As Northern Gem approached, members of her crew climbed out onto the trawler’s rubbing strake or were clinging to rescue nets which hung over the gunwale, ready to pull survivors aboard. Without this assistance, few could have hauled themselves up the trawler’s side to safety. As it was, some, wounded, exhausted, and suffering the debilitating effects of hypothermia, could carry on no longer even with rescue so close, and drifted away. Peyton-Jones and his companions paddled towards Northern Gem and someone threw them a line, which was made fast to the float. Unfortunately, in the urgency of the moment, everyone crowded to one side and the float capsized, throwing them all back into the sea. The trawler’s crew struggled manfully to get survivors inboard but it was no easy task, the men in the water being weighed down as they were with bulky sodden clothing, and able to do little to help themselves. Lieutenant Peyton-Jones became aware of increasing numbness, and climbed back onto the empty carley float, pulling off his heavy sheepskin jacket and seaboots. Another survivor appeared and was helped onto the float. By now most of the swimmers had been rescued, and someone hauled the float back alongside while a member of Northern Gem’s crew hoisted Peyton-Jones’s companion aboard on a bowline. The lieutenant was suddenly gripped by an overpowering feeling that if he did not get off the float now he never would, and stepping on to the side of the rolling and plunging raft, he leapt to hook his elbows over the trawler’s gunwale, where willing hands grabbed him and deposited him in a heap on the deck.[124]
Referring to the part played by Achates in the battle, the C-in-C Home Fleet, Admiral Tovey, later remarked:
I consider the action of Lieut. Commander A.H.T. Johns, RN, and subsequently Lieutenant L.E. Peyton-Jones, RN, to have been gallant in the extreme. They only had one idea, to give what protection they could to the convoy, and this they continued to do up to the moment of sinking. The behaviour of all officers and ratings was magnificent.
The admiral also highly commended Lieutenant Aisthorpe, RNR, for the ‘courageous and seamanlike handling of the Northern Gem’, which resulted in the rescue of so many survivors.[125]
The danger from further attack having passed, at 14.45 the convoy altered to 110°, back on course for Murmansk, and at 20.15 Obedient closed with Northern Gem to hear for the first time of the sinking of Achates. The trawler was fitted out as a rescue ship, and had bunks, blankets and dry kit for the destroyer’s eighty-one survivors, but she had no doctor. It was decided that when Northern Gem caught up with the convoy, Obdurate should transfer her medical officer to the trawler.
Obedient sighted two ships at 20.47, bearing 180°, and made an enemy report, but this was cancelled when they were identified as two stragglers returning to the convoy.
Like Achates, flotilla leader Onslow had taken a severe pounding. As she took station at the head of the convoy following her engagement with Hipper, flames and smoke belched from her forecastle and beneath ‘B’ turret. The engine room still produced a monumental smoke screen which occasionally blew forward over the bridge, compounded by passing through a very effective smoke screen being laid by the convoy. Add to this steam issuing from escape pipes with such a roar that it was impossible to hear anyone speak, and the destroyer presented a spectacle which Dante would have recognised instantly.
The worst fire was in the petty officers’ mess under ‘B’ turret, and the heat caused fires to break out in the chief petty officers’ (CPOs’) mess just aft. This had been taken over by the surgeon lieutenant, who attended to casualties there, and in the sick bay and the sick bay flat, under extremely difficult conditions. Finally, smoke and danger of the fire spreading made conditions in the CPOs’ mess impossible, and it was decided to move all casualties aft.[126]
By 14.00 the fires were thankfully under control, and by 14.30 they were all out, but by now the ship had developed a 10° list to port. By flooding No. 7 oil tank this was reduced to 6°, but the large amount of water used to douse the fires brought it back to 10°. The forward shell room was flooded as a consequence, and the ship brought back on to an even keel. The sea was now relatively calm, and as water only entered through the hole in the torpedomen’s messdeck when the ship rolled to port, it was possible by pumping to keep the height of the water down to 2 ft (0.61 m).[127]
As a fighting unit Onslow was now of little use; her ASDIC, RDF and forward guns were all out of action, and should the weather worsen she would be in grave danger of foundering. As a consequence, Lieutenant-Commander Marchant requested that she be allowed to proceed independently to the Kola Inlet, and Commander Kinloch agreed. At 19.30 Onslow was detached and given the 20.00 course and speed of the convoy, which she was to pass to Home Fleet Operational when 50 miles (80 km) clear. She arrived at Kola at 08.30 on 1 January and proceeded to Vaenga Pier to disembark her wounded, arriving there at noon.
On receipt of reports of the action on the 31st, C-in-C Home Fleet put to sea with the battleships Howe and King George V (flagship), the cruiser Bermuda and six destroyers, in case it should prove possible to catch the German battle group at sea. He also detached Rear-Admiral Hamilton with the cruisers Kent and Berwick to cover westbound convoy RA51. The battle fleet cruised to the west of Bear Island until 3 January (see map D, p. 148), then, being sure that the threat from German surface units had passed, returned to Scapa Flow followed on the 4th by Rear-Admiral Hamilton’s cruisers.
For the convoy, the first day of January 1943 saw them making slow progress through weather which had been deteriorating for most of the night. With heavy seas and winds approaching gale force, at around 07.30 Northern Gem, with Lieutenant Aisthorpe himself taking the helm, edged toward Obdurate’s port quarter in order to transfer the doctor from the destroyer. Both ships yawed, rolled and pitched badly, but Lieutenant Aisthorpe skilfully closed the gap to around 10 ft (3.04 m). As the decks of the two ships rose and fell, the gap widened and narrowed but, calling upon all his exceptional seamanship, Aisthorpe judged the moment to nudge the destroyer’s well-fendered side and the medical officer, Lieutenant Maurice Hood, bravely leapt the 8 ft (2.4 m) down to the trawler’s deck. The difficult and dangerous manoeuvre had taken some two hours to complete, but once below, the doctor immediately set to work. As the storm continued, both he and those assisting him had to be anchored around the waist by two men each, enabling them to keep both hands free to minister to the injured as the tiny trawler corkscrewed around in the heavy seas.[128]
At 11.00 the convoy altered course to 185°, the noon position being 71°30’ N, 38°24’ E, at which time Vizalma and Chester Valley also made a welcome reappearance. With the wind blowing a lusty force 7, Executive began to fall astern due to excessive rolling and fears for her deck cargo, but by 23.00 the wind had dropped to force 2, and course was altered to 226° for the approach to Kola. At first light on 2 January land was sighted ahead, and at 10.15 the convoy altered north-westwards to 310° for entry into the inlet. Calobre had dropped astern during the night; otherwise all merchant ships were present and accounted for. As the White Sea had not yet frozen, the convoy re-formed into three columns, the starboard column departing at 13.00 to proceed down the coast to Archangel.