Through the Eyes of Soviet Agitprop
An insight into how the activities of Allied crews from the ill-fated PQ-17 Arctic convoy of 1942 to wartime Russia were viewed by one of Stalin's commissars. The article is part of an agreement with the Russian history magazine, Rodina, whereby History Today will have access to and publish in English, formerly top-secret documents now being released from the Soviet archives.
The archive materials published below bring us back to the events which happened fifty years ago, when in the summer of 1942 another convoy of cargo ships with weapons, military equipment and other supplies to be shipped to the USSR was assembled by the Allies in Iceland in accordance with the Lend-Lease agreement. It went down in history under the code name PQ-17 and its fate was tragic. It was chased in the North Atlantic waters by enemy bombers, torpedo carriers and submarines but successfully beat off their attacks for four days and nights. However, on July 4th, quite unexpectedly there came orders from the British Navy Headquarters to the effect that the military vessels guarding the convoy should reverse their course and that the cargo ships 'should disperse and head for the Soviet ports of destination'.
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