My Father-in-law (who I'm visiting now) beat the odds by surviving both PQ17
(4 ships returned out of 36) and PQ18/QP18 (where roughly half survived).
In PQ17 his ship, the Exford, hid in an ice field after the convoy was
ordered dispersed. The bow was crushed by an iceberg, but they managed to
bring the ship back to Iceland for repairs.

At the end of the war, he has on board the tanker Oklahoma when it was
topedoed - they spend 17 days in a liferaft, sailing about 1000 miles to
Curacao.

-jeff

"The_navigator©" wrote in message
...
from:http://www.armed-guard.com/ag79.html

"As long as men write about the dangers of the seas and the heroic
deeds of those who take their ship into battle against long odds,
they will tell tales of the "Murmansk Run" in World War II, when
merchant ships steamed into the stormy Arctic with supplies for the
Russian front. It was then that the new Libertys went into battle
for the first time and, along with their older companions, faced a
relentless enemy as they fought through to the Barents Sea and the
White Sea to reach the distant Russian supply ports of Archangel and
Murmansk."

"The understandable British reluctance to accept the heavy losses to
merchantmen and escorts on this run, and the continued Russian and
American insistence that the convoys should move regardless of
losses, was a matter of contention that created bitter feelings and
suspicions despite the polite wording of official communiques.

The British viewpoint was expressed by Captain S. W. Roskill, R.N.,
who wrote in War at Sea that "the Russians never relieved the Home
Fleet of any appreciable share of responsibility for defending the
Arctic convoys." Neither, for that matter, did the United States,
where ardent protestations of the need to sail the ships was not
accompanied by any offer of escort craft to help see them through.
Indeed, the U. S. Navy was so woefully short of escorts and trained
personnel that it couldn't even protect Allied ships along the
Atlantic seaboard.

Forty convoys, with a total of more than 800 ships, including 350
under the U. S. flag, started on the Murmansk run from 1941 through
1945. Ninety-seven of those ships were sunk by bombs, torpedoes,
mines, and the fury of the elements. Were the Murmansk convoys
instrumental in keeping Russia in the war? They carried more than
22,000 aircraft, 375,000 trucks, 8,700 tractors, 51,500 jeeps, 1,900
locomotives, 343,700 tons of explosives, a million miles of field-
telephone cable, plus millions of shoes, rifles, machine guns, auto
tires, radio sets, and other equipment."

Thom Stewart wrote:

MC,

Those ships were the "LEND LEASE" program. They carried American food,
and war supplies both.

I do't know what the % was. Each convoy was made up differently. A very
large % was fuel and a very large % was Food stuffs and this was long
before 12/7/4.

OT

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 12:52:42 +0000, Jeff Morris wrote:

My Father-in-law (who I'm visiting now) beat the odds by surviving both
PQ17 (4 ships returned out of 36) and PQ18/QP18 (where roughly half
survived). In PQ17 his ship, the Exford, hid in an ice field after the
convoy was ordered dispersed. The bow was crushed by an iceberg, but they
managed to bring the ship back to Iceland for repairs.

At the end of the war, he has on board the tanker Oklahoma when it was
topedoed - they spend 17 days in a liferaft, sailing about 1000 miles to
Curacao.

-jeff

I never really realized how dangerous the merchant marine was during WWII
until I read that merchant mariners suffered a higher percentage of deaths
than any of the other US services. They provided a truly heroic service.