strength and our ever-increasing convoys at sea, British and Allied shipping losses in 1941 were hardly greater than in 1940.

Of course there were more targets on both sides, but the number of U-boats sunk by us (including Italian) rose from forty-two in 1940 to fifty-three in 1941. The table showing total losses on deserves careful study.

TOTAL LOSSES, IN GROSS TONS, OF BRITISH, ALLIED, AND NEUTRAL MERCHANT SHIPS AND FISHING VESSELS

BY ENEMY ACTION

(Numbers of ships in parentheses)

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Thus, on the eve of a supreme change in the war we had made formidable increases in our military power and were still steadily advancing both in actual strength and in the The Grand Alliance

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mastery of our many problems. We felt ourselves strong to defend our Island, and able to send troops abroad to the utmost limit of our shipping. We wondered about the future, but, after all we had surmounted, could not fear it. Invasion had no terrors, and at the same time our life-lines across the ocean grew safer, broader, more numerous and more fruitful. Our control of the approaches to the Island grew better every month. The threatened stranglehold of the German Air and U-boats had been broken, and the enemy was driven far from our shores. Food, munitions, and supplies arrived in an ever-expanding stream. The output of our own factories increased every month. The Mediterranean, the Desert, and the Middle East were still in peril, but in the closing days of November on land and sea and in the air we felt thankful with the way the war had so far gone.

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8

Closer Contacts with Russia

Autumn and Winter, 1941

Anglo-Soviet Relations — Difficulties of Military
Concert — Our Efforts to Help in the Caucasus —

Question of Our Declaring War on Finland,
Rumania, and Hungary
—
My Telegram to Stalin
of November
4
— His Reply, November
8 —
Mr.

Eden’s Conversation with the Soviet Ambassador,
November
20 —
I Offer to Send Mr. Eden to
Moscow — Stalin Accepts
—
I am Reluctant to
Face the Breach with Finland, Rumania, and
Hungary — My Appeal to Field-Marshal Mannerheim — Mr. Eden’s Mission to Moscow — My
Directive of December
6 —
The First Failure of a
German Blitzkrieg.

T
WO THEMES now dominated our relations with the Soviet Union. The first was the vague and unsatisfactory state of our consultations on military matters, and the second the Russian request that we should sever relations with the Axis satellites, Finland, Hungary, and Rumania. As we have seen, little progress had been made in the former direction during the recent meetings in Moscow. About the first, on November 1 I sent the following minute to the Foreign Secretary:

Prime

Minister

to

1 Nov. 41

Foreign Secretary

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I was not aware that we had ever taken the line that
there should be no consultation on military matters. On
the contrary, did we not tell them definitely we would
consult on military matters? Certainly I wrote a paper
for Lord Beaverbrook’s guidance
1
which dealt entirely
with the military situation apart from that of supply.

General Ismay was sent to Russia for the purpose of
embarking on the military discussion. It could have
made no difference in fact, as there is no practical step
of any serious importance which can at present be
taken. He might have explained by facts and figures
how very foolish and physically impossible was the
suggestion that we should send “twenty-five or thirty
divisions” to the Russian front. He could have explained
how even moving two or three divisions in at either end
of the Russian front would choke the communications
needed for Russian supplies. On the other hand, I do
not see why these conversations did not take place at
some time or other in the conference. Undoubtedly
Lord Beaverbrook and Stalin touched upon the military
issue.

General Wavell has already been to Tiflis without
finding anyone in authority to speak to him. He speaks
Russian well, and it might well be that he should
undertake a journey to Moscow. It is only by the southern flank that we could enter for many months to come.

Anyhow, let us get the facts straightened out.

PS. – You should see Wavell’s telegram just received, showing how even two divisions at or north of
Tabriz will completely choke the Trans-Persian Railway.