Convoy PQ 17

Convoy PQ 17
Part of Second World War, Arctic Campaign
Escorts and merchant ships at Hvalfjord May 1942 before the sailing of Convoy PQ 17.
Date 27 June – 10 July 1942 Location Arctic Ocean Result German victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom  United States  Soviet Union  Netherlands  Panama	Germany
Commanders and leaders
John Tovey Louis Hamilton Jack Broome John Dowding	Erich Raeder Karl Dönitz Hans-Jürgen Stumpff
Strength
35 merchant ships Close escort: 6 destroyers, 11 escort vessels, 2 anti-aircraft ships, Covering forces: 1 aircraft carrier, 2 battleships, 6 cruisers, 13 destroyers (did not engage):[1]	1 battleship, 3 cruisers, 12 destroyers (did not engage): 11 U-boats: 33 torpedo aircraft, 6 bombers (Flying over 200 sorties)
Casualties and losses
153 merchant seamen killed 24 merchant ships sunk	5 aircraft

PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied Arctic convoy during the Second World War. On 27 June 1942, the ships sailed from Hvalfjörður, Iceland, for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. The convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, after which it was shadowed continuously and attacked. The First Sea Lord Admiral Dudley Pound, acting on information that German ships, including the German battleship Tirpitz, were moving to intercept, ordered the covering force based on the Allied battleships HMS Duke of York and USS Washington away from the convoy and told the convoy to scatter. Because of vacillation by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, German armed forces high command), the Tirpitz raid never materialised.^[2][3] The convoy was the first large joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command; in Churchill's view this encouraged a more careful approach to fleet movements.^[4]

As the close escort and the covering cruiser forces withdrew westwards to intercept the German raiders, the merchant ships were left without escorts.^[5] The merchant ships were attacked by Luftwaffe aircraft and U-boats and of the 35 ships, only eleven reached their destination, delivering 70,000 long tons (71,000 metric tons) of cargo.^[6] The convoy disaster demonstrated the difficulty of passing adequate supplies through the Arctic, especially during the summer with the midnight sun.^[7] The German success was possible through German signals intelligence and cryptological analysis.^[8]