Convoy PQ 16

In October 1941, after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, which had begun on 22 June, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, made a commitment to send a convoy to the Arctic ports of the USSR every ten days and to deliver 1,200 tanks a month from July 1942 to January 1943, followed by 2,000 tanks and another 3,600 aircraft more than already promised.[1][lower-alpha 1] The first convoy was due at Murmansk around 12 October and the next convoy was to depart Iceland on 22 October. A motley of British, Allied and neutral shipping loaded with military stores and raw materials for the Soviet war effort would be assembled at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, convenient for ships from both sides of the Atlantic.[3]

By late 1941, the convoy system used in the Atlantic had been established on the Arctic run; a convoy commodore ensured that the ships' masters and signals officers attended a briefing before sailing to make arrangements for the management of the convoy, which sailed in a formation of long rows of short columns. The commodore was usually a retired naval officer, aboard a ship identified by a white pendant with a blue cross. The commodore was assisted by a Naval signals party of four men, who used lamps, semaphore flags and telescopes to pass signals, coded from books carried in a bag, weighted to be dumped overboard. In large convoys, the commodore was assisted by vice- and rear-commodores who directed the speed, course and zig-zagging of the merchant ships and liaised with the escort commander.[4][lower-alpha 2]

The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) based at Bletchley Park housed a small industry of code-breakers and traffic analysts. By June 1941, the German Enigma machine Home Waters (Heimish) settings used by surface ships and U-boats could quickly be read. On 1 February 1942, the Enigma machines used in U-boats in the Atlantic and Mediterranean were changed but German ships and the U-boats in Arctic waters continued with the older Heimish (Hyrda from 1942, Dolphin to the British). By mid-1941, British Y-stations were able to receive and read Luftwaffe W/T transmissions and give advance warning of Luftwaffe operations. In 1941, interception parties code-named Headaches were embarked on warships and from May 1942, computers sailed with the cruiser admirals in command of convoy escorts, to read Luftwaffe W/T signals which could not be intercepted by land stations in Britain. The Admiralty sent details of Luftwaffe wireless frequencies, call signs and the daily local codes to the computers. Combined with their knowledge of Luftwaffe procedures, the computers could give fairly accurate details of German reconnaissance sorties and sometimes predicted attacks twenty minutes before they were detected by radar.[6] In February 1942, the German Beobachtungsdienst (B-Dienst, Observation Service) of the Kriegsmarine Marinenachrichtendienst (MND, Naval Intelligence Service) broke Naval Cypher No 3 and was able to read it until January 1943.[7]

This convoy consisted of 35 merchant ships: 21 American, 4 Soviet, 8 British, 1 Dutch and one of Panamanian registry. It also had one auxiliary vessel, the CAM ship SS Empire Lawrence. The convoy was led by Commodore N. H. Gale in Ocean Voice. The close escort was led by the destroyer HMS Ashanti (Cdr. RG Onslow) and consisted of the destroyers ORP Garland, HMS Volunteer, Achates, and Martin, the anti-aircraft ship HMS Alynbank, four Flower-class corvettes, one minesweeper and four trawlers. There were two support groups; a Cruiser Cover Force led by R.Adm. HM Burrough in the cruiser HMS Nigeria, and comprising the cruisers HMS Kent, Liverpool, and Norfolk, and destroyers HMS Onslow, Marne, and Oribi, and a Distant Covering Force of the battleships HMS Duke of York and USS Washington, the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious, the cruisers HMS London and USS Wichita, and 13 destroyers.[8]

When Convoy PQ 16 was assembled off Iceland Churchill declared it would be worthwhile if even 50 per cent got through; despite the losses the majority of the ships of Convoy PQ 16 did arrive, most ships to Murmansk (30 May 1942) and eight ships to Archangelsk (1 June 1942). The convoy was such a success in terms the delivery of war material that the Germans made greater efforts to disrupt the following convoys. The Heavy Lift Ships from Convoy PQ 16 including SS Empire Elgar stayed at Archangelsk and Molotovsk unloading ships for over 14 months. In The Year of Stalingrad (1946) the British war correspondent Alexander Werth described his participation in Convoy PQ 16 on SS Empire Baffin, which was bombed but reached Murmansk under its own power.

Eight merchant ships were sunk, six by air attack, one by U-703 and one by a mine. Two U-boats were damaged by the escorts and the Royal Navy claimed the certain destruction of a Junkers Ju 88 by the Hawker Sea Hurricane of P/O Hay (Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve) from the CAM ship Empire Morn, who was killed and four more by anti-aircraft fire, with 16 aircraft claimed as probably destroyed.[10]