Thirty-five ships set out for Russia. One Admiralty order scattered them into the Arctic fog, where every crew faced a fight to survive.
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Thirty-five merchant ships left Iceland in June 1942, carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. After the Admiralty ordered the convoy to scatter, crews faced the Arctic alone—among fog, ice, aircraft and U-boats.
ARCTIC CONVOY • JUNE–JULY 1942
David Irving follows the convoy from its planning and departure through the attack, the scattering, the rescue efforts and the arrival of surviving ships in Russia. He brings the merchant crews and their escorts into focus while tracing the German air and submarine campaign and the abortive sortie of the battleship Tirpitz and its group.
At the heart of the book is a question of command: how did the decisions made around PQ.17 shape the disaster? Irving develops his account through wartime reports, naval records, diaries, interviews and survivors’ testimony, then examines the aftermath and the inquiry.
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Author profile
David Irving is a renowned British historian and author of over 30 books. Known for his meticulous primary source research, he has spent decades in archives across the globe, unearthing diaries, documents, and first-hand accounts that have reshaped our understanding of the Second World War and its key figures.
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