The worst naval decision of WW2? - The Destruction of PQ17

at the end of june 1942 a vast allied merchant convoy named pq 17 left iceland to deliver hundreds of thousands of tons of water supplies to the soviet union of 34 merchant ships to begin the journey just 11 would reach their destination in one of the worst british naval disasters of the second world war this video is brought to you by curiositystream an online subscription streaming site that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers get unlimited access for just 2.99 a month or 19.99 a year you can also get 30 days for free at curiositystream.com historiograph with the promo code historiograph more on this later on supply convoys to the soviet union began in august 1941 as britain endeavoured to help its new communist ally with the red army hard pressed by the invading veermark the royal navy assembled flotillas of merchant ships at iceland before running the gauntlet of german submarines and aircraft off the north coast of norway to arrive in the arctic ports of murmansk and archangel given the serial number pq the convoys were initially small in scale attracting only a small axis response and soon protected by the long arctic winter night of the first 10 pq convoys just a single merchant ship was lost despite this initial success the british applety viewed the arctic convoys as an incredibly risky task running flotillas of lightly armed ships with few escorts along a hostile coastline well in range of air and submarine attack and what in the summer would be constant daylight these anxieties were heightened in early 1942 when the germans transferred the fearsome battleship turpit to the arctic the prospect of turpit intercepting a convoy was potentially devastating the escort ships were able to engage submarines in aircraft but would be no match for tirpitz's 15-inch guns the allied response was to dramatically increase the number of escort ships starting with pq 12 in early march the merchant ships would now be backed up by the full force of the british home fleet under admiral sir john tovey when terpit sorted to interdict pq12 and its companion homeward-bound convoy qp8 a two-day game of cat and mouse played out as tovi's ships tried to intercept tirpitz while tirpitz tried to find the convoys in the end both sides were frustrated by poor weather and the german squadron eventually returned to port the only ally casualty was the soviet destroyer from qp8's escort sunk by a german destroyer on the 3rd of march the next convoy was not quite so lucky pq 13 ran into a bad storm scattering the convoy and helping the germans to sink five merchant ships the convoys escort engaged three german destroyers briefly with the cruiser hms trinidad sinking z26 but somehow managing to torpedo herself in the process due to the extreme cold interfering with the weapons gyroscope by mid-april permanent daylight had arrived in the high arctic making convoys even easier to find and easier to attack admiral tovey and the apple team in london were keen that the frequency of convoys should be reduced or even halted through the summer months for fear that losses could quickly outstrip any suppliers delivered there was though intense political pressure on britain to continue the convoys both from the soviets and the americans pq14 left iceland on april 8th in large to 25 merchant ships at the erding of roosevelt but quickly ran into disaster the convoy was ambushed not by the luftwaffe or creeks arena but by a thick field of floating ice each ship tried to find its own way through and the group was scattered sixteen merchant ships had to turn back with serious collision damage the germans accounted for a further merchantman meaning only seven ships arrived at murmansk it was not enough there was worse to come at the end of the same month three more merchant ships were lost from pq15 but more serious were the losses in escort ships the cruiser hms edinburgh was sunk and two destroyers damaged while escorting the returning qp11 as well as the destroyer punjabi lost after being accidentally rammed in fog by the battleship king george v these losses came at a time when the raw navy was stretched beyond belief needing to run major escort operations in the arctic the atlantic and the mediterranean as well as trying to fend off advances into the indian ocean by an imperial japanese navy at the peak of its powers in particular destroyers and cruisers were like gold dust and the applety could not afford the losses tovi and his junior officers still argued that the convoys needed to be suspended but the political and military necessity of keeping the soviets in the fight overruled them preparations continued to run the largest convoy yet towards the end of may with daylight permanent and bright toby asked for aria fighters to be based in russia to try and support the convoys but was told that the resources simply weren't available it was known by now via ultra decrypts from bletchley park that the pocket battleships admiral shear and lutzow had joined tirpitz and scharnhorst in northern norway creating a formidable surface squadron in response the home fleet reinforced by an american task force was again deployed to cover pq16 a group of 35 merchant ships to the huge relief of toffee and others just seven merchantmen were sunk over the course of nine days before arrival in the soviet union it was a surprising success but did not entirely end british concerns terpit and her supporting ships had stayed in port they might not next time a month now pass before the next convoy pq 17 would run ships were needed for a large-scale convoy to malta so the arctic route was temporarily suspended anxiety over the german surface ships persisted admiral tovi wrote the enemy's heavy ships would be operating close to their own coast with the support of powerful shore-based air reconnaissance and striking forces unprotected if you so desired by a screen of u-boats our covering forces would be without air support 1000 miles from their base with their destroyers too short of fuel to escort her damaged ship to harbour it did not bode well p217 left iceland on june 27 1942 a convoy of 34 merchant ships together they carried 594 tanks 297 aircraft 4 246 trucks and 156 000 tons of other cargo pq17s escorts followed the same structure as previous convoys directly around the merchandise under commander jack broome would be seven destroyers two anti-aircraft ships four corvettes three mine sweepers four armed trawlers three rescue ships and two submarines close cover for the convoy was a cruiser squadron under rear admiral louis hamilton with four cruisers and four destroyers distant cover was provided by toby's home fleet with an aircraft carrier two battleships and 14 destroyers there was some hope that if the germans did come out of port they could be lured west and onto the guns of toby's force on the german side a plan had indeed been set in motion to use their surface ships to attack pq17 codenamed operation knights move it would see two groups of crease arena ships converge to intercept the convoy east of bear island the feared battleship tirpitz would sail from trondheim escorted by six destroyers from narvik the pocket battleships lutsau and admiral shear plus six more destroyers it would be the narvik group's task to attack the convoy while tirpitz went after the close cruiser escort late on july 2nd the german surface ships left their moorings and headed north to a staging base at altenfield the move got off to a treacherous start as three destroyers interprets his group plus lutzow at narvik ran aground and had to return to port meanwhile far to the north phu 17 was starting to come under determined air attacks in the early hours of july 4th many of the american merchant ships surprised their british companions by raising brand new straws and stripes flags to celebrate the anniversary of their independence from the very same empire they now fought alongside at 4 50 am a single heinkel 115 torpedo bomber dropped through the clouds its engine silent and glided towards the convoy dropping two torpedoes one of these hit and disabled the uss christopher newport forcing it to be scuttled after survivors were taken off this was just the beginning at 6 25 pm with the skies clear a wave of 25 torpedo bombers approached from the south at almost a wave height best place to engage was to destroy uss wainwright which was attached to rear apple hamilton's covering force and was only present coincidentally to refuel seeing the danger wainwright charged the attackers putting up a barrage of fire that forced many of the bombers to drop their torpedoes well out of range of the merchant ships there was no such lucky escape a short while later when nine more bombers attacked and wainwright was not in the same advantageous position torpedoes were launched and fatal hits were scored on the william hooper and navarino as well as damaging the tanker azerbaijan four luftwaffe planes were shot down on the attack including the attacks leader lieutenant conrad henneman who was posthumously awarded the knights cross for pressing his attack home both here and in previous missions despite these losses commander jack broome leading pq 17's close escort forces was pleased with how they had performed he thought that provided the ammunition lasted pq17 could get anywhere while pq17 had been riding out air attacks anxiety continued to be the prevailing emotion in london as the evening of july 4th drew in in an unexpected turn of events ultra intelligence at bletchley park run into problems cracking that day's german naval code meaning that any german signals sent between noon on the 3rd of july and noon on july 4th were temporarily unreadable this was a critical time to have such a lapse and it left the apparently knowing that terpit and others had been on the move on the morning of july 3rd but had no idea where they now were or what their intentions were of key concern was rear apple hamilton's cruiser squadron which was due to turn back from the convoy soon and which did not stand much chance if it was engaged by tirpitz the prospect of losing yet more cruisers and destroyers at such a precarious time must have weighed heavily on their minds by 8 pm on the 4th of july in london a variety of senior officers were crowned into the office of lieutenant commander norman denning the officer in charge of reading and analyzing decrypted signals from the german surface fleet ultra had finally started working again and decrypted messages were coming through the first of which was a german sighting report that mistakenly reported a battleship amongst hamilton's cruiser force denning told the first sea lord admiral sir dudley pound that the apparent presence of such a ship would make the germans cautious about deploying terpits admiral pound remained worried and before leaving his office asked denning if he could assure him absolutely that terpis was still in port denning replied that he was confident of that but could not give absolute assurance pending further decrypts that was soon to arrive from bletchley at 8 31 denning received the evidence he was looking for ultra had decrypted a signal sent to german u-boats operating in the arctic stating no owned forces in operational area position of heavy enemy group not known at present but his main target for u-boats when encountered this put any doubt out of denning's mind there is no way the ubers would be told this if tirpitz was at sea not least to avoid friendly fire denning ran to show the message to pound but it seemed that the first sea lord's mind on what to do was already made up the risk of tirpitz however slight was to his mind too great he decided to remove the concentrated target of more than 30 ships sailing together at 9 11 pm the first of three signals were sent ordering hamilton's cruisers to withdraw westward at high speed 12 minutes later came instructions to broome owing to the threat from surface ships convoy is to disperse and proceed to russian ports admiral pound then made the command even more stark most immediate convoy is to scatter receiving the signals 2 000 miles away broome and hamilton were shot both men concluded that the urgency of the instructions meant that tirpitz must be practically upon them and expected to see gun flashes on the horizon at any moment pq 17's destroyers were ordered to link up with hamilton's cruisers if they were about to engage tirpitz then they would need all the help they could get but unknown to broome just as delling had argued all the german surface ships were still in port at altenfield and the convoy was busily shedding itself of protection for no reason within a few hours the 32 remaining merchant ships of pq 17 had spread out over a huge area to present a less concentrated target to surface ships that would never arrive instead over the next few days shorn of its cohesiveness and without the best escorts the merchant ships of pu17 were picked off by the luftwaffe and u-boats one by one in the constant arctic daylight by the end of july 6 16 merchant ships had been sunk only 11 would eventually limp into archangel intact it was a total calamity 23 ships have been lost in total and 153 merchant mariners killed as a result of the destruction of pq17 further arctic convoys were suspended until the autumn both to prevent more unsustainable losses and because ships were needed desperately in the mediterranean for the relief of malta in operation pedestal this was much to the frustration of the soviets who were facing strong german assaults in the campaign that culminated with stalingrad the allies returned to the arctic in september 1942 with pq 18 a convoy of fully 40 merchant ships accompanied by a vast escort including the new escort carrier hms avenger and 73 other ships there were to be no more chances taken thereafter the allied convoys continued and alongside other routes of supply played an important role in equipping the in equipping the red army with the tools it needed to sweep the germans from eastern europe in the final years of the war this video is sponsored by curiositystream curiositystream is the best place on the internet to go for higher quality documentaries on a variety of topics for example you might like d-day hidden traces which uses archaeological evidence to take a slightly different look at one of the turning points of world war ii you can get unlimited access for 2.99 a month or just 19.99 a year the first 30 days are completely free if you sign up at curiositystream.com historiograph and use the promo code historiograph thanks again to curiositystream for helping me to make this video possible [Music] you

Channel: Historigraph

Views: 593,649

Keywords: destruction of convoy pq17, arctic convoys, historigraph, history documentary, convoy pq17

Id: -GXN-n6nPqo

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/wowseri]

If WG ever wanted actual, real life torpedo bugs that really happened during the war, there's a lot to pick from.

First and foremost, duds. Torpedoes that failed to detonate. I'm sure a BB player would appreciate those.

You also got torpedoes that ran deeper than the set depth, making them go under the ships without hitting or detonating. Surprise deepwater torps.

And you got actual curving torpedoes. They could curve so much that they'd hit the sub or ship that fired them.

The IJN torpedoes were pretty volatile and could explode on deck during a battle when damaged.

And there were more on top of those...

[u/Crazy_Fairy_9]

there were a lot of torpedo bugs , torps exploding to early , torps running way to deep(thanks mark 14 testing bureau), torps hitting torpedo nets, mines probably in some cases or hit a truck on land