The Germans allowed themselves to enter into a very imperfect coalition by failing to insist upon the harmonization of objectives and plans. To them the war was total but not to the Finns. These differing aims created difficulty for the cobelligerents from the very start. The greatest potential of the Finnish effort from the standpoint of the Germans was twofold: 1) the quick isolation and capture of Leningrad so that forces tied up in that gigantic operation could be used in other areas and 2) in providing assistance in severing the Soviet Union’s overseas supply route. It was up to the political leadership in Germany to achieve a formal agreement from Finland on these points and it was up to the OKW to take steps to establish an effective command structure. Hitler did not intervene and OKW failed to take these rather obvious actions. Without them it was virtually impossible for the Germans to achieve an effective strategic relationship with Finland and its more limited—and politically unstable and shifting—war aims.
THREE
OPERATION PLATINFUCHS
This is a logical place to digress temporarily before discussion of land operations in order to consider the importance of the Murmansk supply route for the Soviet Union. The actual convoy operations—a magnificent achievement under trying circumstances and atrocious conditions—are outside the scope of this book. These operations are covered in numerous books that are still available.1
As the war progressed and it became obvious that the Finns were reluctant to participate in an attack on Leningrad, there were only two possible benefits for the Germans to have Finland at their side:
1. Finnish operations to recapture their lost territories and their operations in East Karelia would draw some Soviet forces away from those facing Army Group North as it approached Leningrad from the south. In addition, Finland’s participation in the war assisted in the blockade of the Soviet Baltic Fleet and thus contributed to German control of the Baltic Sea.
2. More importantly, Finnish cooperation to isolate Murmansk was counted on since the Finns had not objected to it during the planning phase and had placed one corps at the disposal of the Germans for that purpose.
The German planners were undoubtedly aware that Murmansk had already gained some importance as a supply route towards the end of World War I. They also knew that the British had a great stake in keeping the Soviet Union in the war and they should have drawn the next logical conclusion: that Great Britain would make every possible effort to that end. German expectation of a short campaign is probably what caused them not to give Murmansk the attention it deserved. They fully expected to knock the Soviet Union out of the war before aid would be of any consequence.
Churchill was no admirer of Communism but in the life-and-death struggle that was now underway he followed the axiom that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Churchill took to the airwaves on the evening of June 22, the day of the German attack, to pledge the Soviet Union all possible assistance against what was now their common enemy.
Almost a month passed before the Soviet ambassador in London, Ivan Maiski, delivered Stalin’s reply on July 18, 1941. The Soviet dictator surfaced a proposal that was to be repeated frequently in the years to come. He wanted Great Britain to open a front against Germany in France or in the Arctic.
In his book The Second World War, Churchill expresses considerable irritation at the behavior of the Soviet Union on the subject of aid. From the outset, the Soviet demands were expressed in harsh language and the efforts of the British were constantly belittled. Stalin viewed British efforts in theaters that did not directly benefit the Soviet Union as sideshows. He demanded the lion’s share of the Lend-Lease supplies flowing from the United States and although he must have known its virtual impossibility, he clamored for the opening of a second front in the north in 1941.2 Stalin undoubtedly knew that a landing on the continent in 1941 was out of the question and may have used this harsh approach to obtain the supplies and equipment his armed forces so sorely needed.
Churchill met considerable opposition from the Admiralty when he proposed to send aid to the Soviet Union via the Arctic Ocean. Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord, thought the proposed operation flawed and very risky.3 Churchill viewed keeping the Soviet Union in the war as a paramount objective and insisted that supplying its armed forces to keep them from collapsing was worth the effort and risks. He was haunted by the fear of Stalin making a separate peace with the Germans. His fears were not groundless as demonstrated by the Soviet attempt to offer the Ukraine to Germany.4
The worries of the Admiralty were sound. The resources of the Royal Navy and the merchant fleets at the disposal of the British were Platinfuchs already strained.5 In addition to threats from U-boats and occasional sorties by the German fleet, which had most of its surface units in Norway, the convoys would pass perilously close to the Norwegian coast, well within reach of the Luftwaffe. The best time of the year to minimize these dangers was in the summer when the retreating Arctic ice-sheet allows ships to stay further away from the Norwegian coast. However, there is continual daylight at these latitudes in summer and it would be easy for the Germans to locate and track convoys.
In winter there are frequent violent storms and gigantic waves. The seas and mist sweeping over ships froze immediately upon contact with decks and superstructures, forming layer upon layer of solid ice. These were monstrous conditions for the crews and could lead to capsizing when a ship became top-heavy. Navigation was also a serious problem in the darkness superimposed on the fog produced as the cold Arctic air mass joined with the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream.
It was Admiral Sir John Tovey, the commander in chief of the Home Fleet, who was responsible for executing Churchill’s order for establishing a convoy system. The port of Archangel would soon be closed by the ice as the inlet to the White Sea froze and that meant all convoys in 1941 and the first months of 1942 would have Murmansk as their destination. While the British were familiar with both places from their efforts there from 1915 to 1919, they had virtually no information about the facilities that had sprung up since then. Admiral Tovey therefore sent Rear Admirals Philip Vian and Geoffrey Miles to discuss matters with Vice Admiral Golovko, the commander of the Soviet Northern Fleet, and to examine the facilities.
Faced with a multitude of problems in the summer of 1941, Churchill saw the need for closer consultations with the United States. President Franklin Roosevelt was also eager to provide aid to the Soviet Union in order to keep it in the war. A conference between Churchill and Roosevelt was arranged to be held off the coast of Newfoundland. Churchill set out for the conference on Britain’s newest battleship, HMS Prince of Wales.6
President Roosevelt, aboard the heavy cruiser Augusta, was already in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, when Churchill arrived on August 9, 1941. The meetings that followed between the two leaders had momentous consequences not only for the conduct of the war but because they laid the basis, through the Atlantic Charter, for the United Nations. For our purposes, the most important result of the meetings was President Roosevelt’s commitment of America’s industrial might in support of both Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
The first convoy sailed from Iceland on August 21, 1941. It arrived safely in Murmansk. The regular convoys that were to carry the famous PQ or QP designations started a month later, on September 29. Eight convoys of 55 merchant ships reached Murmansk safely by the end of 1941.7