Bernard Edwards Road to Russia

Annotation

The renowned naval historian chronicles three WWII convoy missions to Russia through dangerous Arctic waters and relentless Luftwaffe attacks. During the Summer of 1942 Britain and America jointly agreed to supply desperately needed arms to Soviet Russia. Determined to stop this potentially decisive operation, the Germans relentlessly hounded the Allied convoys from the sky. And the Arctic sea battleground could not have been more inhospitable. The British and American merchantmen and their gallant naval escorts suffered grievous losses. The cold was so intense that there were pitifully few survivors from the many vessels sunk in the running battles that raged. In Road to Russia, acclaimed naval historian Bernard Edwards vividly chronicles three of these courageous and harrowing voyages: convoys PQ13 and PQ 17, bound from Iceland to North Russia, and the Westbound convoy QP13. Attacked by aircraft and U-boats, PQ13 and PQ17 lost between them a total of thirty ships while QP13, untouched by the enemy, ran into a British minefield off Iceland with the loss of seven ships. The Road to Russia is an important addition to the bibliography of this bitterly fought campaign.