The decision was taken with deep regret because of the tremendous battles on the Russian front which distinguished the campaign of 1943. After the spring thaw both sides gathered themselves for a momentous struggle. The Russians, both on land and in the air, had now the upper hand, and the Germans can have had few hopes of ultimate victory. They gained no advantages to make up for their heavy losses, and the new “Tiger” tanks, on which they had counted for success, were mauled by the Russian artillery. Their Army had already been depleted by its previous campaigns in Russia and diluted by inclusion of its second-rate allies. Now, when the Russian blows began to fall, it was unable to parry them. Three immense battles, of Kursk, Orel, and Kharkov, all within a space of two months, marked the ruin of the German army on the Eastern Front. Everywhere they were outfought and overwhelmed. The Russian plan, vast though it was, never outran their resources. It was not only on land that the Russians proved their new superiority. In the air about 2,500 German aircraft were opposed by at least twice as many Russian planes, whose efficiency had been much improved. The German Air Force at this period of the war was at the peak of its strength, numbering about 6,000 aircraft in all. That less than half could be spared to support this crucial campaign is proof enough of the value to Russia of our operations in the Mediterranean and of the growing Allied bomber effort based on Britain. In fighter aircraft especially the Germans felt the pinch. Although inferior on the Eastern Front, yet in September they had to weaken it still more in order to defend themselves in the West, where by the winter nearly three-quarters of the total German fighter strength was deployed. The swift and overlapping Russian blows gave the Germans no opportunity to make the best use of their air resources. Air units were frequently moved from one battle area to another in order to meet a fresh crisis, and wherever they went, leaving a gap behind them, they found the Russian planes in overmastering strength.
OPERATIONS IN RUSSIA, JULY-DEC.1943
In September the Germans were in retreat along the whole of their southern front, from opposite Moscow to the Black Sea. The Russians swung forward in full pursuit. At the northern hinge a Russian thrust took Smolensk on September 25. No doubt the Germans hoped to stand on the Dnieper, the next great river line, but by early October the Russians were across it north of Kiev, and to the south at Pereyaslav and Kremenchug. Farther south again Dniepropetrovsk was taken on October 25. Only near the mouth of the river were the Germans still on the western bank of the Dnieper; all the rest had gone. The retreat of the strong German garrison in the Crimea was cut off. Kiev, outflanked on either side, fell on November 6, with many prisoners. By December, after a three months’ pursuit, the German armies in Central and South Russia had been thrust back more than two hundred miles, and, failing to hold the Dnieper river line, lay open and vulnerable to a winter campaign in which, as they knew from bitter experience, their opponents excelled. Such was the grand Russian story of 1943.
It was natural that the Soviet Government should look reproachfully at the suspension of the convoys, for which their armies hungered. On the evening of September 21 Molotov sent for our Ambassador in Moscow and asked for the sailings to be resumed. He pointed out that the Italian Fleet had been eliminated and the U-boats had abandoned the North Atlantic for the southern route. The Persian railway could not carry enough. For three months the Soviet Union had been undertaking a wide and most strenuous offensive, yet in 1943 they had received less than a third of the previous year’s supplies. The Soviet Government therefore “insisted” upon the urgent resumption of the convoys, and expected His Majesty’s Government to take all necessary measures within the next few days.
When we met in London on the night of the 29th to discuss all this an agreeable new fact was before us. The Tirpitz had been disabled by the audacious and heroic attack of our midget submarines. Of six craft which took part two penetrated all the elaborate defences. Their commanding officers, Lieutenant Cameron, R.N.R., and Lieutenant Place, R.N., rescued by the Germans, survived as prisoners of war, and received the Victoria Cross. Later air reconnaissance showed that the battleship was heavily damaged and would require refit in a dockyard before she could again be ready for action. The Lützow had already gone to the Baltic. Thus we had an easement, probably of some months, in the Arctic waters.
But Mr. Eden had serious complaints about the Russian treatment of our men, and I accordingly sent the following telegram to Stalin:
… It is a very great pleasure to me to tell you that we are planning to sail a series of four convoys to North Russia in November, December, January, and February, each of which will consist of approximately thirty-five ships, British and American. …
To avoid new charges of breach of faith from the Soviet, if our efforts to help them proved vain, I inserted a safeguarding paragraph:
However, I must put it on record that this is no contract or bargain, but rather a declaration of our solemn and earnest resolve. On this basis I have ordered the necessary measures to be taken for the sending of these four convoys of thirty-five ships.
I then proceeded with our list of grievances about the treatment of our men in North Russia.
… The present numbers of naval personnel are below what is necessary, even for our present requirements, owing to men having to be sent home without relief. Your civil authorities have refused us all visas for men to go to North Russia, even to relieve those who are seriously overdue for relief. M. Molotov has pressed His Majesty’s Government to agree that the number of British Service personnel in North Russia should not exceed that of the Soviet Service personnel and trade delegation in this country. We have been unable to accept this proposal, since their work is quite dissimilar and the number of men needed for war operations cannot be determined in such an unpractical way.…
I must therefore ask you to agree to the immediate grant of visas for the additional personnel now required, and for your assurance that you will not in future withhold visas when we find it necessary to ask for them in connection with the assistance that we are giving you in North Russia. I emphasise that of about one hundred and seventy naval personnel at present in the North over one hundred and fifty should have been relieved some months ago, but Soviet visas have been withheld. The state of health of these men, who are unaccustomed to the climatic and other conditions, makes it very necessary to relieve them without further delay.…
I must also ask your help in remedying the conditions under which our Service personnel and seamen at present find themselves in North Russia. These men are of course engaged in operations against the enemy in our joint interest, and chiefly to bring Allied supplies to your country. They are, I am sure you will admit, in a wholly different position from ordinary individuals proceeding to Russian territory. Yet they are subjected by your authorities to the following restrictions, which seem to me inappropriate for men sent by an ally to carry out operations of the greatest interest to the Soviet Union:
(a) No one may land from one of H.M. ships or from a British merchant ship except by a Soviet boat in the presence of a Soviet official and after examination of documents on each occasion.
(b) No one from a British warship is allowed to proceed alongside a British merchantman without the Soviet authorities being informed beforehand. This even applies to the British admiral in charge.
(c) British officers and men are required to obtain special passes before they can go from ship to shore or between two British shore stations. These passes are often much delayed, with consequent dislocation of the work in hand.
(d) No stores, luggage, or mail for this operational force may be landed except in the presence of a Soviet official, and numerous formalities are required for the shipment of all stores and mail.
(e) Private Service mail is subjected to censorship, although for an operational force of tins kind censorship should, in our view, be left in the hands of British Service authorities.
The imposition of these restrictions makes an impression upon officers and men alike which i
s bad for Anglo-Soviet relations, and would be deeply injurious if Parliament got to hear of it. The cumulative effect of these formalities has been most hampering to the efficient performance of the men’s duties, and on more than one occasion to urgent and important operations. No such restrictions are placed upon Soviet personnel here. … I trust indeed, M. Stalin, that you will find it possible to have these difficulties smoothed out in a friendly spirit, so that we may help each other, and the common cause, to the utmost of our strength.
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These were modest requests considering the efforts we were now to make. I did not receive Stalin’s answer for nearly a fortnight. This was the reply I got:
I received your message of October 1 informing me of the intention to send four convoys to the Soviet Union by the Northern route in November, December, January, and February. However, this communication loses its value by your statement that this intention to send Northern convoys to the U.S.S.R. is neither an obligation nor an agreement, but only a statement, which, as it may be understood, is one the British side can at any moment renounce regardless of any influence it may have on the Soviet armies at the front. I must say that I cannot agree with such a posing of the question. Supplies from the British Government to the U.S.S.R., armaments and other military goods, cannot be considered otherwise than as an obligation, which, by special agreement between our countries, the British Government undertook in respect of the U.S.S.R., which bears on its shoulders, already for the third year, the enormous burden of struggle with the common enemy of the Allies—Hitlerite Germany. … As experience has shown, delivery of armaments and military supplies to the U.S.S.R. through Persian ports cannot compensate in any way for those supplies which were not delivered by the Northern route. … It is impossible to consider this posing of the question to be other than a refusal of the British Government to fulfil the obligations it undertook, and as a kind of threat addressed to the U.S.S.R.
Concerning your mention of controversial points allegedly contained in the statement of M. Molotov, I have to say that I do not find any foundation for such a remark. … I do not see the necessity for increasing the number of British Service-men in the north of the U.S.S.R., since the great majority of British Service-men who are already there are not adequately employed, and for many months have been doomed to idleness, as has already been pointed out several times by the Soviet side. … There are also regrettable facts of the inadmissible behaviour of individual British Service-men who attempted, in several cases, to recruit, by bribery, certain Soviet citizens for Intelligence purposes. Such instances, offensive to Soviet citizens, naturally gave rise to incidents which led to undesirable complications.
Concerning your mention of formalities and certain restrictions existing in Northern ports, it is necessary to have in view that such formalities and restrictions are unavoidable in zones near and at the front, if one does not forget the war situation which exists in the U.S.S.R. … Nevertheless the Soviet authorities granted many privileges in this respect to the British Service-men and seamen, about which the British Embassy was informed as long ago as last March. Thus your mention of many formalities and restrictions is based on inaccurate information.
Concerning the question of censorship and prosecution of British Service-men, I have no objection if the censorship of private mail for British personnel in Northern ports would be made by the British authorities themselves, on condition of reciprocity. …
“I have now”, I commented to the President, “received a telegram from U.J. which I think you will feel is not exactly all one might hope for from a gentleman for whose sake we are to make an inconvenient, extreme, and costly exertion. … I think, or at least I hope, this message came from the machine rather than from Stalin, as it took twelve days to prepare. The Soviet machine is quite convinced it can get everything by bullying, and I am sure it is a matter of some importance to show that this is not necessarily always true.”
On the 18th I asked the Soviet Ambassador to come to see me. As this was the first occasion on which I had met M. Gousev, who had succeeded Maisky, he gave me the greetings of Marshal Stalin and Molotov, and I told him of the good reputation he had made for himself with us in Canada. After these compliments we had a short discussion about the Second Front. I spoke to him earnestly about the great desire we had to work with Russia and to be friends with her, how we saw that she should have a great place in the world after the war, that we should welcome this, and that we would do our best also to make good relations between her and the United States.
I then turned to Stalin’s telegram about the convoys. I said very briefly that I did not think this message would help the situation, that it had caused me a good deal of pain, that I feared any reply which I could send would only make things worse, that the Foreign Secretary was in Moscow and I had left it to him to settle the matter on the spot and that therefore I did not wish to receive the message. I then handed back to the Ambassador an envelope. Gousev opened the envelope to see what was inside it, and, recognising the message, said he had been instructed to deliver it to me. I then said, “I am not prepared to receive it,” and got up to indicate in a friendly manner that our conversation was at an end. I moved to the door and opened it. We had a little talk in the doorway about his coming to luncheon in the near future and discussing with Mrs. Churchill some questions connected with her Russian fund, which I told him had now reached four million pounds. I did not give M. Gousev a chance of recurring to the question of the convoys or of trying to hand me back the envelope, and bowed him out.
The War Cabinet endorsed my refusal to receive Stalin’s telegram. It was certainly an unusual diplomatic incident, and, as I learnt later, it impressed the Soviet Government. In fact, Molotov referred to it several times in conversation. Even before it could be reported to Moscow there were misgivings in Soviet circles. On October 19 Mr. Eden, who had arrived there for a long-planned conference of the Foreign Secretaries of the three major Allies, telegraphed that Molotov had called on him at the Embassy and said that his Government greatly valued the convoys and had sadly missed them. The Northern route was the shortest and quickest way of getting supplies to the front, where the Russians were going through a difficult time. The German winter defence line had to be broken. Molotov promised to speak to Stalin about it all and arrange a meeting.
The important discussion took place on the 21st. Meanwhile, in order to strengthen Eden’s hands, and at his suggestion, I suspended the sailing of the British destroyers, which was the first move in the resumption of the convoys. Eventually it was arranged that the convoys should be resumed. The first started in November, and a second followed it in December. Between them they comprised seventy-two ships. All arrived safely, and at the same time return convoys of empty ships were successfully brought out.
The December outward-bound convoy was to bring about a gratifying naval engagement. The disablement of the Tirpitz had left the Scharnhorst the only heavy enemy ship in Northern Norway. She sallied forth from Alten Fiord with five destroyers on the evening of Christmas Day, 1943, to attack the convoy about fifty miles south of Bear Island. The reinforced convoy escort comprised fourteen destroyers, with a covering force of three cruisers. The Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Fraser, lay to the south-westward in his flagship, the Duke of York, with the cruiser Jamaica and four destroyers.
Twice the Scharnhorst tried to strike at the convoy. Each time she was intercepted and engaged by the escort cruisers and destroyers, and after indecisive fighting, in which both the Scharnhorst and the British cruiser Norfolk were hit, the Germans broke off the action and withdrew to the southward, shadowed and reported by our cruisers. The German destroyers were never seen and took no part. Meanwhile the Commander-in-Chief was approaching at his utmost speed through heavy seas. At 4.17 p.m., when the last of the Arctic twilight had long since gone, the Duke of York detected the enemy by Radar at about twenty-three miles. The Scharnhorst remained unaware of her approaching doom, until, at 4.50
p.m., the Duke of York opened fire at 12,000 yards with the aid of star-shell. At the same time Admiral Fraser sent his four destroyers in to attack when opportunity offered. One of these, the Stord, was manned by the Royal Norwegian Navy. The Scharnhorst was surprised, and turned away to the eastward. In a running fight she suffered several hits, but was able with her superior speed gradually to draw ahead. However, by 6.20 p.m. it became apparent that her speed was beginning to fall and our destroyers were able to close in on either flank. At about 7 p.m. they all pressed home their attacks. Four torpedoes struck. Only one destroyer was hit.
The Scharnhorst turned to drive off the destroyers, and thus the Duke of York was able to close rapidly to about 10,000 yards and reopen fire with crushing effect. In half an hour the unequal battle between a battleship and a wounded battle-cruiser was over, and the Duke of York left the cruisers and destroyers to complete the task. The Scharnhorst soon sank, and of her company of 1,970 officers and men, including Rear-Admiral Bey, we could only save thirty-six men.
Although the fate of the crippled Tirpitz was delayed for nearly a year, the sinking of the Scharnhorst not only removed the worst menace to our Arctic convoys but gave new freedom to our Home Fleet. We no longer had to be prepared at our average moment against German heavy ships breaking out into the Atlantic at their selected moment. This was an important relief. When in April 1944 there were signs that the Tirpitz had been repaired sufficiently to move for refit to a Baltic port, aircraft from the carriers Victorious and Furious attacked her with heavy bombs, and she was once more immobilised. The Royal Air Force now took up the attack from a base in North Russia. They succeeded in causing further damage, which led to the Tirpitz being removed to Tromsö Fiord, which was two hundred miles nearer to Britain, and within the extreme range of our home-based heavy bombers. The Germans had now abandoned hope of getting the ship home for repair and had written her off as a seagoing fighting unit. On November 12 twenty-nine specially fitted Lancasters of the Royal Air Force, including those of 617 Squadron, famous for the Mohne Dam exploit, struck the decisive blow, with bombs of twelve thousand pounds weight. They had to fly over 2,000 miles from their bases in Scotland, but the weather was clear and three bombs hit their target. The Tirpitz capsized at her moorings, more than half of her crew of 1,900 men being killed, at the cost of one bomber, whose crew survived.
The Second World War Page 93
