The Arctic convoys — codenamed PQ, QP, JW, and RA — were the lifeline that supplied the Soviet Union with vast quantities of weapons, vehicles, food, and raw materials from 1941 to 1945. Over the course of the war, 740 merchant ships sailed in 78 convoys, delivering 4.5 million tons of supplies through the most dangerous waters of World War II.
The convoys sailed from Iceland and Scotland, around the North Cape of Norway, to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. Along the way, they were hunted by German U-boats, the battleship Tirpitz, Luftwaffe bombers operating from occupied Norway, and surface raiding forces including the Scharnhorst and the Admiral Scheer. The worst convoy, PQ-17 in July 1942, lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships — over 15,000 tons of cargo and 153 sailors — in six days.
The sailors who survived the convoys endured conditions that were extraordinary even by wartime standards. Temperatures dropped to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice froze on the superstructure, threatening to capsize the ships. Men had to break ice from gun barrels with crowbars before they could fire. German torpedo bombers attacked in near-perpetual daylight during the summer months, and U-boat wolfpacks waited in the darkness of winter.
Despite these dangers, the Arctic convoys delivered approximately 4.5 million tons of supplies: 5,000 tanks, 7,000 aircraft, 400,000 jeeps and trucks, and enough food to feed an army of millions. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin acknowledged that the convoys were essential to Soviet victory, though the Soviet government largely ignored the convoys in its own victory celebrations.
The toll on Allied sailors was staggering. Over 3,000 British, Canadian, American, and Soviet sailors died in the Arctic convoys. One British veteran recalled: The sea was full of bodies. We could not stop to rescue. The order was to keep sailing. The convoys continued despite the losses, until the last convoy arrived at Murmansk on May 12, 1945.