PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied Arctic convoy during the Second World War. On 27 June 1942, the ships sailed from Hvalfjörður, Iceland, for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. The convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, after which it was shadowed continuously and attacked. The First Sea Lord Admiral Dudley Pound, acting on information that German surface units, including the German battleship Tirpitz, were moving to intercept, ordered the covering force built around the Allied battleships HMS Duke of York and the USS Washington away from the convoy and told the convoy to scatter. Because of vacillation by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Tirpitz raid never materialised. The convoy was the first large joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command; in Churchill's view this encouraged a more careful approach to fleet movements.
USS Schenck (DD-159) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Rear Admiral James F. Schenck, USN (1807–1882).
USS Bernadou (DD–153) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Commander John Bernadou. Bernadou was launched on 7 November 1918 by William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, Philadelphia. The ship was sponsored by Miss Cora Winslow Bernadou, Commander Bernadou's sister. The destroyer was commissioned on 19 May 1919.
USS Ellis (DD–154) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was reclassified AG-115 on 30 June 1945. She was named for Chief Yeoman George Henry Ellis.
USS Ericsson (DD-440), a Gleaves-class destroyer, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named after John Ericsson, who is best known for devising and building the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor.
The third USS Rowan (DD-405) was a Benham-class destroyer named for Stephen C. Rowan. Rowan was in the Atlantic when the United States entered World War II, and was one of the United States Navy ships joining the British Home Fleet for the battle of convoy PQ 17. Rowan later engaged French warships in the Naval Battle of Casablanca while supporting Operation Torch. Rowan then defended convoy UGS 6 before supporting the invasion of Sicily. Rowan was sunk by E-boats off Salerno during the allied invasion of Italy.
The second USS Lansdale (DD-426) was a Benson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Philip Lansdale.
USS Charles F. Hughes (DD-428) was a Benson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Charles Frederick Hughes.
PQ 13 was a British Arctic convoy that delivered war supplies from the Western Allies to the USSR during World War II. The convoy was subject to attack by German air, U-boat and surface forces and suffered the loss of five ships, plus one escort vessel. Fifteen ships arrived safely.
USS Williamsburg was a US Navy gunboat. A former private yacht, it also served as a presidential yacht from 1945 to 1953.
USS O'Toole (DE-527) was an Evarts-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy during World War II. She served in the North Atlantic ocean protecting convoys and other ships from German U-boats and aircraft. She also performed escort and anti-submarine operations before returning home at the end of the conflict.
The SC convoys were a series of North Atlantic convoys that ran during the battle of the Atlantic during World War II.
Convoy SC 118 was the 118th of the numbered series of World War II slow convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island, to Liverpool. The ships departed New York City on 24 January 1943 and were met by Mid-Ocean Escort Force Group B-2 consisting of V-class destroyers Vanessa and Vimy, the Treasury-class cutter Bibb, the Town-class destroyer Beverley, Flower-class corvettes Campanula, Mignonette, Abelia and Lobelia, and the convoy rescue ship Toward.
USS Henry R. Mallory (ID-1280) was a transport for the United States Navy during World War I. She was also sometimes referred to as USS H. R. Mallory or as USS Mallory. Before her Navy service she was USAT Henry R. Mallory as a United States Army transport ship. From her 1916 launch, and after her World War I military service, she was known as SS Henry R. Mallory for the Mallory Lines. Pressed into service as a troopship in World War II by the War Shipping Administration, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-402 in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank with the loss of 272 men—over half of those on board.
SS West Cheswald was a cargo ship for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) launched shortly after the end of World War I. The ship was inspected by the United States Navy for possible use as USS West Cheswald (ID-4199) but was neither taken into the Navy nor ever commissioned under that name. West Cheswald was built in 1919 for the USSB, as a part of the West boats, a series of steel-hulled cargo ships built on the West Coast of the United States for the World War I war effort, and was the 32nd ship built at Northwest Steel in Portland, Oregon.
SS West Nohno was a cargo ship of the United States Shipping Board (USSB) launched shortly after the end of World War I. The ship was inspected by the United States Navy for possible use as USS West Nohno (ID-4029) but was neither taken into the Navy nor ever commissioned under that name.
SS West Gotomska was a steel–hulled cargo ship built in 1918 as part of the World War I emergency wartime shipbuilding program organized by the United States Shipping Board.
Convoy PQ 17 was the penultimate of the PQ/QP series of arctic convoys, bound from British ports through the Arctic Ocean via Reykjavík to the White Sea ports of the Soviet Union, particularly Murmansk and Archangel. The convoy was heavily defended, but fearing an imminent attack by substantial German surface forces, the Admiralty made the decision to disperse the convoy.
The Arctic Circle defining the "midnight sun" encompasses the Atlantic Ocean from the northern edge of Iceland to the Bering Strait in the Pacific Ocean. Military activity in this area between 1939 and 1945 is often considered part of the Battle of the Atlantic or of the European Theatre of World War II. Pre-war navigation focused on fishing and the international ore-trade from Narvik and Petsamo. Soviet settlements along the coast and rivers of the Barents Sea and Kara Sea relied upon summer coastal shipping for supplies from railheads at Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. The Soviet Union extended the Northern Sea Route past the Taymyr Peninsula to the Bering Strait in 1935.
Convoy QP 13 was an Arctic convoy of the PQ/QP series which ran during the Second World War. It was the thirteenth of the numbered series of convoys of merchant ships westbound from the Arctic ports of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk to the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America.
