Convoy PQ 15
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Convoy PQ 15 was an
Arctic convoy The Arctic convoys of World War II were oceangoing convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America to northern ports in the Soviet Union – primarily Arkhangelsk (Archangel) and Murmansk in Russia. There were 78 convoys ...
sent from
Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
by the
Western Allies Western Allies was a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It primarily refers to the leading Anglo-American Allied powers, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, although the term has also be ...
to aid the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. The convoy sailed in late April 1942, reaching the Soviet northern ports after air attacks that sank three ships out of twenty-five.


Ships

The
convoy A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...
consisted of 25
merchant ship A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are ...
s and was accompanied by one
auxiliary Auxiliary may refer to: In language * Auxiliary language (disambiguation) * Auxiliary verb In military and law enforcement * Auxiliary police * Auxiliaries, civilians or quasi-military personnel who provide support of some kind to a military se ...
, the oiler , which travelled with a
destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...
escort. The Close Escort was led by
Commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank as well as a job title in many army, armies. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countri ...
John Crombie in the
minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...
and consisted of two other minesweepers and four
trawlers Trawler may refer to: Boats * Fishing trawler, used for commercial fishing * Naval trawler Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the World War I, Fir ...
, joined later by four destroyers and the
anti-aircraft Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-ba ...
ship . A Cruiser Cover Force (
Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral. Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...
Harold Burrough Admiral Sir Harold Martin Burrough, (4 July 1889 – 22 October 1977) was a senior Royal Navy officer and Assistant Chief of Naval Staff to the Royal Navy during World War II. Early career Born the tenth son of Rev. Charles Burrough and his w ...
) in the
light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to thi ...
, with the
heavy cruiser A heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in calibre, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval Treat ...
and two destroyers and a Distant Covering Force (
Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in many navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force. Admiral is ranked above vice admiral and below admiral of ...
John Tovey Admiral of the Fleet John Cronyn Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, (7 March 1885 – 12 January 1971), sometimes known as Jack Tovey, was a Royal Navy officer. During the First World War he commanded the destroyer at the Battle of Jutland and then co ...
), comprising the
battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
s and , (
Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral. Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...
Robert C. Giffen Robert Carlisle Giffen (1886 – 1962) was an admiral in the United States Navy. Birth to the beginning of World War I Robert Carlisle Giffen was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on 29 June 1886. He attended the University of Notre Dame, ...
, USN, commanding), the
aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...
, the heavy cruisers and , the light cruiser and ten destroyers. The convoy was also covered by a patrol of four
submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
s off
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
, guarding against a sortie by German warships.


Action

PQ 15 sailed from
Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...
, Iceland, on 26 April 1942 with its local escort. This was joined on 28 April by the ocean escort, giving the convoy an immediate total escort of 12 warships. German aircraft sighted the convoy on 28 April while it was south-west of Bear Island. No attack developed for two days as the German forces were busy with the reciprocal Convoy QP 11, which left
Murmansk Murmansk () is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far Far North (Russia), northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of a modest fjord, Ko ...
in the Soviet Union on 28 April. On 1 May the
Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
made its first attack on PQ 15, by six
Junkers Ju 88 The Junkers Ju 88 is a twin-engined multirole combat aircraft designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works. It was used extensively during the Second World War by the ''Luftwaffe'' and became one o ...
s. The German bombers failed to inflict any damage and lost one of their number. The Distant Cover Force suffered two losses when ''King George V'' and the destroyer collided in fog. ''Punjabi'' sank and ''King George V'' was forced to return to port. Her place in the group was taken by the battleship , which steamed from
Scapa Flow Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay and Hoy. Its sheltered waters have played an impor ...
to reinforce the escorts. The escorts made an
asdic Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects o ...
contact on 2 May, which the destroyer and minesweeper attacked. When the submarine was damaged and forced to the surface it was found to be the Polish ''Jastrzab'', which was assigned to patrol off Norway but was some way out of position. ''Jastrzab'' was too badly damaged to continue and was scuttled. On 3 May at 01:30 in the half light of the Arctic summer nights, six
Heinkel He 111 The Heinkel He 111 is a German airliner and medium bomber designed by Siegfried and Walter Günter at Heinkel Flugzeugwerke in 1934. Through development, it was described as a wolf in sheep's clothing. Due to restrictions placed on Germany a ...
bombers of I. '' Gruppe'', ''Kampfgeschwader'' 26, the ''Luftwaffe''s new torpedo bomber force, made the first German
torpedo bomber A torpedo bomber is a military aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes. Torpedo bombers came into existence just before the World War I, First World War almost as soon as aircraft were built that were capable of carryin ...
attack of the war. Three ships were hit, two were sunk and one was damaged, later to be sunk by the . Two aircraft were shot down and a third damaged, which subsequently crashed. A further attack by German high-level bombers at dusk was unsuccessful. Deteriorating weather on 4 May prevented further attacks, an
Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...
gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .
quickly turning into a
snowstorm A winter storm (also known as snow storm) is an event in which wind coincides with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, Rain and snow mixed, mixed snow and rain, or freezing rain. In Continental cl ...
. PQ 15 arrived at the
Kola Inlet Kola Bay () or Murmansk Fjord is a 57-km-long fjord of the Barents Sea that cuts into the northern part of the Kola Peninsula. It is up to 7 km wide and has a depth of 200 to 300 metres. The Tuloma, Rosta and Kola Rivers discharge into t ...
at 21:00 on 5 May with no further losses.


Aftermath

''Botavon'' and ''Cape Corso'' had been sunk by torpedo bombers; ''Jutland'' was damaged by torpedo bombers and later sunk by ''U-251''. Of the escorting warships, the submarine ''Jastrzab'' and destroyer ''Punjabi'' had been sunk and the battleship ''King George V'' had been damaged. However, 22 fully laden merchant ships had arrived safely in Murmansk, the largest
Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...
convoy yet to arrive in the Soviet Union. The convoy was regarded by the Allies as a success, although it gave them a taste of the difficulties to come on the Arctic convoy run.


Allied order of battle


Merchant ships


Escorts


Heavy cover


Submarine patrols


See also

*
List of shipwrecks in May 1942 The list of shipwrecks in May 1942 includes all ship A ship is a large watercraft, vessel that travels the world's oceans and other Waterway, navigable waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as d ...


Footnotes


References

* *


Further reading

* * * * *


External links


Convoy PQ 15

PQ 15 at Convoyweb
{{World War II PQ 15 C