The prerequisites for the defeat of the PQ-17 convoy lie not in the British Admiralty, but much further and deeper - in Washington. The troubles of the Arctic convoys were largely associated with an amendment to the Lend-Lease Act, which prohibited the escorting of transports with military cargo by US Navy ships.
The amendment seemed quite appropriate on March 11, 1941 (the date of the signing of the Lend-Lease Act) - it would have been strange to throw depth charges at German submarines from American ships, without officially declaring war between the United States and the Third Reich. And without depth charges, escorting Lend-Lease convoys made no sense.
However, the Lend-Lease program itself was a clear manifestation of the double standards of American policy: a "neutral" power openly helps one of the belligerents, and it does so on special conditions and with a deferred payment. The Germans accepted the terms of the American "game" - there are no rules! - and three weeks later, on April 3, 1941, one of the "wolf packs" in cold blood shot 10 of the 22 American transports of the transatlantic convoy.
The Washington "regional committee" quickly realized that without a decent cover, Lend-Lease transports would never reach the addressee. A day after the April pogrom, the Yankees began to fuss, starting their first awkward preparations for war: an aircraft carrier group consisting of the aircraft carrier Yorktown, three battleships and their escort moved forward for communications in the Atlantic; On April 9, the construction of weather stations and air bases on the Greenland coast began. Warships accompanied merchant caravans to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where a “changing of the guard” took place at the designated point - the transports were taken over by the Royal Navy of Great Britain.
The situation became more complicated with the German attack on the Soviet Union - in August, convoys with military supplies began to arrive in Arkhangelsk, and the question of covering low-speed transports immediately arose. The US Navy flatly refused to escort convoys in Arctic waters - it was too dangerous both militarily and politically. The Americans were not at all embarrassed by the fact that the crews of most of the transports consisted of US citizens. Washington's position was unchanged: you need these cargoes - so defend them yourself, but we do not want to destroy our ships. As far as civilian teams are concerned, these people know what they are doing in pursuit of a hard coin.
Even after the official entry into the war, the Americans were in no hurry to show themselves in the polar latitudes - for the first time, US Navy ships took a limited part in the escort of the PQ-15 caravan only in April 1942. In the future, all "assistance" to the US Navy was limited to a couple of ships. What else can you add about this? It is a pity that the American admirals, having so many opportunities (the Yankees had more destroyers alone than in any other country in the world), preferred to “wash their hands” in such a strategically important operation as escorting Arctic convoys.
The entire burden of covering the transports fell on the shoulders of the Royal Navy of Great Britain and the Soviet Northern Fleet. The route of the convoys was divided into two areas of responsibility: the British guarded the main part of the route to Bear Island, and Soviet destroyers joined them at the entrance to the Barents Sea. In addition, the Severomorian sailors acted in support areas: when the next convoy approached, submarine barriers were set up at the exits from German naval bases in Norway, and the Northern Fleet aviation began to "hammer" enemy airfields, distracting the Germans and making it difficult for the Luftwaffe to attack those going far from coastal transports.
Objectively, there was no need to demand more from the Northern Fleet (model 1942) - at that time the Severomors had only six destroyers (4 new "Sevens" and 2 "Noviks" from the First World War), a dozen patrol ships from converted trawlers and two dozen submarines …
Throughout the war, the Northern Fleet suffered from a shortage of ships, fully understanding this problem, the British accompanied the caravans along the entire route - to the Soviet ports. Otherwise, the Northern Fleet, alone, would not be able to provide reliable cover for the transports.
On July 4, 1942, something happened that had to happen sooner or later. While the American sailors were cheerfully celebrating Independence Day, the ships of the PQ-17 convoy received an order from London: the escort to move west at full speed, the transports to disperse and independently proceed to the ports of destination. "What the devil ?!" - talked anxiously, seeing how the destroyers deployed and lay on the opposite course.
The fault was the German battleship Tirpitz, which, according to British intelligence, was preparing to intercept the convoy. Despite the presence of sufficient forces to repel the attack, the British admirals made a shameful, in every sense, decision to disband the convoy and quickly withdraw their warships away from the polar latitudes.
"Sword of Damocles" of the Kriegsmarine
If we leave aside various conspiracy hypotheses (the use of PQ-17 as a "decoy", the deliberate destruction of the convoy in order to disrupt Lend-Lease supplies, etc.), then the fierce fear of the British admirals of the "Tirpitz" is simply explained: unpleasant memories about the Battle of Jutland (1916) and the consequences of the terrible death of the battle cruiser Hood, destroyed by the first salvo from the battleship Bismarck.
"Tirpitz" almost the entire war stood in the fjords, serving as a rusty target for British aircraft. The super-battleship's guns did not fire a single shot at surface targets. Not a single significant operation was carried out with the participation of "Tirpitz". It would seem that one could forget about the miserable existence of this pile of metal and focus on more important issues, for example, the fight against German submarines.
The battleship Tirpitz did not fight. But his image fought in the minds of British admirals. Medals should be given to the crews of the Bismarck, Derflinger and Von der Tann - it was on their glory that such an impressive success of the battleship Tirpitz kept, which, without firing a single shot, fettered all the forces of the British fleet in the North Atlantic!
The Germans could not have built a battleship at all, it was enough to put a steel box or a plywood model in the Altenfjord - the success would have been the same. I'm exaggerating, of course, but I hope the readers get the point. If the British admirals were a little less conservative and cowardly, the PQ-17 convoy would have remained intact.
Let's close our eyes for a moment and imagine at the site of the transports of the convoy PQ-17 - the unloading American transports in Leyte Gulf (Philippines). Instead of the cruisers of His Majesty's fleet, there are seven destroyers and six escort aircraft carriers patrolling along the Philippine coast (escort aircraft carriers are not bad ships, but terribly slow, their power plant and lower hull set are similar to civilian steamers).
Fans of maritime history have already guessed that we are simulating a sea battle off the island of Samar, which took place on October 25, 1944.
For the Japanese, in that battle it was undoubtedly easier - six American "kids" rolled out of the fog … not one, but four battleships! And also - 8 cruisers and 11 destroyers.
The Japanese had another important advantage - a cleverly planned operation and two diversionary strikes, allowed them to quietly approach Leyte Gulf and catch the Americans by surprise!
When Japanese shells began to fall around, the Yankees urgently raised all their aircraft into the air, the destroyers launched a torpedo attack, and the massacre began … As a result, in 3 hours of chase, the Americans lost one escort and three destroyers, half of the aircraft carriers were damaged by artillery fire.
The Japanese had sunk three heavy Japanese cruisers, one more - "Kumano", dragged somewhere behind without a bow. The rest of the Japanese ships were so beaten and scared that they turned back and fled the battlefield.
Now, attention, motor! - instead of the Japanese, the battleship Tirpitz, the heavy cruisers Hipper, Sheer and 9 destroyers of their escort crawl out of the morning haze instead of the Japanese. How could their confrontation with the American "escort" have ended?
If these events were transferred to the Barents Sea, the Tirpitz and her squadron would have been sunk long before meeting with the PQ-17 convoy. Where the legendary Yamato could not resist, the German battleship had nothing to do. Five or six escort aircraft carriers with an air wing equal in size to the regular Soviet air regiment will beat any Tirpitz and Admiral Scheer. The main thing is to have enough experienced and determined pilots.
Now let's add some finishing touches to this "portrait". The Yankees owed their "miraculous salvation" to the following factors:
- the disgusting quality of the fuses of Japanese shells, which pierced through fragile American ships and fell into the sea;
Alas, this factor is of little use in the Barents Sea - regardless of the quality of the German shells, the Tirpitz would have been guaranteed to be detected and destroyed long before reaching the range of fire of its guns.
- active support from other aircraft carriers - planes from all over the area flew to the aid of six "kids" (about 500 cars in total!).
Escort aircraft carriers in the Barents Sea had nowhere to wait for help, on the other hand, the Tirpitz squadron was three to four times weaker than the Japanese!
Of course, it is somewhat incorrect to directly compare the tropical Philippines and the polar latitudes of the Barents Sea. Severe weather conditions, icing of decks - all this could complicate the work of carrier-based aircraft. However, in a particular case, the convoy PQ-17 was sailing in the midst of the polar summer, and the sun that did not set around the clock should, on the contrary, play into the hands of the pilots (double-edged weapon - German torpedo bombers are also on the alert).
Summing up all the positive and negative factors, and taking into account the balance of forces, we can make a quite confident conclusion: if American sailors and their favorite "toys" - aircraft carriers (even small, escort ones) were in the place of the British, the PQ-17 convoy had every chance to safely reach Arkhangelsk, and the battleship "Tirpitz" had every chance of sinking ingloriously after a short battle with carrier-based aircraft.
However, everything could have ended much earlier - if the K-21 submarine had managed to sink the Tirpitz at the exit from the Altenfjord.
Unfortunately, everything happened the way it should have happened. As a result, they had to show their professionalism to Soviet naval pilots and sailors from the North Sea, who, without the help of radars, explored the entire water area of the Barents Sea and “searched” all the bays on the coast of the Kola Peninsula and Novaya Zemlya, in search of American ships that had taken refuge there. They managed to save 13 transports and a hundred boats and life rafts, with the surviving sailors on them.
