Convoy QP 10
Convoy QP 10 was an Arctic convoy of the Second World War, consisting of empty merchant ships returning from the Soviet Union after unloading. The convoy had 16 merchant ships and an escort of nine warships. The convoy departed Murmansk on 10 April 1942 and arrived in Reykjavík on 21 April. The convoy was attacked by German U-boats and aircraft, resulting in the loss of four merchant ships., was damaged by air attack and forced to turn back to the Kola Inlet. The convoy escorts shot down six German aircraft and damaged another during the voyage.
Background
Arctic convoys
In October 1941, after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, which had begun on 22 June, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made a commitment to send a convoy to the Arctic ports of the USSR every ten days and to deliver a month from July 1942 to January 1943, followed by and another more than already promised. The first convoy was due at Murmansk around 12 October and the next convoy was to depart Iceland on 22 October. A motley of British, Allied and neutral shipping loaded with military stores and raw materials for the Soviet war effort would be assembled at Hvalfjörður in Iceland, convenient for ships from both sides of the Atlantic.By late 1941, the convoy system used in the Atlantic had been established on the Arctic run. A convoy commodore ensured that the ships' masters and signals officers attended a briefing before sailing, to make arrangements for the management of the convoy, which sailed in a formation of long rows of short columns. The commodore was usually a retired naval officer, aboard a ship identified by a white pendant with a blue cross. The commodore was assisted by a Naval signals party of four men, who used lamps, semaphore flags and telescopes to pass signals, coded from books carried in a bag, weighted to be dumped overboard. In large convoys, the commodore was assisted by vice- and rear-commodores who directed the speed, course and zig-zagging of the merchant ships and liaised with the escort commander.
First Protocol
The Soviet leaders needed to replace the colossal losses of military equipment after the Operation Barbarossa the German invasion began, especially when Soviet war industries were being moved out of the war zone and emphasised tank and aircraft deliveries. Machine tools, steel and aluminium was needed to replace indigenous resources lost in the invasion. The pressure on the civilian sector of the economy needed to be alleviated by food deliveries. The Soviets wanted to concentrate the resources that remained on items that the Soviet war economy that had the greatest comparative advantage over the German economy. Aluminium imports allowed aircraft production to a far greater extent than would have been possible using local sources and tank production was emphasised at the expense of lorries; food supplies were squeezed by reliance on what could be obtained from lend–lease. At the Moscow Conference, it was acknowledged that 1.5 million tons of shipping was needed to transport the supplies of the First Protocol and that Soviet sources could provide less than 10 per cent of the carrying capacity.The British and Americans accepted that the onus was on them to find most of the shipping, despite their commitments in other theatres. The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made a commitment to send a convoy to the Arctic ports of the USSR every ten days and to deliver a month from July 1942 to January 1943, followed by and another more than already promised. In November, the US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, ordered Admiral Emory Land of the US Maritime Commission and then the head of the War Shipping Administration that deliveries to Russia should only be limited by 'insurmountable difficulties'. The first convoy was due at Murmansk around 12 October and the next convoy was to depart Iceland on 22 October. A motley of British, Allied and neutral shipping loaded with military stores and raw materials for the Soviet war effort would be assembled at Hvalfjörður in Iceland, convenient for ships from both sides of the Atlantic.
From Operation Dervish to Convoy PQ 11, the supplies to the USSR were mostly British, in British ships defended by the Royal Navy. A fighter force that could defend Murmansk was delivered that protected the Arctic ports and railways into the hinterland. British supplied aircraft and tanks reinforced the Russian defences of Leningrad and Moscow from December 1941. The tanks and aircraft did not save Moscow but were important in the Soviet counter-offensive. The Luftwaffe was by then reduced to 600 operational aircraft on the Eastern Front, to an extent a consequence of Luftflotte 2 being sent to the Mediterranean against the British. Tanks and aircraft supplied by Britain helped the Soviet counter-offensive force back the Germans further than might have been possible without them. In January and February 1942, deliveries of tanks and aircraft allowed the Russians to have a margin of safety should the German army attempt a riposte.
Post-war criticism of the quality of British supplies contradicted the praise offered to the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, in Moscow in December, of the performance of Hurricane fighters and Valentine tanks; Matilda tanks were admittedly inferior in snow but were expected to operate better in the summer. Deliveries helped to improve the long-term potential of the Soviet war economy, the of aluminium sent from Britain was the equivalent to the capacity lost in the Soviet Union in the six months from October 1941 and each of copper and rubber were generally useful to the Soviet economy, especially after rubber from Malaya was cut off by the Malayan campaign. Radar and Asdic apparatuses improved Russian anti-aircraft defences and the naval protection of the Arctic ports. In the first winter of the war in Russia the British helped to tide the USSR over at some cost to British grand strategy; the 700 fighters and about 500 tanks sent to Russia in 1941 could have made a substantial difference to British fortunes in the Middle East and Far East. The Germans laid plans to stop the Arctic convoys in 1942.
Signals intelligence
Bletchley Park
The British Government Code and Cypher School based at Bletchley Park housed a small industry of code-breakers and traffic analysts. By June 1941, the German Enigma machine Home Waters settings used by surface ships and U-boats could quickly be read. On 1 February 1942, the Enigma machines used in U-boats in the Atlantic and Mediterranean were changed but German ships and the U-boats in Arctic waters continued with the older Heimish. By mid-1941, British Y-stations were able to receive and read Luftwaffe W/T transmissions and give advance warning of Luftwaffe operations.The rival German Beobachtungsdienst of the Kriegsmarine Marinenachrichtendienst had broken several Admiralty codes and cyphers by 1939, which were used to help Kriegsmarine ships elude British forces and provide opportunities for surprise attacks. From June to August 1940, six British submarines were sunk in the Skaggerak using information gleaned from British wireless signals. In 1941, B-Dienst read signals from the Commander in Chief Western Approaches informing convoys of areas patrolled by U-boats, enabling the submarines to move into "safe" zones. B-Dienst had broken Naval Cypher No 3 in February 1942 and by March was reading up to 80 per cent of the traffic, which continued until 15 December 1943. By coincidence, the British lost access to Atlantic U-boat communications with the introduction of the Shark cypher and had no information to send in Cypher No 3 which might compromise Ultra.Arctic Ocean
Between Greenland and Norway are some of the most stormy waters of the world's oceans, of water under gales full of snow, sleet and hail. The cold Arctic water is met by the Gulf Stream, warm water from the Gulf of Mexico, which becomes 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.In winter, polar ice can form as far south as 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. Around the North Cape and in the Barents Sea the sea temperature rarely rises about 4° Celsius and a person in the water will die unless rescued immediately. The cold water and air makes spray freeze on the superstructures of ships, which has to be removed quickly to prevent ships 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 to be run continuously.
Prelude
German naval forces in Norway were commanded by Hermann Böhm, the Kommandierender Admiral Norwegen. Two U-boats were based in Norway in July 1941, four in September, five in December and four in January 1942. By mid-February twenty U-boats were anticipated in the region, with six based in Norway, two in Narvik or Tromsø, two at Trondheim and two at Bergen. Hitler contemplated establishing a unified command but decided against it. The German battleship arrived at Trondheim on 16 January, the first ship of a general transfer of surface ships to Norway. British convoys to Russia had received little attention, since they averaged only eight ships each and the long Arctic winter nights negated even the limited Luftwaffe effort that was available.5
In mid-1941, Luftflotte 5 had been re-organised for Operation Barbarossa when Luftgau Norwegen was headquartered in Oslo. Fliegerführer Stavanger the centre and north of Norway, Jagdfliegerführer Norwegen commanded the fighter force and Fliegerführer Kerkenes 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 Arkhangelsk was and Fliegerführer Kerkenes had only ten Junkers Ju 88 bombers of Kampfgeschwader 30, thirty Stukas, 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". The emphasis of air operations changed from army support to anti-shipping operations as Allied Arctic convoys became more frequent. Hubert Schmundt, the noted gloomily on 22 December 1941 that the number long-range reconnaissance aircraft was exiguous and from 1 to 15 December only two Ju 88 sorties had been possible. After the Lofoten Raids Schmundt wanted Luftflotte 5 to transfer aircraft to northern Norway but its commander, Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen Stumpff, was reluctant to deplete the defences of western Norway.
Some air units were transferred, a catapult ship,, was sent to northern Norway and Heinkel He 115 floatplane torpedo-bombers, of Küstenfliegergruppe 1./406 was transferred to Sola. By the end of 1941, III Gruppe, KG 30 had been transferred to Norway and in the new year, another Staffel of Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Kondors from Kampfgeschwader 40 arrived. Luftflotte 5 was also expected to receive a Gruppe comprising three Staffeln of Heinkel He 111 torpedo-bombers. Reinforcements increased the number of first-line aircraft from 152 aircraft in January to 175 in February and 221 in March.