“The convoys to the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel were a lifeline—and a death trap.”

By Roderick G. Maclean

IN THE freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean during the Second World War, men fought not only the enemy but also the elements.

Between 1941 and 1945, over 78 convoys battled their way through treacherous ice fields, gale-force storms, and relentless enemy attacks to deliver vital supplies to the northern Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel. Among them sailed HMS Achates, a destroyer that would come to symbolize both the resolve and the sacrifice of the Royal Navy. Her story is a microcosm of the wider conflict.

A Strategic Lifeline

On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

The campaign, which was unprecedented in size, began with an assault by three million German troops along an 1,800-mile front. By comparison, the Allies’ 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy, often heralded for its scale and complexity, involved 156,000 soldiers.

Ironically, the U.S.S.R. had initially been a German ally following the signing of a non-aggression pact in 1939, which divided Poland between the two powers. The partnership lasted until Barbarossa — a historic betrayal by Hitler. The Russians, facing complete collapse, fought ferociously against the Nazis, but it was not enough. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin desperately needed aid from Britain and her allies.

Despite his dislike of communism, Churchill’s philosophy was to lend a hand to Stalin to keep Germany fighting on two fronts. The United States, although still officially neutral in the summer of 1941, backed the effort.

Together, the Allies committed to opening a supply route to bolster the Red Army. The northern convoys, sailing from Britain and Iceland to the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel, were a lifeline—and a death trap. The convoy routes into the Barents Sea skirted the coast of Nazi-occupied Norway, placing ships within reach of German airfields, U-boats, and surface raiders. The Arctic convoys quickly became one of the most perilous operations of the war.

It was into this crucible that one ship — HMS Achates — was deployed.

Life Aboard Achates

An A-class destroyer, Achates had already seen her share of fighting by that point in the war. Commissioned in 1930, she served in peacetime with the Mediterranean Fleet. With the outbreak of hostilities, she was deployed to the English Channel to hunt U-boats. Achates would later take part in the 1941 Battle of the Denmark Strait where the German warship Bismarck was hunted down and destroyed. Later, in a July raid on Nazi-occupied Norway, Achates struck a mine that killed more than 60 of her crew. After eight months of repairs, she returned to sea and took part in the Allied Arctic convoys. After a brief redeployment for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, she returned to the northern runs in December of 1942.

Conditions aboard Achates that winter were brutal. Temperatures could plunge to -30°C, ice coated every surface, and freezing spray could immobilize equipment. Survival time for crewmen who fell into the icy waters was a matter of minutes. All the while, the danger from the enemy was constant. Yet, amid the hardships, the ship developed a tight-knit camaraderie. Ordinary seamen, stokers, gunners, and officers endured together—united by purpose and a shared awareness that they might not come back.

Each convoy brought an increased risk of death for crewmen. They were twice as likely to be sunk on a Russian convoy as on an Atlantic convoy. It was not without reason that Churchill had named the Arctic Convoys “the worst journey in the world.”

Convoy JW 51B: HMS Achates Fateful Mission

It was during Convoy JW51B in December 1942 that HMS Achates met her destiny.

The convoy, comprising 14 merchant ships, departed Loch Ewe on December 22, bound for Murmansk. HMS Achates was one of six destroyers providing close escort cover. Command of the escort fell to Captain Robert St. Vincent Sherbrooke aboard the destroyer HMS Onslow.

Unbeknown to the men of JW51B, the Germans had been tracking the convoy’s progress. On Wednesday December 30, Hitler authorized Operation Regenbogen from his lair at Wolfschanze in East Prussia. Admiral Oskar Kummetz, anchored in a Norwegian fiord in the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper along with the Lützow under Captain Stange, was ordered to intercept and annihilate the convoy. Regenbogen was a pincer movement which the Nazis hoped would entrap the Allied ships. Hitler hoped this tactic would provide a morale-boosting New Year’s victory.

Courage Under Fire

On December 31, as Convoy JW51B steamed through heavy snow and blizzard conditions in the Barents Sea, the German flotilla attacked. HMS Achates, commanded by Captain A.H.T. Johns, was tasked with laying a smokescreen to conceal the merchant vessels.

At around 9:40 a.m., Achates, the smoke layer, was spotted by the Admiral Hipper. The Achates was drawing a thick curtain of black smoke across the scene. Soon the convoy would be safe and out of sight. Hipper’s captain, a man named Hartmann, was unwilling to charge his cruiser through the smoke curtain; destroyers could be waiting on the other side, ready to launch a torpedo attack.

Hartmann signalled for Kummetz’s permission to fire on the smoke-laying Achates. He turned Hipper to port to enable the four turrets each with two eight-inch guns to aim at the British destroyer that was eight miles downrange. Hipper fired. It took the 250-pound shells — totalling a ton of steel and explosives and travelling at 1,000 m.p.h.  — 23 seconds to reach the target. One of the shells struck the destroyer sending splinters and fragments through the inside of the vessel. The results were horrifying.

Despite catastrophic damage, the Achates crew fought to keep her afloat. They continued to lay smoke, fired back when they could, and tended to the wounded amid the carnage. The Achates played a crucial role in obscuring the convoy. The Hipper was eventually driven off by Achates’ fellow destroyers, the Onslow and the Orwell, who feigned torpedo attacks.

Many of the shards of shrapnel from the Hipper’s shelling had penetrated the destroyer’s port side and had wreaked havoc between decks. The bow of the Achates was like a colander and the gashes were letting seawater gush in. Electric cables were shredded. Sailors’ cupboards were distorted and the contents scattered haphazardly across their quarters. Tables in the mess were floating awkwardly in the flood that was pouring in through the ship’s punctured hull. The wounded and the slain lay in passageways and mess decks.

Then cruisers HMS Sheffield and Jamaica, part of a separate covering force led by Rear-Admiral Robert Burnett, arrived and engaged the Hipper. Surprised and outgunned, Admiral Kummetz withdrew—failing to sink a single merchant ship. All 14 merchant ships of the convoy reached Murmansk.

But the Achates did not make it.

The End of the Achates

Her fate had been sealed through continued shellfire and uncontrollable flooding. As the ship’s list worsened, the hull of the Achates inverted. First Lieutenant Loftus Peyton Jones (24), now in command following the death of Captain Johns, gave the order to abandon ship around 13:15. Many died in the freezing water, unable to reach the rescue ship. Others clung to Carley floats taking 15 minutes or so to get to the Northern Gem. It is recorded that stoker J Colley started to sing “Roll Out the Barrel” to maintain spirits on the way to the Gem, with many of Achates crew joining in.

Of her complement of 193 men, only 83 were rescued, with one dying the next day. HMS Achates slipped beneath the waves between 1330h and 1400h on December 31, 1942—as the convoy she had protected steamed to safety.

Legacy of a Ship and Her Crew

The Battle of the Barents Sea, as the action became known, had strategic reverberations. Hitler, furious at the Kriegsmarine’s failure, lost faith in his surface fleet and ordered the decommissioning of Germany’s capital ships. This was later rescinded after much persuasion from Kriegsmarine Admirals. However, the German surface fleet was relegated, and U-boats promoted. HMS Achates became a symbol of resolve and raw courage. The officers and crew had stood their ground in the face of overwhelming force, and many had died protecting others.

Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO, Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet 1940-1943 had this to say about the Achates and the Battle of the Barents Sea:

The Battle of the Barents Sea was one of the finest examples in either of the two World Wars of how to handle destroyers and cruisers in action with heavier forces. Captain Sherbrooke saved his convoy by going straight in to attack his far heavier enemy, using his guns to do what damage they could but relying on his torpedoes, the real menace to the heavy ships, to deter them from closing the convoy.

Sherbrooke knew the threat was lost once his torpedoes were fired. When in position for firing he turned his ships to simulate an attack – the mere threat was sufficient to persuade the enemy to break off their attack…

As Sherbrooke went in to attack, the Commodore turned his convoy away and it was quickly covered by smoke from the Achates. Smoke-laying may not appear a very exciting way of fighting, but I know few things more unpleasant than being fired at when you cannot shoot back. Apart from preventing the enemy getting a sight of the convoy, there is always the chance of a torpedo attack developing out of the smoke. The sinking of the smoke-layer is essential if the enemy is to get a chance of damaging the convoy and the Achates was constantly coming under fire, but she stuck to her job right up to the time she sank – truly a noble little ship and company.

Why We Must Remember

The Arctic convoys remain among the most dangerous naval missions ever undertaken. Of the 1,400 merchant ships that sailed 85 were lost along with 16 Royal Navy escort vessels. Around 3,000 personnel—British, Soviet, American, and others—perished.

Yet their sacrifice was not in vain. The supplies they delivered sustained the Soviet war effort and helped turn the tide on the Eastern Front. Without the Arctic convoys, the course of the war might have been very different.

Roderick G. Maclean is the author of Never To Return: Convoys To Russia in the Second World War. He has worked as a lecturer at Lews Castle College, an education officer at Museum nan Eilean, and deputy headteacher at the Nicolson Institute of Stornoway, Scotland.