An account of the naval disaster involving thirty-five allied ships carrying military equipment to Russia in the summer of 1942

Why Me, Lord? is a firsthand account by a veteran of one of the most tragic chapters in World War II naval history, the infamous PQ 17 convoy across the North Atlantic to north Russia in the summer of 1942. 35 merchant ships carried war materiel to support the Soviet defense against invading Nazi armies before the U.S. and Great Britain opened a second front with the invasion of North Africa late in 1942. After the convoy was abandoned by its American and British naval escort vessels in U-boat-infested waters, 24 of its 35 merchant ships were lost to enemy attack. The author, then a young U.S. Naval officer commanded a Navy Armed Guard contingent aboard the American freighter, S.S. Ironclad, and was awarded the Silver Star for valor as a result of his leadership during combat with attacking German aircraft. He tells the story of his experiences in vivid detail and paints a memorable portrait of both the wartime navy and Soviet Russia's White Sea ports. The book also details the return voyage aboard the U.S. liberty ship, S.S. Richard Bland, which, if anything, was even more harrowing. The Bland was sunk off Iceland after being torpedoed three times north of the Arctic Circle, with its surviving crew members, including the author, being forced into lifeboats in frigid North Atlantic waters. Written more than 60 years after the events it describes, "Why Me, Lord?" is one of the very few, and quite possibly the last, firsthand accounts of this important, though little known, chapters of World War II naval history.

The story of Allied merchant ships and crews who braved the frigid far north to extend a lifeline to Russia, filled with “sheer heroism and brazen drama” (Literary Review). During the last four years of the Second World War, the Western Allies secured Russian defenses against Germany by supplying vital food and arms. The plight of those in Murmansk and Archangel who benefited is now well known, but few are aware of the courage, determination, and sacrifice of Allied merchant ships, which withstood unremitting U-boat attacks and aerial bombardment to maintain the lifeline to Russia. In the storms, fog, and numbing cold of the Arctic, where the sinking of a ten thousand–ton freighter was equal to a land battle in terms of destruction, the losses sustained were huge. Told from the perspective of their crews, this is the inspiring story of the long-suffering merchant ships without which Russia would almost certainly have fallen to Nazi Germany.

Few historical events have resonated as much in modern British culture as the Second World War. It has left a rich legacy in a range of media that continue to attract a wide audience: film, TV and radio, photography and the visual arts, journalism and propaganda, architecture, museums, music and literature. The enduring presence of the war in the public world is echoed in its ongoing centrality in many personal and family memories, with stories of the Second World War being recounted through the generations. This collection brings together recent historical work on the cultural memory of the war, examining its presence in family stories, in popular and material culture and in acts of commemoration in Britain between 1945 and the present.