Just being sunk, the material directly lost hundreds of millions of dollars, which became the worst event that the Allied Forces encountered in the Arctic Ocean.
The British navy sent the largest fleet to help the war-torn Soviet Union.
1On June 27th, 942, a huge maritime formation quietly left Reykjavik port in the southwest of Iceland and began to sail for Murmansk military port in the northwest of the Soviet Union. The whole voyage is more than 5000 kilometers, and the action number is PQ- 17. This is the largest fleet sent by the allied forces since they started to transport war materials to the Soviet Union on the Arctic Ocean route in August 194 1. It is also the largest and most valuable military transport in the history of the Arctic Ocean, with 35 ships participating.
From late May of 1942, the war situation in the Soviet Union became more and more tense. The Germans invaded the Volga River and Caucasus of the Soviet Union. The Red Army is fighting hard and is in urgent need of a large number of combat materials. Britain is worried that if the Nazi plot to invade the Soviet Union finally succeeds, the task of fighting against the Nazis is likely to fall on a British country. To this end, Britain decided to help the Soviet Union at all costs.
This fleet has delivered150,000 tons of combat materials with a total value of 700 million US dollars, including 300 combat aircraft, 600 tanks, more than 4,000 trucks and trailers. The allies estimated that these war materials could arm 50,000 Soviet Red Army troops, enough to fight against fascist attacks in a big battle field.
In order to ensure that this fleet delivered materials to the Soviet Union without fail, the British Navy sent six destroyers and 15 other armed vessels to escort them at close range. In addition, four allied cruisers and three destroyers were on standby about 60 kilometers north of the fleet. The British navy is still not at ease. On June 28, a formation was sent to provide long-distance escort for the fleet. This formation is about 320 kilometers away from the fleet, including the "Victory" aircraft carrier, two battleships, two cruisers and the 14 destroyer.
The wrong decision of the British naval headquarters made the fleet a target of Nazi warships.
On July 1 day, the Nazi reconnaissance plane searching for the target in the North Atlantic discovered the PQ- 17 fleet. The German navy immediately sent two submarines for tracking reconnaissance. After the Germans grasped the situation, they decided to concentrate on attacking the fleet.
At 6: 30 am on July 2, seven Nazi HE- 1 15 torpedoes attacked, but were intercepted by PQ- 17 fleet. Two planes were shot down and the rest had to throw torpedoes in a hurry. Those torpedoes were fired out of range and didn't hit any targets.
The Germans continued to attack, and it was not until July 3 that a cargo ship was hit hard. In this way, the confidence of the whole fleet has greatly increased, and I feel that as long as this persists, the fleet will certainly defeat the Nazis and send the goods out. In the afternoon, the Nazis launched air strikes again and took cunning measures. When 25 fighters attacked in two batches, several other torpedo planes skimmed the waters near the fleet at low altitude and fired about 20 torpedoes. Three ships were unfortunately hit, and two of them were badly damaged and could not be used.
Just as the convoy was fully fighting against Nazi attacks, British Secretary of the Navy Pound suddenly got information that the largest Nazi battleship "Tibbits" had left Hong Kong for sea. "Tibbits" is the largest Nazi warship just put into use at the beginning of 1942, with a displacement of over 4 1 10,000 tons, which is larger than that of the British aircraft carrier. Pound worried that once Tibbits quickly approached the huge fleet in northern Norway, both the escort formation and the fleet would be hit hard.
If all escort ships are allowed to return to the west, the PQ- 17 fleet will be dissolved, dispersed into single ships and then moved eastward, and all warships and a small number of merchant ships will be saved. As a senior officer from the staff, Pound didn't know much about the specific situation of the Arctic route and the facts of the Arctic naval battle, so he made a hasty decision.
Soon, the British-based escort formation received secret orders from the Secretary of the Navy for three emergency evacuations. The first secret order is: the escort formation will immediately retreat to the west at high speed. The second secret order is that due to the threat of Nazi surface warships, the transport fleet will be dispersed and headed for Russian ports. The third secret order is that the transport ship should be dispersed.
In fact, Hitler was particularly afraid that Britain's powerful aircraft carrier formation would sink the Tibbits, the only super fortress on Nazi sea. On July 5, he ordered the ship to return quickly and let German fighters and other warships attack the allied fleet.
Due to Pound's wrong decision, after the escort formation was evacuated, the huge fleet began to evacuate and slowly drove in the Arctic Ocean without any protection, and soon became the target of Nazi warships and fighters.
The British navy paid a heavy price for this wrong decision.
Lei Deer, commander of Nazi Navy, was very happy when he received an order from the British Navy to evacuate the escort formation and fleet. He immediately ordered warships and fighter planes to round up and annihilate the ships scattered in PQ- 17.
At 8: 30 am on July 5, the largest interception operation in the Arctic Ocean began. For a time, the sky over the Arctic Ocean was full of distress signals. The British cargo ship "Byron Empire" was one of the first ships attacked and sunk by Nazi submarine torpedoes. Then, an American cargo ship was sunk by a submarine torpedo. Subsequently, nine Nazi dive bombers launched a desperate attack and sank many ships. When it was dark, the Nazis stopped attacking. On this day, the allied fleet lost about nine ships.
After July 6, the Nazis continued their crazy attack and hunted PQ- 17 ships everywhere. On July 10, the two ships finally sailed to the sea only 160 kilometers away from Murmansk port of the Soviet Union, and were suddenly pursued by Nazi fighters, blown to pieces and sank to the bottom of the sea.
Due to Nazi air strikes, the Soviet Union had to temporarily close Murmansk port. The surviving PQ- 17 had to sail for the port of Arkhangelsk in the northwest of the Soviet Union. On July 28th, PQ- 17, the last surviving vessel entered the port to unload.
In this bloody attack on the Arctic Ocean, PQ- 17 suffered extremely heavy losses. Of the 35 merchant ships, only 1 1 finally reached the Soviet port, and all the others sank except two of them returned midway due to failure and other reasons. Among the damaged cargo ships, 1 1 is an American. Damaged and sunk combat materials include 2 10 combat aircraft, 430 Sherman tanks, 3,305 trucks and trailers, and 654.38+10,000 tons of other combat materials. * * * 120 More than 20 crew members died, and many were disabled by gunshot wounds and frostbite. In this tragic event, the direct economic loss exceeded $500 million.
After the bloody interception in the Arctic Ocean, the British navy was "ashamed" and never dared to tell the people the reasons for the failure. Stalin, who has always been skeptical about western cooperation, simply does not believe that Britain and the United States, which have strong maritime power, will make a fleet lose more than 20 ships, and thinks that this is a big lie told by western countries. After learning the truth of the incident, Admiral Kim, the US Naval Operations Secretary, was extremely angry and unwilling to continue cooperation with the British Navy.
PQ- 17 suffered huge losses. The main reason is that the British naval headquarters misjudged the situation, disbanded the fleet and lost the most effective means of defense. Since then, the British navy, which paid a heavy price and learned a lesson, changed its tactics and turned defeat into victory, making the Arctic route an extremely important lifeline of the Soviet battlefield.