One week later Stalin telegraphed directly to Churchilclass="underline" ‘It seems to me that Great Britain could without risk land in Archangel 25/30 divisions, or transport them across Iran to the southern regions of the USSR.’[8]
As previously indicated, Churchill was only too aware of the need to support the Russians and keep them in the fight – without the Russian campaign Germany’s full attention would be turned on Britain. The Prime Minister was, therefore, perfectly prepared to send all the supplies which could be managed, at times to the detriment of Britain’s own needs; but he was not prepared to send British troops. In the ensuing weeks Russian requests for British divisions became more and more insistent, while Sir Stafford Cripps in Moscow, caught up in an atmosphere of crisis rapidly descending into catastrophe, bombarded the Foreign Office with messages relaying Russian ‘disappointment’ that no British troops would be sent, and warning of a possibly serious weakening of morale. The Soviets were obviously under intense pressure, but Churchill had problems of his own. Britain was still under heavy air attack; U-boats were waging a ferocious war against her transatlantic supply routes; food rationing was introduced, and her only campaign currently in operation against German forces, in North Africa, was not going well. Churchill’s patience finally snapped and on 28 October 1941, via Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister despatched a cable to Sir Stafford Cripps outlining a few ‘home truths’:
1. The Russians brought the war on themselves when, by their pact with Ribbentrop [German Foreign Minister], they let Hitler loose on Poland.
2. The Russians cut themselves off from an effective second front when they refused to intervene in 1940 and allowed the French army to be destroyed.
3. If, prior to the German invasion, the Russians had consulted us, arrangements could have been made as regards munitions etc.
4. Instead until Hitler attacked, Britain did not know if the Russians would fight or whose side they would be on.
5. Britain was left alone for a year while every Communist in the country tried to hamper our war effort, on orders from Moscow.
6. If Britain had been invaded… or starved in the Battle of the Atlantic, the Soviet government would have remained utterly indifferent.
7. Despite warnings, Russia left Hitler to choose his moment and his enemies.
8. Russia was not short of manpower, what she needed was equipment, which Britain would endeavour to supply.[9]
Churchill was evidently ‘letting off steam’, and did not propose that Cripps should pass his comments on to the Russians verbatim, but he fully intended that the British ambassador should bear them in mind in his dealings with the Soviets.
Aware that the Royal Navy was already considerably stretched by escort duties in the Atlantic (despite invaluable assistance from the Royal Canadian Navy), plus substantial operations in the Mediterranean and the requirements of the Home Fleet, Churchill nevertheless insisted that the Admiralty make ships available to escort convoys to the Russian Arctic ports in the Barents Sea.
Concurrent with Operation Barbarossa, German troops entered the territory of their reluctant allies the Finns, and Russian foresight following the war with Finland with regard to their dispositions for protecting the ports of Murmansk and Archangel and the crucial rail link to the Russian interior, now became apparent.
A small exploratory convoy carrying mainly aircraft departed from Iceland on 21 August, and arrived in Russia without incident. A system of convoys was thereafter set in motion, commencing with PQ1 which departed from Iceland on 28 September 1941, arriving at Archangel on 11 October – returning convoys (in ballast) were given the prefix QP. By the end of 1941, seven convoys had sailed through to Russia carrying vital supplies – 750 tanks, 800 fighters, 1400 vehicles, and over 100,000 tons (101,600 tonnes) of stores.
President Theodore Roosevelt believed that the United States should and would join the fight against Facism in Europe. However, in 1940 he faced re-election, making it necessary to court a vocal and not insubstantial ‘isolationist’ grouping in Congress and among the public at large. Nevertheless, the President ensured that supplies were sent to Britain and, in exchange for US rights to use bases in certain British possessions, arranged for the transfer to the Royal Navy of fifty old but still welcome US Navy destroyers. For Britain the first hope of the war came when Germany invaded Russia. The second came on Sunday, 8 December 1941, when Japanese forces attacked the US fleet at Pearl Harbor without warning – followed by Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States in support of his Japanese allies. The German declaration neatly solved any problems which President Roosevelt might have had persuading the public that America’s war lay across the Atlantic as well as the Pacific.
With the entrance of the United States into the war, plans were put in hand to increase transatlantic shipments so that supplies could be sent specifically for Russia and not taken from those sent for Britain’s war effort, as had previously been the case.
It took the German high command some time to appreciate the importance of stopping the resupply of the Red Army through the Arctic ports. Possibly they did not believe that the campaign would last long enough for the convoys to matter; however, this would be only one of a number of reasons for the lack of German activity for several months of convoy traffic. From the opening of Barbarossa reconnaissance flights had been restricted as a result of aircraft being withdrawn from Luftflotte V (the German air fleet responsible for Norway) to assist with the campaign in Russia. Additionally, a principal cause must have been the German high command’s lack of an effective inter-service general staff to co-ordinate the needs and responsibilities of the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. On the contrary there was more often than not undisguised hostility between the heads of the different services, encouraged by Hitler on the principle of ‘divide and rule’. This antipathy was particularly true of Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the Luftwaffe, and Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, C-in-C Kriegsmarine, who had a long-running and furious argument over the control of naval aviation. This argument was never resolved, despite the conclusion of a pact in 1939, which Goering immediately proceeded to undermine by starving squadrons earmarked for the navy of aircraft. A similar dispute between the RAF and the Royal Navy lasted for over a decade between the wars, but was finally settled when naval air power (the Fleet Air Arm) was transferred to the control of the navy between 1937 and 1939. Goering, the former First World War fighter ace, proved to be a highly incompetent service chief, and to make matters worse appeared ready to do almost anything to flatter Hitler in an attempt to improve his own position to the detriment of the other service chiefs, whom he considered rivals to be fought as hard as the enemy. Such damaging rivalry did nothing to assist combined operations to hunt down Allied shipping.