Award-winning historian Mike Walling captures the essence of the Arctic Convoys of World War II. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies, Britain and the United States launched an ambitious operation to resupply the Soviet Union using convoys sent through the Arctic. Their journey was punctuated by torpedo attacks in freezing conditions, Stuka dive bombers, naval gun fire, and weeks of total darkness in the Arctic winter, with ships disappearing below the waves weighed down by the ice and snow on their decks. Drawing on hundreds of oral histories from eyewitnesses and veterans of the convoys, plus original research into the Russian Navy archives at Murmansk, historian Michael G. Walling offers a fresh retelling of one of World War II's pivotal yet largely overlooked campaigns.

When the enemy adopts a policy to attack convoys, truck drivers become front line troops. Convoy commanders must then become tacticians. How to study war? The student of tactics studies previous fights and mentally places himself in the position of the participants. Knowing what they knew, how would he have reacted? In hind sight, what was the best course of action, remembering that there is no one perfect solution? Any number of actions would have succeeded. The tactician must learn what would have worked best for him. For this reason, I have pulled together all the examples of convoy ambushes. The 20th century, Vietnam War, and current war in Iraq provide a wealth of examples of convoy ambushes from which to study. Unfortunately, the US Army did not record many good accounts of ambushes during the Vietnam War. Much of what is presented in this text is based upon oral interviews of the participants, sometimes backed by official record, citations or reports. For this reason, some of the ambush case studies present only the perspective of a crew member of a gun truck or the convoy commander. Since this academic study works best when one mentally takes the place of one of the participants, this view of the ambush serves a useful purpose. After my own review of the ambushes, I have drawn my own conclusion as to what principles apply to convoy ambushes.

In November 1942, Britain and America launched Operation TORCH, the ambitious invasion of French North Africa. ÊÊÊÊÊ To convey 70,000 troops and their equipment required 600 merchant ships crossing the U-boat infested North Atlantic. The need for their protection meant withdrawing escorts from the routine convoys.Ê Amongst those left without adequate defence were RB 1 and SC 107, both eastbound from America, and SL 125, northbound from Freetown.Ê All three were at sea at the same time as the TORCH convoys.

The first account of Britain's convoys during the Napoleonic Wars--showing how the protection of trade played a decisive role in victory During the Napoleonic Wars thousands of merchant ships crisscrossed narrow seas and wide oceans, protected by Britain's warships. These were wars of attrition and raw materials had to reach their shores continuously: timber and hemp from the Baltic, sulfur from Sicily, and saltpeter from Bengal. Britain's fate rested on the strength of its economy--and convoys played a vital role in securing victory. Leading naval historian Roger Knight examines how convoys ensured the protection of trade and transport of troops, allowing Britain to take the upper hand. Detailing the many hardships these ships faced, from the shortage of seaman to the vicissitudes of the weather, Knight sheds light on the innovation and seamanship skills that made convoys such an invaluable tool in Britain's arsenal. The convoy system laid the foundation for Britain's narrow victory over Napoleon and his allies in 1815 and, in doing so, established its naval and mercantile power at sea for a hundred years.

Award-winning historian Mike Walling captures the essence of the Arctic Convoys of World War II. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies, Britain and the United States launched an ambitious operation to resupply the Soviet Union using convoys sent through the Arctic. Their journey was punctuated by torpedo attacks in freezing conditions, Stuka dive bombers, naval gun fire, and weeks of total darkness in the Arctic winter, with ships disappearing below the waves weighed down by the ice and snow on their decks. Drawing on hundreds of oral histories from eyewitnesses and veterans of the convoys, plus original research into the Russian Navy archives at Murmansk, historian Michael G. Walling offers a fresh retelling of one of World War II's pivotal yet largely overlooked campaigns.

The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous campaign of World War II, climaxed in 1943, when Germany came closest to interrupting Allied supply lines and perhaps winning the war. In March of that year, German U-boats scored their last great triumph, destroying nearly 150,000 tons of supplies and fuel.