RUSSIA CONVOY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 48, 26 February 1945, Page 6

RUSSIA CONVOY

DISASTROUS PASSAGE

TWENTY-FOUR SHIPS SUNK (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Rec. 1.45 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 25. The story of a convoy to Russia, which, in the Admiralty's words, "suffered the severest losses of any convoy making the perilous, fiercely-contested passage to and from north Russia," is told by the Admiralty. It was a conyoy, which, in July, 1942, lost 24 ships out of 35.

The story is told in reply to American Press reports of an interview with an American seaman from a Nazi prisoner of war camp who is stated to have said that 34 ships were sunk in a convoy from which the escort ships were withdrawn.

The Admiralty's statement shows that the convoy consisted of 35 supply ships with an escort of 11 corvettes, mine-sweepers, and trawlers, and two anti-aircraft ships. An - additional escort of six destroyers was provided. When it was north-east of Iceland the First Cruiser Squadron sailed to provide close cover. Air reconnaissance about this time revealed that the German battleship Admiral Yon Tirpitz and the cruiser Admiral Hipper with a force of destroyers, had sailed from Trondheim. .It was appreciated that the force was intended to attack the convoy.. Consequently the British Battle Fleet under Admiral Tovey, sailed to the north from the United Kingdom. ESCORT STAYED. The Admiralty statement makes it clear that the actual escort did not leave the convoy while the' cruiser squadron, the six destroyers, and the Battle Fleet were deployed to resist the attack by the German ships. A pack of U-boats and shore-based torpedo-bombers then attacked the convoy over several days. Nineteen merchantmen of the convoy were sunk at this period. Earlier, when the six destroyers were still with the r convoy, five ships were torpedoed and later sank, making 24, not 34, as the American seaman is reported to have stated. Thirteen enemy planes were destroyed. The Admiralty's statement adds that during the past 42 months Russia has received 91.6 per cent, of the war supplies shipped by the northern route, a great proportion of which is convoyed by British escort.