Convoy PQ 16

Convoy PQ 16 (21–30 May 1942) was an Arctic convoy of British, United States and Allied ships from Iceland to Murmansk and Archangelsk in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The convoy was the largest yet and was provided with a considerable number of escorts and submarines. QP 12, a return convoy, sailed on the same day

As Operation Barbarossa the German invasion of the Soviet Union had failed in 1941, the Germans began to build up forces in Norway to intercept Arctic convoys with ships, aircraft and U-boats rather than rely on a quick victory. (Air Fleet 5), the Luftwaffe in force Norway, was reinforced with bombers and torpedo-bombers in early 1942 and reorganised to attack convoys as they passed between the Norwegian coast and the ice of the Arctic, which was still close to its southern winter limit.

The sun remained above the horizon at this time of year and the deck crews of the ships found the perpetual daylight fatiguing and stressful; glare from sunshine reflecting off ice being particularly difficult for observers. On 25 May air attacks began, the German bombers and torpedo-bombers co-ordinating their attacks. Torpedo-bombers launched at the same time to make it harder for ships to evade the torpedoes. The air attacks continued until 1 June and sank six ships, one other being lost to a U-boat; 3–6 German aircraft were shot down and one damaged; on 27 May, 108 attacks by aircraft had been counted.

After the convoy, the escort commander recommended that convoys be given far more anti-aircraft fire-power and air cover from an escort carrier. The Germans claimed the virtual destruction of the convoy and concluded that air operations were more effective than submarine attacks in the long hours of daylight. The German tactic of combined dive-bombing and torpedo-bombing, with the torpedoes being dropped in a salvo ( Golden comb) was vindicated.

Background

Lend-lease

After Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, began on 22 June 1941, the UK and USSR signed an agreement in July that they would "render each other assistance and support of all kinds in the present war against Hitlerite Germany". Before September 1941 the British had dispatched 450 aircraft, of rubber, 3,000,000 pairs of boots and stocks of tin, aluminium, jute, lead and wool. In September British and US representatives travelled to Moscow to study Soviet requirements and their ability to meet them. The representatives of the three countries drew up a protocol in October 1941 to last until June 1942 and to agree new protocols to operate from 1 July to 30 June of each following year until the end of Lend-Lease. The protocol listed supplies, monthly rates of delivery and totals for the period.

The first protocol specified the supplies to be sent but not the ships to move them. The USSR turned out to lack the ships and escorts and the British and Americans, who had made a commitment to "help with the delivery", undertook to deliver the supplies for want of an alternative. The main Soviet need in 1941 was military equipment to replace losses because, at the time of the negotiations, two large aircraft factories were being moved east from Leningrad and two more from Ukraine. It would take at least eight months to resume production, until when, aircraft output would fall from 80 to 30 aircraft per day. Britain and the US undertook to send 400 aircraft a month, at a ratio of three bombers to one fighter (later reversed), 500 tanks a month and 300 Bren gun carriers. The Anglo-Americans also undertook to send of aluminium and 3, 862 machine tools, along with sundry raw materials food and medical supplies.

Arctic convoys

In October 1941, 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 a month from July 1942 to January 1943, followed by and another in excess of those already promised. 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 Hvalfjörður in Iceland, convenient for ships from both sides of the Atlantic. 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 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 or a Royal Naval Reserveist and would be aboard one of the merchant ships (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 in code.

In large convoys, the commodore was assisted by vice- and rear-commodores with whom he directed the speed, course and zig-zagging of the merchant ships and liaised with the escort commander. During the summer months, convoys went as far north as 75 N latitude then south into the Barents Sea and to the ports of Murmansk in the Kola Inlet and Archangel in the White Sea. In winter, due to the polar ice expanding southwards, the convoy route ran closer to Norway. Until early March 1942 one merchant ship of the 110 sent via the Arctic route had been lost; the condition of the receiving ports in the USSR caused more difficulty than German anti-convoy operations by ships, submarines and aircraft. As the summer season approached the hours of daylight increased just as the size of convoys got bigger to alleviate the accumulation of ships awaiting dispatch.

British grand strategy

The growing German air strength in Norway and increasing losses to convoys and their escorts, particularly to convoys PQ 15 and QP 11, led Rear-Admiral Stuart Bonham Carter, commander of the 18th Cruiser Squadron, Admiral sir John Tovey, Commander in Chief Home Fleet and Admiral Sir Dudley Pound the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Royal Navy, unanimously to advocate the suspension of Arctic convoys during the summer months. The small number of Russian ships available for Arctic convoys, losses inflicted by based in Norway and the presence of the German battleship in Norway from early 1942, had led to a large number of ships full of supplies to Russia becoming stranded at the west end and empty and damaged ships waiting at the east end. Despite the views of the Navy, Churchill came under pressure from the president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, bowed to political reality and ordered the dispatch of a larger convoy to reduce the backlog,

Signals intelligence

The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) based at Bletchley Park housed a small industry of code-breakers and traffic analysts that were intercepting and decoding German naval transmissions. By June 1941, the German Enigma machine Home Waters () 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 ( from 1942, code-named Dolphin by the British). By mid-1941, British Y-stations were able to read wireless telegraphy (W/T) transmissions and give advance warning of Luftwaffe operations. In 1941, interception parties (code-named Headaches) embarked on warships.

From May 1942, ships were provided with Royal Air Force (RAF) Y ''computor'' parties to interpret Luftwaffe W/T signals intercepted by Headaches. The Admiralty sent details of Luftwaffe wireless frequencies, call signs and the daily local codes to the computors, which combined with their knowledge of Luftwaffe procedures, could glean fairly accurate details of German reconnaissance sorties. Sometimes computors predicted attacks twenty minutes before they were detected by radar. In February 1942, the German (, Observation Service) of the (MND), the German Naval Intelligence Service, read the British Naval Cypher No. 3 until January 1943.

Prelude

In March 1942, Adolf Hitler issued a directive for a greater anti-convoy effort to weaken the Red Army and prevent Allied troops being transferred to northern Russia, preparatory to a landing on the coast of northern Norway. ( Hans-Jürgen Stumpff) was to be reinforced and the was ordered to put an end to Arctic convoys and naval incursions. The Luftwaffe and were to work together with a simplified command structure, which was implemented after a conference; the Navy had preferred joint command but the Luftwaffe insisted on the exchange of liaison officers. was to be reinforced by 2./ ''Kampfgeschwader'' 30 (KG 30) and KG 30 was to increase its readiness for operations. A squadron of (Aufkl.Fl.Gr. 125) was transferred to Norway and more long-range Focke-Wulf Fw 200 ''Kondor'' patrol aircraft from ''Kampfgeschwader'' 40 (KG 40) were sent from France. At the end of March, the air fleet was divided.

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