British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had made the promise to Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, and Admiral Sir John Tovey of the Royal Navy had to keep it: to sail three convoys loaded with critical supplies from Britain to Russia every two months, with 25 to 35 ships in each convoy. Now, on June 27, 1942, a total of 33 British and American merchant ships set sail from Reykjavik, Iceland, bound for the Soviet port of Murmansk through the icy, U-boat-infested Barents Sea. Convoy PQ-17 would sail into one of the greatest disasters and controversies of World War II.
By June 1942, the Allies’ fortunes were at their lowest ebb of the war. Rommel had reached El Alamein. Hitler’s panzers were advancing through Russia. Japan had conquered most of Southeast Asia and was taking dead aim at Australia.
Operation Knight’s Move
Stalin was the most desperate of the three Allied leaders that month. With Leningrad besieged, German tanks driving on his oilfields in the Caucasus, and most of his industrial regions in Nazi hands, he needed Allied supplies badly. Convoy PQ-17 would help to resolve that—its cargo included more than 300 tanks.
But the Germans were equally determined to stop the convoys, and from their Norwegian bases, they were well placed to do it. The primary tool was General Hans-Jurgen Stumpff’s Luftflotte 3, which consisted of 264 aircraft. The big punch was his 103 Junkers Ju-88 bombers, but he also had 42 Heinkel He-111 torpedo bombers and 30 Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive-bombers. They were a veteran team that had already savaged British and American convoys to Russia.
